Don't they know who I am? And other things I tell myself.

Being thoughtful about how I'm choosing to use my precious time. Plus, how to buy a better mousetrap.

Photo by Kate St. John

At first, I didn’t really pay attention to the blue and red lights I saw flashing outside the giant picture window in my living room on Monday night.

I was lying on the good old Ektorp couch around 8 p.m. taking my daily prescribed dose of two episodes of Sex and the City (Season 6) when I first noticed the lights and just thought that the Avon Police Department was really picking up the traffic stops in October.

I live just off Main Street and there is often a police car stationed next to some old abandoned brick building just waiting to catch someone speeding down the road. It used to be annoying but now, as a woman living alone with only a spoiled Goldendoodle as protection, I kind of like having a cop car stationed across the street from my house at all times.

When I first moved in, I was apprehensive about living right off Route 71, the same stretch of state highway that runs from Belmar up to Asbury. There’s an island running along the middle of the one-mile stretch of road in this tiny town topped with planters that bloom all summer, old-timey street lamps, and cop cars stationed at the beginning and end of town. I said something once to a local about getting around to introducing myself to the policemen and they said, “Oh trust me, they already know who you are.” It’s that kind of town.

Steve and Miranda were FINALLY sharing their feelings for each other at their son’s first birthday party (Magda looking on approvingly) when I heard what sounded like a giant truck coming down my street. I sat up a little on the couch to see a giant truck coming down my tiny little one-way street that nobody — especially giant trucks — ever drives down. It was a long flatbed carrying some kind of bulldozer-ish vehicle, and I got a really bad feeling. Like, there’s only one reason a truck like that is getting hauled through a sleepy little neighborhood at bedtime.

Carrie was just getting to the restaurant for her late-night rendezvous with the Russian, when I finally got up to investigate what was happening outside and realized that all those flashing lights were going off right across the street. I went outside on my porch and that’s when I saw all the cones set up at the top of the street, diverting traffic off 71 onto my street, along with a fleet of construction vehicles and probably three-quarters of the town’s police department.

And that’s when I could really hear all the noise. Jack hammering. Men shouting. The incessant BEEP BEEP BEEP you hear when a big truck is backing up.

I saw a cluster of police officers standing just past all the bright orange cones at the top of my road and started to walk toward them. I shouted, “Hey guys, what’s going on?” and one broke off and walked toward me in his neon reflective vest.

I could tell the young officer had been well-trained in dealing with agitated citizens, as he explained that there was an emergency and a gas line needed to be replaced about 100 yards away on Main Street. Once I ascertained that my home was not in immediate danger of exploding, I asked how long it was going to take.

“They’re scheduled to be here until 7 a.m,” he told me, and I could feel myself starting to get excited as the jackhammer started to kick in again. This was happening literally outside my bedroom windows.

This triggered all my run-ins with utility emergencies I have encountered over the years that always, magically, need to happen in the middle of the night. Except the one time after Thanksgiving dinner, we realized we had no running water and looked outside to see an army of workers digging up the road outside our house. That time, I marched out there (a little tipsy) and yelled at the workers who, frankly, didn’t really seem to care.

Then there was the time, right before I put my last house on the market, that a more extended roadwork project on my street required a Porta-Potty, which was put LITERALLY next to my driveway. That one I complained about and took pictures of myself in front of until I saw a cop car stop and an officer go in to use it one day and was like, “I don’t need every man in town pooping in front of my house.” So I nicely asked the guy who seemed to be in charge if he would get it moved, and he did.

Another time, workers digging up the road from the water company sliced through my sprinkler line causing water to leak and leaving me on the hook for a $500 water bill the following month (don’t worry, I got out of it).

I thought of the big monthly report I write at work and how the kick-off for October was the next day. How I needed to have my brain working and not thinking about who I was going to yell at. I have things to do, for gods sake. DON’T THEY KNOW WHO I AM?

I thought about all those things as the handsome police officer laid out what was happening and tried to distance the town from what the powers-that-be at utility companies consider logical logistics. “It’s a state road so they just have to tell us when to show up,” he said, and then he motioned to the house across the street from me and said that he understood that some people had young kids and that it was an inconvenience.

And that’s when I shrugged and said to him, “What are you gonna do?” I told him to have a good night and then I went back in and grabbed the dog to do our end-of-the-night walking routine.

It’s been so mild this fall, with days that have been warming up into the high 70s and then cooling off at night so I needed a light jacket for our stroll. We headed away from the racket and headed east toward the beach and I noticed how quickly the noise faded as we moved a few blocks away. At first, that made me cranky. Like, “I bet these people don’t even know how lucky they are.” Or better, “They don’t know how unlucky I am.”

