Unsettling In

This house reeks of Harry Potter.

First, there's the address -- #13 Gridley Lane -- pairing an unlucky number with a word that rhymes with grimly.





Then there are the unfortunate ginko trees stretching dozens of partially-amputed limbs toward Azkaban, I mean the weather station, on the steep hill behind the house. That weather station looks especially ominous around midnight, glowing like a pearl against the inky sky and emitting a steady beam of light that is, of course, the color of blood, and this charming vignette is framed by those trees which look an awful lot like mutant monster hands erupting from the ground once the sun sets. "Help me, Kathy! I've been buried alive!"




Third, it's probably just my imagination but the hedge running along the side of the house up toward Azkaban, I mean the weather station, strikes me as just the sort of place Death-Eaters would lurk.

In the daytime there's a half dozen hawks constantly swooping and soaring overhead, hoping to snack on a tasty little dog. They look like a flock of messenger owls announcing a prison outbreak.














Here's the capper: Darlene (pictured at left maintaining a totally straight face) told me there's a Moaning Myrtle rodent dwelling in the pipes beneath the house. She advised (1) keeping the toilet lids down to keep Myrtle from making a surprise appearance inside the house and (2) flushing Myrtle further under the house immediately prior to using the toilet. Has Darlene given me a kind warning to guard against a potential heart attack or has she cast me as the stooge in the best practical joke anyone has pulled on me since my siblings hid my penuche frosting behind the milk carton?

I can't decide so I am playing it safe by checking all three toilet lids hourly until Matt gets the hang of this new routine and by flushing more water down my toilets in five days than everyone else on this base combined flushed in the last fiscal year.

Rest assured I will figure out how to feed Moaning Myrtle to Hedwig and his pals before you come to visit us.