Open Door Policy

The temperature is going to be 80° today maybe a shade higher. For me, it's getting close to perfect weather. Not too hot not to cold and sunshine. I love the sunshine even though, at my age, I need to be careful to sunshine may not like me. However, I have the door open to my patio which means this summer is just a breath away and that's my favorite time of the year. Once the door opens to wherever I'm living (for the summer) the door stays open until late fall when it's just too cold to enjoy an open door anymore. It is still early enough in the season I do not have to worry about sliding the screen door shut. Last year, for some reason, I found the screen door and started using. I cannot believe how well it contained the housefly problem I have experienced the first two years or three here at the facility. I suppose in a week or so the mean old flies will attached and will soon become invasive but until then the doors open and I'm hearing the cacophony of the noises in my neighborhood. The “beep beep beep” of the backup horn on the Big Blue garbage truck. I can hear the ruckus of traffic up on Redwood Road just to the west of my apartment. Not a lot of honking after all it's Monday afternoon. If I really focus I could hear the roar of jets flying overhead. We are just outside of South East approach to the airport. Granted, due to the virus are not nearly as many jets lining up in the flight path as it used to be but they're still there enough so that their sound kind of weaves into the tapestry of the environment of my neighborhood. Today, the yard cruiser out and you get here tools scraping the asphalt as they break up cuttings from various bushes as well as cutting errant weeds which of grown through cracks along the sidewalks and driveway. If I really focus I can hear snippets of Spanish-language as a young guys chatter back and forth. Gone however are the seemingly endless voices of adolescents skateboarding at the skateboard park next to my apartment seriously right across the driveway from my apartment. I have to admit I kind of miss the constant din of wheels on concrete endlessly going up one side and coming down the other side of the skateboard pits. Not so bad during the day but quite tedious and provoking during the night. Typically, the skateboard park is supposed to be closed after 10 PM but rarely is not enforced. Sometimes, I've woken to skateboard clatter at 2 AM, 3 AM even 5 AM. I will quiet myself there for fair sounding like a cranky old man… Which I am much of the time I reckon. I should've had my home health person crack the window next to my bed but I'm not that brave yet. I'm worried that I'll not have enough covers because we decided to take one off the bed for the season.

The fresh air is nice and the sounds are still so new that I'm enjoying the open door and the new perspective and open door gives to the apartment…