Favorite spot

It’s not for nothing that a dog has a favorite spot – a trusted, comfortable niche in the home where she can rest and know the world will spin, undisturbed, while she snoozes.

And so it is with humans. 

Our bed, at latitude.

Unfortunately, our bedroom is topsy-turvy these days.  We’re “remodeling,” which is too benign a word to describe the upheaval, deep angst and nerve-strangling uncertainty caused by the process.

Not that we’re wimps when it comes to change.  In fact, we’ve set an agenda for change in the next few months that’d exhaust newlyweds.

Part of our change, though, is getting the house ready to sell.  It’s too big given our needs, so we want to update it, enjoy it for a few months, then – if the real estate gods are smiling – sell it at a profit.

But getting there requires updating a master bedroom and bath that we haven’t really touched since we moved to this house in April ‘98.

So out goes the bedroom’s Smurf-blue carpet, in comes an inviting beige.  Out goes the old, porous windows, in come new Pellas.  Out goes the curvaceous, fiberglass, ‘70s shower-tub combination, in comes a near-cavernous walk-in shower.

Oh, and then the important things.  Right now we have a toilet that requires two flushes and a stern stare before it accomplishes its work.  And our faucets … well, Cindy’s only produces hot water.  Mine produces hot and cold, though the hot is a trickle and the cold comes forth whether you push backward – or forward – on the spigot.

You can imagine the uncertainty in the morning.  In a rush, Cindy needs to brush her teeth, so she lunges right, to my sink.  But I need hot water to shave.  So I lunge left, to hers. 

It’s a miracle we don’t bump heads.

A new toilet and new spigots, like new windows and carpet, will take care of all of this “remodeling,” of course.  But it’s the interim that’s the killer. 

Chute to the dumpster.  Out goes the old ....

Sure, it’s a time of action.  I just bought a new reciprocating saw so that I can remove the fiberglass tub next weekend. 

I could write pages about the irony of a reciprocating saw.  Check the definition of “reciprocate” and you see nice things like “to give, feel in return,” “to interchange, reciprocate favors.” 

A “recip saw,” though, is not nice. It looks like an AK-47.  It funnels concentrated havoc by causing a blade to move alternately back and forth at hypersonic speeds.  I expect it to move me back and forth most of Saturday and some of Sunday. 

I’ve also heeded the warnings about cutting up fiberglass: Wear a respirator, goggles, long sleeves, and gloves taped closed at the cuffs.  Like on the moon, don’t come up for air because it’ll kill you.

Okay, maybe not quite.  But I’m convinced of the danger of breathing the bad stuff, so armed with my “recip,” I’ll dress like I’m doing a nerve-gas drill in Call of Duty Black Ops II.

By the way, the tub and other plumbing are just the start of this offensive.  I’ll also be taking a hammer to old drywall, tearing out the electrical, pulling up the vinyl floor. 

Exciting!  Demanding! 

Tiring ….

But it’s all to the good.  A modern bathroom.  An updated bedroom.  A marketable property!

Yet there’s one aspect of this change that we’d not quite anticipated.  It had to do with the first sentence of this post – favorite spots – which for Cindy and me is our bed, and sleep,  at night.

For more than a decade, our bed has straddled an east-west longitude.  Our heads have extended east, our feet west.  The reason has to do with the bedroom’s dimensions, I think.  It just seemed a good fit.

And it was.  All things considered, we’ve had consistent years of decent slumber.

But as Cindy removed carpet and made the walls ready for new paint, we decided temporarily to turn the bed 180 degrees – have it stretch north and south – and also pull it away from the wall so that it could sit in the middle of the room.  That way we could reach each wall for stripping, prep and painting.

The problem: Ever since the move, we didn’t sleep well.  Either or both of us were wide awake at 2 or 3 or 4 in the morning.

Cindy insisted it was “feng shui,” the Chinese system for orienting buildings that maximizes the relationship between humans and the universe. The bed is completely out of kilter, she argued.

I didn’t disagree.  The Chinese know a lot that we don’t.  But I tended to blame the dogs. 

Nellie, on dog bed.

You see, of late, we’ve had three dogs in the house.  Small Linus, the senior mutt; big Nellie, the Great Pyrenees year-old; and mid-sized Koa, the Border Collie who was visiting while son Zach was on a holiday trek to the Pacific Northwest.

In a normal setting, no big deal.  But understand that when we shifted the bed 180 degrees and pushed it to the room’s middle, then removed carpet, we suddenly upended reality for all three dogs.  Gone were their favorite spots.

Worse, there was now a clear path completely around the bed, so the dogs could freely roam, their toes clicking on the bare floors. 

Oh sure, we tried to adjust.  We brought in two dogs beds – at opposite ends of the room – to supplement Nellie’s dog crate.

It didn’t help. It seems we were all antsy, a bundle of nerves, fitful and fidgety – like Margy sang in State Fair, “… as restless as a willow in a windstorm, as jumpy as a puppet on a string.”  Change can be hard.

And that clear path around the bed – that circle of love?  Cindy and I quickly learned we were at Hell’s racetrack, stuck in centerfield.

It went something like this: When the lights went out, Nellie would start out on a dog bed, Linus on the other, and Koa on the floor.  Then within an hour, Nellie would move to her crate.  Linus, thinking Nellie must have had the better bed, would then move to Nellie’s bed.  And Koa, tired of being on the bare floor, would then move to Linus’s bed.

An hour later, they’d shift again.  Nellie would move to the bare floor.  Koa would come over to nuzzle Nellie.  Linus, thinking Koa now had the better bed, would return to that one.  Nellie, seeing that her original bed was now vacant, would move there … unless Koa got there first. 

If Koa did, Nellie would circle the room in hopes that Linus had moved.  Because Nellie’s patience is as wide as her girth, she’d go ‘round slowwwwly three times before deciding the bare floor would have to do.

An hour later, they’d all shift again.

The worst part?  Because there was no carpet, each move caused the toe-taps to ricochet across the room –  “CLICK-CLICK-CLICK” from Nellie, rapid-fire “Click-Click-Click!” from Koa, muted-yet-biting “click-clicks” from Linus.

Oh, and finally … each time Nellie would rise, she’d need to shake her head 10 times – yeah, I really have counted – whapping her loose lips together like punching bags.

No wonder we couldn’t sleep.  Every hour, it was like Rocky Balboa practicing uppercuts before a cheering crowd of cicadas.

Finally, I’d had enough.

“The bed has to go back,” I pronounced.  “Blame feng shui or the freakin’ dogs, I don’t care which.  But the bed has to go back.”

Cindy agreed.

Peace returns.  The throw rugs help.

The bed is now against the wall, our heads due east, our feet due west. Sure, the bedroom remains upended … walls bare, carpet gone.  But the dogs seem quieter now, although we did scatter some throw rugs to supplement the dog beds – to soften the “clicks,” just in case.

And last night?  Last night I slept like a baby.  My favorite spot was back.

Though I had this weird dream … Mary of Peter, Paul and Mary kept singing to me.  Really.  A song.

“If I Had a Hammer.”

Makes sense.  I own three.