life — Page 212

Quiet

February 7, 2015 at 8:01 am by Claudia

2-7 still life

Still Life with Camera. I love the light in this shot, the way it hits the pottery, the vivid blue reflection on the wall, the shadows, the darkish form of the camera. It’s a late afternoon portrait of a corner of the den.

I rose at 5:30 this morning – too early – but there you go. I woke up. I felt like I’d slept well and I wanted to get downstairs and see if Scout needed to avail herself of the outdoor facilities. She did. All is well.

Don had a fitful night, as he is in the throes of this not-at-all-fun head cold. There’s been no sound from the bedroom, so I hope he’s sleeping. I love this early morning time, when it’s quiet and Scout is sleeping at my feet. The other day, when Don work up before me, he was actually disappointed when I came down the stairs soon after. He had been looking forward to some quiet time on his own.

I get it.

I’ve found that more and more as I grow older, I crave quiet. It wasn’t that many years ago when I would routinely turn on the Today show in the morning to catch up on what had happened in the world overnight. Now, I wouldn’t think of doing that. I don’t want the sound of the television intruding into my world.

In fact, we hardly ever have the TV on during the day – only on those rare occasions that we feel the need to check on an important news story. Or check in on a big weather event. I suppose the internet has helped with that. We can go online now and read up on the news. Or check the weather. Or choose not to have anything to do with either of those things.

Quiet soothes my soul. Quiet helps me think. I have been involved in music and sounds and words and performance for most of my life. When I am working, I am surrounded by sounds. So is Don. There are times I noodle on the piano, or play music on the stereo, and of course, I love hearing Don play his guitar.

But mostly I love quiet.

Right now, I hear the clicks and sounds of water moving through the baseboard heaters. I hear the creaks and groans of a 124 year old house. I hear the occasional sigh from Dame Scout. Occasionally, my ears catch the sound of a car driving by. But mostly, it’s quiet.

We guard that quiet. If one of us wants to turn on the television during the day for some reason, we always ask the other if it’s okay. We know how important the quiet is – especially in this little cottage – for reading, for creating, for thinking.

2-7 sunset

Last night’s sunset

Since the early days of blogging – and I’m coming up on my 7th anniversary of blogging in 10 days – I’ve had the volume turned all the way down on my computer. I only turn it up when I’m watching a video or a movie on Netflix. Otherwise? All the way down. To zero. When we first started blogging, in those long ago days, bloggers often had music playlists on their blogs. Do you remember those? I do. I found them intrusive, simply because I didn’t want to click on a blog and be jolted by someone else’s choice in music. So I learned to turn the volume down. End of problem. I enjoyed the blog post and didn’t have to worry about the music. Then more and more of us began to have ads on our blogs. Most of those ads are simply ads – silent. But some have audio. Or video. Or both.

I never hear them because I keep the volume down.

One of my longtime and dear readers wrote yesterday to say that she had heard an audio ad on the blog and was unhappy about that. I completely understand. I don’t like them either. There’s not a whole lot I can do about it. Ads change on any given blog according to the reader of that blog’s browsing habits. When I click on my blog, I might very well see a different ad than you do, even if you click on the blog at the exact same time. I’m sure you’ve all searched for something on your computer – maybe something like a lamp – and then proceeded to see ads for lamps appearing on other sites, including blogs. It’s unnerving; kind of like Big Brother watching you.

And I have to have ads. If I don’t, the blog will cease to exist. It’s that simple.

Anyway, this is all to say that I don’t have a whole lot of control about that sort of thing. You could write me and tell me one kind of ad is showing when you read the blog and I will check here and not see it. If you don’t like the audio, simply turn your volume down. That will serve you well as you cruise around the internet. Believe me, you can be assaulted by sound on any site.

That’s why I keep my volume down. I like quiet. I like to read. I don’t want intrusive sounds coming out of nowhere.

Which reminds me of the time I was sitting here in the peaceful, quiet early morning only to hear the beep of a smoke alarm. Loud, obnoxious, but not the beep that happens when there really is a problem. No, this one was more subtle. A beep here. A beep there. Then quiet. And then, just as I was thinking that little glitch had taken care of itself, it happened again. And again. It took a long time, but I finally tracked it down to the alarm in our bedroom. Somehow, a fly got in there and it set off the alarm.

Then it was back to quiet.

Happy Saturday.

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Early Morning at the ‘Infirmary’

February 5, 2015 at 8:10 am by Claudia

I woke up this morning, noticed that Don was already up (it’s very rare when he rises before me) and thought, I’d better get a move on. It was dark outside, but okay, I figured, it’s probably around 6 am.

It was 5:15.

What the heck?

We are on alert, now that Scout is a senior. We keep track of the frequency of her ‘bodily functions.’ If, like last night, we go to bed thinking she should have peed one more time and didn’t, well then, we check on her during the night. Don woke up early and decided to get up and check on her and then he just ended up staying up.

An early morning for MHC. But Miss Scout took care of everything outside and that’s a good thing. We are well versed in this because we went through much the same thing with Riley, only much more intense as his spinal disease really took a toll on his independence. I miss that boy. Every single day.

