Visitors

We are in our sixth week of semi-homelessness, and I'm relieved to report that things have settled down some.  Our house search has reached a point where we have two solid options that we are happy about.  We have a couple more weeks to crunch numbers, weigh pros and cons, and make a decision, then it should be a matter of packing boxes and waiting to get keys.  Things are improving on the health front, too.  The boys have been consistently healthier since the second week of our extended visit with the grandparents.  My asthma is gradually becoming more controlled, thanks to less exposure to triggers and a large sack of medication.  Even Dane has a light in his eye that we haven't seen for a while.  Things are generally looking up.

That said, things aren't quite what you'd call "boring," either.  For starters, I think I could write a sitcom based on the every day crazy of cramming four spare people into two small houses that were already pretty full.  As close as I am to both Dane's and my parents, I'm amazed at their generosity and graciousness during what must seem like a Viking invasion.  Duncan and Tristan are LOUD, and I have been sick and rather useless.  There is a constant juggling act aimed at trying to give each of the adults involved some sleep and a little privacy -- and inevitably there are awkward moments, and exhaustion.  It turns out that two toddlers can wear out as many adults as you throw at them.  Still, six weeks in, I've stopped feeling that I'm imposing constantly.  Some routines are beginning to develop at each house, and I think we're all learning how to give each other space in close quarters.  And, as an extra added bonus, we're spending a lot of quality time together.  There's plenty of time for grown ups to talk while kids run in the grass and pound pieces of scrap metal with hammers.  Dane and my dad had a particularly great bonding experience after Tristan managed to flush a paint set down the commode.  Nothing builds warm memories like dismantling a clogged toilet in the backyard at midnight. 

And nothing builds warm memories like sleeping (or trying to sleep) with a pile of kids.  It has settled out that Duncan, Tristan, and I usually sleep together in a small bedroom off the kitchen during the nights that we're at my dad's house.  Dad and my step mom, Chris, sleep in their room on the other side of the house, and Dane drives down the mountain and sleeps at home with our cats.  Usually, we have a hard time getting the boys to sleep because of the sunlight, so everyone collapses into bed at the same time, around 10 or 10:30.  A few nights ago, by some miracle, we got the boys to sleep at 7:30 and managed to have a nice little dinner for my Dad's birthday before bedtime.  We were all rather full of ourselves for being clever enough to get a few hours of quiet.  Afterward, I had to creep into a dark room and try to wedge myself between two sleeping boys and, of course, I woke them up.  They were still sleepy, so I got them settled down by telling them a quick story, then I laid down and started to drift off myself.  The boys continued to talk to me a little, but I was on my way to happy land.

Or I was, until there was a tremendous crash in the kitchen.  It sounded like someone had knocked the entire dish strainer off the counter top.  The boys sat up, wide-eyed.  I hadn't heard Dad's bedroom door open, but I assumed he must be in the kitchen, so I asked, very loudly, "What's going on?"  No response.  I'd just decided that something had fallen of its own accord, and started to try to settle the boys again, when the bell on the back door rang. I heard the door bang open into the kitchen, and someone came clumsily into house. 

My dad is the superintendent of a park, and he lives on site.  His house is often mistaken for a public building, by tourists and passersby, drunk and sober.  In our early years at the park it wasn't uncommon for someone to bang on the door at 2 am, drunkenly demanding to use the telephone or -- if we had forgotten to lock the door -- to simply wander inside.  On one memorable occasion, a mentally unstable man followed my brother and I into the house after we got off the school bus, and I spent more than an hour diplomatically convincing him to go outside so that I could lock the doors and call the police.  All of this is a long way of saying that I was very nervous about who had come into the kitchen at 11 pm.

The boys were wide awake by this time, so I told them quietly and firmly that I was going to find out what was happening and that they must STAY IN THE BED.   I slipped out of the bed, opened the door a crack, and went as quietly as I could 'round the corner into the kitchen.  It was very dark in there, and for some reason I had it in my mind that I shouldn't turn on the lights.  I could just make out the door standing wide open at the opposite end of the room, and something seemed to be wrong with the casement window.  I had a very clear sense that someone was in the room, but as hard as I strained my eyes I couldn't see anyone.  I went into the living room.  I called out to Dad and Chris, "Someone has broken in the house.  They're in the kitchen."  There were some muffled noises from the bedroom -- someone was awake, at least -- but, surprisingly, no noise from the my intruder.  I went back into the kitchen, still not turning on the light. "Hello?"  I said.  "HELLO??"

It's funny how at moments like these your brain has all the time in the world to sort through the data being sent to it.  On the second "Hello," I got my first look at who had come into the house.  A snout appeared around the end of the counter nearest the door.  In the first half-second after I saw it I thought, "Oh, good, it's just Kona" -- my stepbrother's girlfriend's chocolate lab.  My mind quickly constructed a reasonable explanation for everything.  My stepbrother had decided to work late at this end of the county; he decided to stay the night at Dad's to save gas; he and his girlfriend were fumbling in the dark trying not to wake us all up. In the next half-second after I saw the snout I realized that Kona had gotten a whole lot bigger and blacker since I saw her last, and she'd grown some strange ears.  The thing that was not Kona was walking toward me with interest.

I took a few steps into the living room, calmly.  I called out to Dad again, "Dad, there's a bear in the kitchen and I'm not sure what to do."  This time I heard a lot of banging around in the bedroom and something that sounded like, "I'm coming!  I'm trying to find my spear!"  I guess in the excitement Dad forgot about the state-issued side arm in the safe by his bed.  Satisfied, I put my head into the other bedroom and told Duncan and Tristan there was a bear in the house so they needed to stay in bed.  I went back in the kitchen to figure out what to do.

I don't remember what I said to the bear the second time, but whatever it was he decided things weren't going his way and walked quietly out the open door.  By the time Dad and Chris arrived, I had the lights on and I was peering out into the dark.  I could just make out an extra black shape across the lawn.  All that anyone else got to see was the screen knocked out of the window, the flowers and water strewn all over the kitchen, and two foot prints on the back step.  There was a lot of excited jabbering. Even here, it's not every day that a bear comes into the kitchen.

It took two more hours to get the boys to sleep -- partly because everyone was excited, partly because the indignant bear spent the next hour knocking over every garbage can and recycling bin in the park.  In the morning the boys and I were pretty groggy, but Duncan insisted that we had to go down the road to Beartown State Park.  He wanted to see a bear.  "Not up close, though!  At a distance."

We didn't see a bear on our outing that day, but our kitchen bear came back to the house two nights later.  He put his paws and his nose on the living room window and watched me write the first half of this blog post, then he went round the end the house and tried to push the kitchen door open again.  I opened the door, yelled at him to go away -- and, of course, woke up Duncan.  The bear came back twice more, but it turned out that Duncan wasn't as keen on seeing him as he originally thought.  I have to admit that it's pretty eery to have a black bear peering at you through a dark window.  Their fur is so black that all you can see are the paws, the claws, and the eyes.  You have a sense that the window glass is very thin. 

I do love living here.