A Co-Worker with a Demon

Every morning that week, I made myself a beautiful, enormous salad and took it down to the lobby to eat, where it was slightly quieter and lots cooler. It was 95 degrees in my kitchen (yes, I know I mentioned that before) and the food in my cupboard was no longer being stored at the suggested cool temperature. It was all now toasty warm. There were also hoses rigged up to drain water from the dehumidifiers into both my kitchen and my bathroom sink.

While I was eating my salad in the lobby one day, a neighbor from one of the unaffected units came along and listened to the whole story, and then she went up to her apartment and brought back a gift of fish: low-mercury tuna from Vital Choice, and a can of Redtresca (Vital Choice’s name for salmon bellies, which my neighbor said are very tender and particularly high in omega 3s). (She also brought shrimp and mussels, but I don’t partake.)

I suddenly realized that I felt incredibly loved and cared for, which I would not have expected, and I also recognized my immense privilege: something bad happens, and immediately tons of people come to fix it. I know everyone can’t count on that. It also could have been way worse. It could have been sewage instead of fresh water. It could have happened at a time when someone wasn’t here to shut the water to the building off within just a few minutes. And my parents kindly listened to blow-by-blow reporting on the matter via phone, and my neighbor gave me fish.

Going to work one day afforded a much-appreciated break from the heat and noise. One of my co-workers mentioned that our new staff chaplain has a demon. “Oh, dear,” I said, and then realized he was saying “DMin,” also a very impressive thing to have.

Halfway through the week of drying, the water damage people came to open up the walls in my living room, hallway, bathroom and kitchen to dry the insides. Mine was the only apartment where this needed to happen.

I had put Hammett in the walk-in closet, along with his food and litter box, both on sheets of plastic. He seemed happy enough, so I was going to go out to the library. I put a note on the closet door saying DO NOT OPEN, and I put a chair in front of the door. I told the two demo guys that the closet door must not be opened, because my cat was in there and my top priority was that my cat not get out of the closet. Within a few minutes, while I was standing right there, one of them moved the chair aside, and when I said, “Pop quiz: what’s my top priority in this apartment?”, they both looked completely blank, so I changed my mind about going out, and sat in the kitchen while they did the work in the other rooms.

They started in each room by making a cave out of plastic in which to work. While I wrote thank-you cards for the contributions people had made for my street retreat (did I mention I plan to go on a street retreat?), amid the banging and crashing and sounds of debris falling, I could hear them yelling to each other:

“Beautiful!”

“Beautiful!”

And periodically:

“Watch out!”

“I got it!”

Later the boss arrived to see how his workers were doing, and I soon heard him yelling “Beautiful!” as well. In the end, three holes were made in my living room walls, along with a huge expanse of wall and ceiling removed in my front hallway, and a long hole in the bathroom. In the kitchen, fully half of the ceiling was removed. (I was pleased to see that the newly exposed wood appeared sturdy and was even quite nice looking.)

The building manager told me that every single month, for 14 years now, along with his rent check, Tom sends a hand-written card to the building owner: “I hope you are doing well,” or “It’s a sunny day here in the Mission,” or “I went on a fun bike ride to such-and-such place.” I had no idea he did this, and couldn’t believe it. He might literally be the only person on earth who does such a thing. (My own rent is sent from my bank via automatic billpay, and I never give it a thought unless it goes up and I have to adjust the amount. I suspect my bank does not include a hand-written card with each payment.)
 
I have received a lot of contributions for my street retreat, most with nice notes: checks in the mail, cash, an electronic contribution from my friend who wants me to be able to function to some extent in the modern world. One person sent a small, fat brown envelope which had inside, all stuck together with blue tape, a little vial of incense around which was wrapped a letter reflecting on her own street retreat experience, a five-dollar bill, and a small piece of paper on which was written, “The way in is unwinding.” The whole thing brought me joy. I laughed the whole time I was peeling it apart.

My routines were all messed up during this mold-prevention operation, yet another opportunity for reflection. If I can skip stretching for several days in a row, do I need to do it at all? Answer: yes. If I can skip writing down my dreams for several days in a row, do I need to do it at all? Answer: maybe not. My dreams seem to be less interesting than they used to be, and I was only doing it in order to improve my ability to have lucid dreams, but since I started writing down my dreams again, about three months ago, I’ve had literally two lucid seconds that I’m aware of, so I decided to quit writing them down.