But then, I reigned those thoughts in and enjoyed how peaceful it was walking around town at this time of year. I have noticed in my old age that I’m the kind of person who really enjoys rainy days and off-season, and I joked the other day to my friend, Dan, that it must be my inner Morticia Adaams.

I worked out with him virtually early the next morning and sat in front of my laptop to tell him the whole long tale, complete with waking up to find I had no running water. “You’re lucky we’re not working out in person because I couldn’t brush my teeth,” I told him.

I explained that when I got home from my walk and investigated all the action on Main Street as I looped back toward my house, I went in and got ready for bed. I pulled down the black-out shades I had my daughter install on top of the pretty ones she had put up when we moved in to block out the light from those old-timey Main Street streetlamps. And then I turned on my window AC unit to full blast and started up some white noise from an app on my phone. I increased my melatonin dosage to 3 chewies and fell right. I woke up around midnight to use the bathroom and peeked outside and saw that the cavalry had left.

I told Dan how during one of my recent bedtime phone scrolling sessions, I came across an article about the legendary French Vogue editor Carine Roitfeld and how busy she was with lots of new projects. But what really struck me was her age that was blasted in the headline: 69. The accompanying photo shows she is still cool and chic AF, dressed in head-to-toe black and with her signature shag hairdo and pointy stilettos.

But, damn. When did she get so old? And then I did some quick math and realized THAT’S 10 YEARS AWAY FOR ME. Well, maybe a few more than 10 but it’s a lot like Meg Ryan crying about turning 40 in When Harry Met Sally. It’s looming just off in the distance.

But unlike 40, 69 is a lot closer to, like, The End. I can’t even think about it and yet, it’s where we’re all headed. Even fabulously chic French women. And not-so-fabulous American pseudo-writers doing squats on a yoga mat squeezed next to their IKEA couch.

“I just can’t waste my precious time on giving energy to things that don’t matter,” I said to Dan. And then I quoted something I’ve heard my daughters say, which used to annoy me for its negativity but now, I am embracing the sentiment. “None of it matters,” they’ve said to me. “It’s all make-believe and we’re all gonna die.”

I’ve really embraced that ethos of late at work and in my personal life. Everything matters and yet, none of it really does. What matters is how I am using this precious time I have here and the energy that I give to things — especially ones I have no control over. I mean, am I doing a great job with the stuff I can control? Filling my life with things that matter? Sometimes. And sometimes I find myself just lying on my Ektorp at night watching TV or sitting in bed scrolling through my phone.

But life just keeps grinding on, not caring about how I am choosing to use it. Will I spend it trying to find someone to complain to and somehow get my outrages to feel validated? Or will I walk with my dog and see the beauty on a soft October night, the waning moon peeking from behind the clouds? Acorns crunching underfoot. Me. Here. Alive.

sunday shares: read + watch + cook + buy

My Electric Mouse Ranch. Mice check in but they don’t check out (extra coffins not included).

Buying a better mousetrap. Well, everyone, it happened this week. I captured and disposed of a mouse carcass by myself. I bought a contraption I found on Amazon that I call my Electric Mouse Ranch, where mice check in but they don’t check out. I even sprang for a couple of disposable coffins to make the experience completely touchless, but when the moment of truth arrived, I really tried to find a man to serve as the undertaker. Finally, with no other options, I donned dishwashing gloves, lifted the plastic unit, and pulled the coffin off to throw in the trash. While I wasn’t sure if there was anything inside, the grayish-brown hair stuck along the sides begged to differ.

I was going to include a photo but, I couldn’t do it to any of us.

Things that are worse. Remember how last week I was all like, “It could always be worse?” Well, this week I found out from Dan what’s worse than mice. It seems his nephew and wife had to evacuate their house in Arizona because of a SCORPION INFESTATION. I mean, they win. I am horrified.

Pre-roasting coated in garlicky olive oil, garlic powder, and nutritional yeast.

It’s sheet-pan season. I actually “cooked” something last night. Which is to say, I cut up a bunch of veggies and threw them and some spicy chicken sausage on a sheet-pan to get it all crispy brown. I add in all the cannellini beans that I want now that there’s no one here to complain about it, plus Trader Joe’s kale pesto and Mediterranean feta.

For a discombobulated person, I do enjoy order. Garbage bags to right.

This is what brings me joy lately. I put a box of garbage bags in a lucite box under my kitchen sink that feeds the bags through the handle, and that makes me happier than it really should. But, that’s where I am.

Unholy Sam Smith. In all my phone scrolling this clip from a recent NPR Tiny Desk concert the singer Sam Smith recently gave and I cannot get it out of my head. Also, I am so amazed at how talented some people are.

See you next Sunday!