Because in the dead of night last night, the oven started beeping. Three a.m. Beep. Beep. Beep. Only, there was nothing in the oven, no reason for it to be making that noise. F1. It’s an F1 error. The manual says to call a repairman. Probably not a three a.m. Reset the stove. Beep. Beep. Beep. The RLA, with lightening-fast reflexes, puts music on in the bedroom, to mask the noise coming from the kitchen. He chooses the soundtrack to Blade Runner. Loudly. I bury myself under a few more blankets and hope that the white noise of the cat purring will mask the sound of the masking music. I proceed to have nightmares about my mother and finding another stash of her needlework magazines, patterns and supplies. I start to cry in my dream. And then, through all of this, I hear the metallic sound that my alarm clock makes that it says are “bird calls”. It is 6:15. Welcome to my day.

The RLA drags himself out of bed and into the dark to attempt to pull the breaker on the still-beeping oven. The cat wants food. The dogs want a walk.

My cough is becoming productive (again), which is the way it always goes when I get one of these chest colds. Tomorrow, I need to take a day off of work and drive north to visit my father’s sister, for what is predicted to be the last time, before we all meet at her grave side. This is getting old. She will be the third aunt to pass away in 6 months.

Beep. Beep. Beep.