Freak Out, Man...

I'm obsessed with light bulbs, believe it or not. I love those compact fluorescents. My house isn't exactly at the cutting edge of light placement technology, but I have the occasional daydream about lighting schemes.

***

This morning at about 2am I was primarily obsessed with one that was no longer providing light.

Beneath the sorry, rotting patio cover that I've been writing about lately was this light bulb with a dusk sensor. I installed it the year we moved into this house, 1997. Every evening when the sun went down it would flicker on and provide decent illumination back there.

One light bulb lasted all this time. It's a 150 watt industrial incandescent, and as the years ticked on I became pretty amazed that it never burned out.

But it had to come down with the patio cover. It's back there now in a chair. Maybe it'll work again, maybe it got jostled too much. Who knows?

***

But at 2am the back yard and house were much darker than I'd ever seen them.

I'm prone to something I can only call "night terrors" anyway. I'm probably misusing that term, as I believe it's a condition some children experience that's akin to bad sleepwalking episodes. I don't know what else to call it though.

I lie in bed and I freak out. I get scared that some random noise I've heard is SOMETHING. I guess Kelli's used to me getting up and checking the doors and windows so often. That's usually enough to calm me down.

But last night the darkness was overwhelming, and I began to think about the guys I'd hired to tear down the patio. I knew almost nothing about them, and they'd had unlimited access to my exterior property all day. What better way to "case the joint," right? No, the man did not give me a creepy vibe at all. My mind just gets carried away when I'm in night terror mode.

So I heard something that I convinced myself was the sound of tapping on glass. I got up and started looking around. I found nothing, of course, except inky blackness in the kitchen and dining room where we used to get a steady, reassuring glow.

Outside the study door is a nice light fixture we've rarely used. It's not on a dusk sensor, but I turned it on and found that it cast good light in about the same areas as before.

Good enough, right?

***

I fell asleep, finally.

When I woke up I was straddling a dining room chair, head on the windowsill facing the back yard. I was staring into inky blackness, and I thought, HEY--what happened to that light I turned on?

Then I really woke up, having just had a cruel, poorly-timed dream. I got to start the whole cycle of terror over again.

***

As I finally got to sleep, Kelli (who has a cold now) was snoring, so I put in the ear plugs.

When I woke up this morning she talked about what an awful night it had been. I thought maybe she knew what I'd been doing until the wee hours, but no, right after I put in the plugs the baby started crying and kept Kelli up for over an hour. I missed the whole thing as Kelli rocked Laura back to sleep.

***

I will find some place to use the 150 watt bulb if it still works. I've got plans to put new dusk and motion-sensing lights in the back yard, but I have to be careful or it'll light up like Las Vegas every night. I doubt the neighbors would appreciate that.

***

We met the builder in Corsicana today. Nebulous time line aside (which is certainly not the builder's fault), I was pretty encouraged by what he said. We had all of these ideas for materials and features that I really didn't know if we could incorporate (for reasons of finance or local engineering limitations). Turns out the builder lives in a concrete home like we're interested in. He said if he had his druthers he'd build them exclusively. They insulate well, they can be built on our budget, they hold up to the local soil conditions well... all good news.

And he can build a "safe room" like I want. Every year the spring storms scare me, so I want a reinforced inner room. I'll have a concrete and rebar room within a concrete house... I'll be ready for a nuclear holocaust! Well, as long as I have my Mystery Science Theater 3000 DVDs.

***

Ya'll have a good weekend.