The importance of communication

It's a beautiful morning here on the deck. Rick is missing it. Our schedules are different and he usually misses early morning wonders. I leave the morning glories in the garden just for him. He has no idea how labor-intensive it is to keep them from strangling everything around them. It's one of the secrets I keep from him.

He looked so peaceful when I got up, my heart swelled with gratitude for this man I married. We used to be a lot alike. We've each grown and grown up since we met. Makes us more interesting.

I like the windows open all the time, even when it's raining. He's a window closer. With the massive amount of rain we had yesterday, I made the rounds downstairs to check on whether any rain was getting in through all the open windows. Nope. Safe to leave them open.

Midday yesterday, I noticed some moisture on the kitchen floor. I thought I'd tracked it in from my constant trips outside to stand in the downpour. That's what I do after days of heat and humidity ~ enjoy the cool, soothing rain. I like what it does to my curly hair, too.

On one trip outbound, I realized there was no way there could be water on the floor since I hadn't even been outside yet. I looked closer. It wasn't simply moisture anymore. There was a huge puddle that had oozed under the kitchen table. Drip. I looked up. Ah, crap.

We had ice dams on the roof this winter. The kitchen and bedroom ceilings leaked until we hired someone to come beat the ice into submission and get it off the roof.

Naturally, I thought the leaking was coming from the already impaired roof. Rick keeps telling me the roof is unimpaired. The ice just got up under the shingles and melted through the roof and the ceilings. This makes no sense to me. The ceilings are very definitely hurt by the water leaking in ~ how could that not damage the roof?

The water was coming down through the overhead light/fan and dripping right off the cute pull chains and paddles. I was just grateful that I'd turned off the overhead fan in the morning when the cool air had finally replaced the fetid air in the house.

Rick came home, saw the bucket sitting on the towel, and asked me where the water was coming from. They say there are no stupid questions. Sometimes, I wonder. My first thought was, "Where the heck do you think it's coming from, the swelling streams?" I held my tongue and simply answered, "The roof."

He had 15 minutes to get changed and get to the restaurant to meet his friend for dinner. He ran around, got himself together, gave me a kiss good-bye, and left. I heard his car start up and begin to back out of the driveway. Next, I heard an idling engine, the car door open and close, and racing feet up onto the deck and into the house.

He ran through the kitchen and passed me in the living room heading upstairs calling out, "I think it's coming from the skylight upstairs!" Then I heard, "Sh*t." I went up. Sure enough, both skylights and both windows were wide open. There were a couple of huge bubbles under the paint on the wall under one skylight. I wanted to pop them, just to see what would happen. I held myself in check.

Everything else looked fine. If you don't include what was going on down in the kitchen.

"I thought you would have checked up here to make sure things were closed up when it started to pour."

"Why would I do that? You always close windows before you go to bed."

"I remembered they were open when I was on the way out the door for work work but it was too late to turn around and come back in to close them."

I have great restraint of tongue. I let that one go by. He has a cell phone; I have a cell phone. He has a phone at work; we have a landline at home. He has email at work; I have email at home.

I blame Joe Cupo for Rick's lapse in the window-closing department. We both love Joe. He's a pretty accurate meteorologist. His reports out of Portland include Portsmouth and are usually closer to reality than the those coming out of Manchester.

After Rick listened to Joe's weather report on Thursday night, he came out to the deck and told me that Joe had said this was a good night to leave all the windows in the house open to clear the foul, humid air. Rick was very excited by this. His hatred of humidity is rivalled only by Sara's.

Rick and I are rules and regulations people. We also have learned to take suggestions from others because we know our own thoughts and beliefs can be way off the mark sometimes. On this occasion, all I can say is, "Say it ain't so, Joe."

I've left the bucket sitting in the kitchen. I've had to walk around it several times this morning. Each time I pass it, I look up at the light structure. I wonder how long wiring takes to dry? When will it be safe to turn the fan back on again?

I'm going to wait until Rick wakes up before doing anything. He may not have the answers to these questions either. Doesn't matter. It's important to share in a marriage.

I just realized that it's stuffy in the house since the sun has risen. All the windows are closed.

Peace.