2-4 scout demand

Yes, this is a look I see frequently during the course of a day. This is the “I want you to do something, Mom” look. “Put that laptop down and get me something to eat.” “Stop reading that book and let me outside.”

All in all, our girl is doing very well. She’s pretty lively, she still pounces now and then, she loves to walk near our local library, and gallop down the long driveway there – the same gallop we re-discovered in the park in Hartford. She may be a little sore the next day and we’re careful about how often we let her do it, but oh my goodness, she loves galloping. It makes her very, very happy.

And that makes us happy.

2-5 bluebird

My two feathered friends appeared again yesterday, along with a beautiful woodpecker who proved too elusive for me to capture with my camera lens. Just as with our cardinals, the red head of the woodpecker is strikingly vivid in the snowy landscape.

I’m afraid I’ve passed on my cold to Don, who says that it feels like an infirmary here. I lovingly donated my big box of kleenex to him. It’s the least I can do. That, and maybe shovel a bit today, as we’re getting a bit more snow. And more snow Sunday through Tuesday. Tonight, it’s supposed to go down to 10 below zero.

What???

More links to share with you – all of them about Harper Lee, the ‘new’ book, and some interesting thoughts on the subject.

From The Atlantic: Harper Lee: The Sadness of a Sequel.

Also from The Atlantic: How Harper Lee’s Long-Lost Sequel was Found.

From Book Riot: Uncollected Thoughts on the new Harper Lee Novel. The comments on this are interesting, as well.

I have a review of sorts up on Just Let Me Finish This Page – my thoughts on Howard’s End is on the Landing: A Year of Reading from Home by Susan Hill. Click here.

Happy Thursday.

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Streaks, Bugs & Going Gray

January 30, 2015 at 8:52 am by Claudia

1-30 snow

More snow on the ground this morning; it fell overnight. It’s still snowing. Maybe 2 – 3 inches? Alas, poor Don is going to have to shovel it as this crappy sinus/cold thing is hanging on for dear life. I thought I was getting better two days ago, but yesterday and today, this little bug has all but laughed in my face.

When I get a cold or sinus bug, it’s not pretty because I already suffer from allergies and sinus problems on a daily basis. On any given day there’s already a lot going on there, so when I come down with something, oh boy, it’s seemingly magnified by ten.

That’s where I am now. Feeling Crappy. (Sung to the tune of ‘Feelin’ Groovy.)

1-30 TBR

That’s my To Be Read pile of books. Some are to be reviewed, some are just for me. I need to read, in fact, have to read as I have a review coming up on Monday. But when you feel under the weather, it’s sometimes hard to concentrate, you know?

To top it all off, as we were sitting here on Wednesday evening, I started to see streaks, like a long line, flashing across my right eye. It wasn’t all the time, but they were there and they seemed ‘large.’ I sometimes have ocular migraines and thought it could be one of those, but ocular migraines go away pretty quickly and this didn’t. I started to worry that something dire was happening, so when I woke up yesterday morning and they were still there, Don called our health insurance provider and got a number for an ophthalmologist. I found myself sitting in the chair getting all sorts of tests, and all sorts of eye drops, including dilation. When Don saw my eyes, he said that I looked like Scout does when she goes on one of her nighttime obsessive, dementia-induced tears through the house. Turns out it’s a floater. I have lots of floaters, but none of them ever looked like this one, which is why I got frightened.

I’m relieved. But he wants me to come back in a month for some glaucoma testing. He’s suspicious about my left eye. Crap. (I’m using that word a lot in this post, aren’t I?)

Hear me now: I refuse to be suffering from glaucoma.

What a day. Just at the start of a new year of health insurance that carries a hefty deductible and I go through lots of medical tests. Goody.

I’m exhausted.

1-30 Miss scout

Someone was very glad to see us when we got home. She even jumped up, which isn’t so easy nowadays. See what I mean about well-worn floors? Dogs nails will do that to a wide plank pine floor.

Back to the ophthalmologist’s office. As I was sitting in a little waiting room, with drops in my eyes, the woman next to me told me that I had very pretty hair. I was flattered, of course, and thanked her, which got us talking about going gray, which she was in the process of doing. She had lovely long hair, past her shoulders, which she had been coloring for years. She had just started letting it grow gray and I could tell that it was going to be lovely and I told her so.

Then another woman came in and sat down in the waiting area who also had long silvery gray hair. All three of us had gray hair of the long, past-the-shoulders variety. We felt like we had just started a club! And, I must say, we seemed pretty gosh-darned hip, as well. (I hope that I don’t have to add that coloring your hair is neat, as well. It seems like every time I write about deciding to go gray, someone takes offense, as if I’m slamming the idea of coloring one’s hair. I’m not. But since I let my hair go gray, guess what? I’m probably going to write about it occasionally. But only occasionally.)

New post up on Just Let Me Finish This Page.

Happy Friday.

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Quiet

Early Morning at the ‘Infirmary’

Streaks, Bugs & Going Gray

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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