Fri., Nov. 29
4:56 p.m.

Finally, a quiet kitchen.

Since I first visited Loverboy here in his home, some 10 or 11 years ago, he’s had this round, silver-framed clock on the wall above the stove. Until I came with him this past summer to stay more than a couple hours at a time, I had never noticed how noisy it was. The thing has driven me nuts, and in spite of Loverboy’s insistence that it’s a perfectly good clock -- after all, it still works -- I have had my eye open for something not only quieter, but better looking.

When my best friend came to see us this summer, she slept in the livingroom on a plaid-upholstered hide-a-bed (now long gone, thanks to moi -- and believe me, there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth on Lover’s part -- after all, it still worked). The clock in the next room was loud enough to keep her awake; she had to unplug it to get to sleep.

Loverboy thought she had some nerve, goodness -- to go to someone else’s house and unplug the clock?
(Hell, it was MY idea. A gal needs her sleep.)

But lovely clocks are few and far between out in this neck of the woods. You’re more likely to get a new one when someone gives you one for your wedding or anniversary, and then it will be something so tacky you hate to hang it up anywhere that you’ll have to look at it.

I’ve been keeping an eye out, but the only one I’ve liked was battery-operated and couldn’t be plugged in. Yesterday, instead of working at the computer, I tackled the pile of cardboard and plastic boxes filling the corner of the living room downstairs. It took several hours, but each box was opened and unpacked, or opened and repacked and restacked in the storage room under the porch. What a sense of accomplishment. I am almost moved in.

And at the bottom of the pile, which was not all my belongings: a quiet clock. It’s just as ugly as the last one, but it makes nary a sound. What peace; what pleasure.

Loverboy: “Don’t go throwing that other clock in the garbage.”
Me: “Of course not. It still works.”
Loverboy: “That’s right. Don’t throw it away.”
Me: “Don’t worry! I know -- it still works!”
Loverboy: “I’ll take it out to the shop. We’ll have a clock out there.”
Me: “Good idea.”
(My mind: “Why didn’t you think of that two months ago?”)

Now it sits in the porch, on top of a printer that quit working, which is on top of a dehumidifier that has to go somewhere else but I don’t know where. The back corner of the porch has been emptied of boxes too. I love that feeling -- no clutter.

//// ***** \\\\

When the computer monitor is lit up, as opposed to gone-black, and I turn the radio on nearby, the radio emits a high-pitched whining that I hear clearly. Loverboy does not hear it, even when I painstakingly point it out. That explains why he can listen to radio stations where there is a lot of advertising and a certain tone of conversation, and I cannot. There is a whine or a pitch to it that literally irritates me, and I don’t think Loverboy hears it at all. There is a similar tone to hockey-game broadcasting, which may be one of the reasons, besides complete boredom, that I cannot watch games on TV or listen to them on the radio without pulling my hair out. Actually I usually have to get up and leave before I snart snapping necks.

//// ***** \\\\

Just as the boys were getting off the schoolbus, I was putting on my ski-pants and down jacket to go for a walk. I hadn’t been outside, at least not past the step, for a couple days.

There was a shitload of empty cardboard boxes to be carried down off the deck and loaded into my van. They’ll all have to be taken into town to the recycling depot.

The family felines, though they had a feed of beef roast bits this morning, appeared to be starving so I gave them some dry catfood and counted eight feasters -- two young adults, two adolescents, and four kittens who must have lost their mother in the past month or so, because I haven’t seen her and they have moved in over here, under the shed.

Then I moseyed across the driveway and scared the cattle when I stepped close to the corral to see what was happening with a fencepost that appeared to be down. These are jumpy cattle, I tell you. Scared of their friggin shadows. That’s okay by me -- I’m a bit scared of them, too, because of their size -- but I am perfectly harmless so I wish they realized I am friendly.

Even the horse standing in a circle of straw in the pasture nearby didn’t come over to see me. He turned and looked, but that was as far as he got. Must’ve been fresh straw or something.

Here is what I see when I look down our driveway and across the driveway that leads to the big yard. This photo, of course, was taken in the fall. Right now everything is white.

So I moseyed on around the farmyard, past the hill where lies the dead machinery and the old grey granaries. They’ve been hauling those big round bales and stacking them on the hill (don’t laugh when you see the picture of the hill -- you’ll say “she calls that a hill?” -- because “hill” is what Loverboy’s family calls it; it must be high ground in comparison to the yard); the new ones are such a lovely, warm gold compared to the old ones, which are dull and dark.

This is a pic I took in the fall too. Now, it's white and gold!

Six other horses are pastured in the field next to the hill, and I went over to the barbwire fence to commune with them. I expected the big Belgian to be the one to get to the fence first, but she kept on grazing where she was and another one came instead. The Belgian fears nothing and no one, but this horse was even shyer than me. I extended my hand several times but she turned her head away so I couldn’t stroke her face.

I talked to her a little, then crunched back across the snow, down the road, and into the yard. I’d taken the camera along but it was getting too dark and, though it was beautiful out there, wouldn’t have made a nice picture. Not only that, but what I find mezmerizing about what I see around here is the vastness of the view, and that is something I don’t know how to capture in a photograph. Wait’ll we get that digital. Maybe practice will help.

It had been awfully cold when I first went outside, so much so that I had wrapped a wool scarf around my head and kept holding it closer in order to keep the heat in. But by the time I got back to our yard, I was toasty and didn’t want to come in. So I fed the cats again -- they’d cleaned up everything and still seemed hungry -- and hauled some old cardboard boxes from the front of the shed to the back -- it’s looked like a garbage dump around here long enough, but these have been mouse-bothered and can’t go either in my van or to the recycling depot. They’ll have to go to the dump.

Last but least, I gave the cats a drink of water and then emptied the wheelbarrow full of wood that Loverboy had brought up to the step.

It’s dark now -- 5:30 -- and my back is starting to complain about sitting here. It did lift a lot of heavy boxes yesterday so I’d best not mess with it.

xoxo
etc
-Kate