aLightningbug

The Daily Post’s Daily Prompt for July 19, 2014 is From the Top. It beckons:

Today, write about any topic you feel like — but you must reuse your opening line (at least) two more times in the course of your post.

We are still living behind the fluffy, pink walls. It almost sounds like fun, but these odd, temporary structures were built to facilitate repairs on our building. The crew can work on the outside while residents remain living inside.

I’m not sure how much I feel like writing about our cotton candy walls, but I’m hoping we can look back on this someday and say, “whew, we made it through!” There’s a lot of tragedy in the world right now. Our stuff seems pretty minor. But it’s our stuff.

These repairs are needed to fix faulty construction and the resulting conditions. Previous attempts did virtually nothing. Now that our buildings have practically turned into oatmeal, this is what’s necessary to really truly make our buildings sound. Put simply, the outside 25% of our home is being demolished and rebuilt. Some neighbors have not taken well to the repairs. They add angry, sometimes even comical, notes to public message boards.

It has been a long, drawn-out process. This mess shouldn’t ‘t happen in modern days of county building inspectors. But it did.

When the temporary “security walls” went up in early April, folks asked us how long it would take. The standard notification put the rough estimate at 2-5 weeks. I said I wouldn’t be surprised if it took two months.

And here we are. It has been over three and a half months. We are still living behind the fluffy, pink walls. The smell of freshly sawn wood has subsided, but it’s still pretty strange.

There’s near total darkness in our living room no matter what time of day. Is it 2:00 in the afternoon or 2:00 in the morning? We check a clock and turn on lamps.

Our “walls” are made of 2x4s, clear plastic sheeting, and pink household insulation. They have become like a fourth resident – a guest who has overstayed a visit.

Repairs are getting done. That’s good!

And an unexpected bright spot in all of this has been the workers. They sometimes sing and yell in Spanish or even play music. If I’m home I can hear them as if they’re in the same room. They kind of are in the same room. It’s quite surreal and usually makes me smile amid the chaos.

But I miss the windows. The natural light. I’ll think I’m fine and then one morning the darkness will feel heavy again like a blob from outer space.

We try to get out when we can. We need our sunlight and vitamin D. And we try to keep suitably occupied while indoors using a few of our light-emitting window-shaped devices.

A recent Daily Prompt, suggested we name our favorite procrastination destination. We have a new one. We started watching, Under the Dome.

Under the Dome is a TV miniseries based on the Stephen King novel of the same name. I’m not normally much of a Stephen King fan, and don’t normally watch much television.

It was the middle of the night. I was awake and too tired to do much else, so I thought I might stream some Firefly on Amazon. That’s when I saw the gleaming bubble on the artwork for Under the Dome.

I got hooked. King is certainly good at that.

I watched a little during the day, and then my daughter saw a bit of it. “What’s that, Mom?” I wondered if it was age appropriate for her, but I let her watch some.

She thought it was creepy. She’s right. Then, a couple of days later she wanted to watch more. So did I.

We had just watched another episode when I looked up at our pink, fluffy walls and said, “I kind of feel like we’re living under a dome with these walls.”

My daughter replied, “Yeah, I was just thinking that same thing!”

At least the dome let’s the light in. And well, we’re not trapped inside to the point that we can’t get out, so that’s good. Really good even.

But there is a strange fluffy presence looming over us from floor to ceiling. Much like the residents of Chester’s Mill, we don’t know when this barrier will go away. We are still living behind the fluffy, pink walls. It’s a process and maybe a strange little adventure.