Category Archives: Home

Turning on the Heat

Posted by dkrashb on

We have not turned on the heat.  There is no reason for this other than a combination of my large sweater collection and stubbornness.  My husband doesn’t care–he’s usually hot anyway.  I, however, am always cold.  One might assume this would motivate me to turn on the heat sooner, not later.  But, my logic goes like this:  I am cold when it is 72 degrees and I am cold when it is 65 degrees.  Our apartment is 65 degrees for free, but to heat it to 72 degrees would increase our electric bill.  Therefore, there is no return on the additional expenditure for turning on the heat.

In truth, I’m waiting for two milestones to occur.  First, I would like to make it until January until we turn the heat on.  The second is a more logical milestone:  if the apartment fails to get up to 65 degrees for more than 2 consecutive days, I’ll turn the heat on.

In the meantime, I find creative ways to deal with the cold on cloudy days when the apartment peaks right at 65.  I noticed the other day that my coffee consumption has doubled and I’m also drinking hot tea when I used to drink water.  I have started layering on extra sweaters.  Sometimes, I will put on a layer of long underwear, a long sleeve T-shirt, a cardigan, and then a big scarf I can wrap around my shoulders.  If that’s not warm enough, I throw a blanket around me while I work at my desk.

However, I really struggle with my hands and feet.  My nails turn blue and my hands stiffen as I type.  My feet seem to be permanent ice blocks.  The only way to thaw them is to sit cross-legged and tuck my feet under my thighs.  This doesn’t work so well in my desk chair.

Since I can’t put more clothes on and still fit in my chair, I get up and drink some tea when I find my fingers are getting stiff or my feet are aching.  I find walking around the room does more to warm me up than adding an additional blanket.  When I get my heart beating a little, it helps move warm blood into my cold toes and fingers.

Since I’m drinking more coffee and tea, I need to use the restroom more often.  This forces me to get up and move around even more.  Interestingly, I find that the need to get up and move is also helping my neck heal.

Pros:

  1. Saving money
  2. Reducing use of electricity (we have electric heat) reduces the amount of coal burned and the associated release of greenhouse gases
  3. Getting up more often and getting more exercise throughout the day
  4. Keeping my neck more limber and having less pain overall.

Cons:

  1. Drinking more coffee and tea may contribute to my decreasing sleep
  2. Drinking more coffee and tea definitely contributes to heart burn

Looks like the heat will stay off for now.

Christmas Past

Posted by dkrashb on

It’s still dark out.  There are no hooves clacking on the roof, no “Ho Ho Ho, Merry Christmas” echoing through the air.  But there is something magical about this morning none-the-less.  The sun will start to rise in another hour or so.  By then, my nephews will either get up or we will wake them.  But for now, I sit quietly, alone in the living room, looking at the colored Christmas tree lights reflected in the glass.

A million memories swirl in my brain.  They focus around a Christmas tree and rotate by like a slow moving carousel, colorful and full of laughing children.  There is me and my brother, rushing into the living room of long ago, mouths wide open, amazed at the fancy packages under the tree.  Wrapping paper flies as we tear into that moment of hope and expectation.  We are absolutely convinced that what lies below the paper will fulfill our wildest dreams.

As my carousel of memories continues to rotate, our faces fade as my nephews move into the prominent place on the carousel.  Their eyes amazed, their teeth gleaming as their mouths gape in smiles that couldn’t possibly stretch any wider.  They, too, attack the packages before them.  Once more, wrapping paper flies through the air.  And the carousel rotates again.

Now, I see our parents pretending to love the silly dime store gifts we picked out for them and paid for by saving our allowance.  I see their eyes shining with emotion–a detail I missed when I was a child.

Next, our Grandparents smile nervously and watch us intently while we open gifts.  They strain with their desire to see how happy we are with what they so carefully chose for us.

As the carousel begins another pass, I see our parents again, but now watching my nephews instead of us.  They smile wider and their eyes have a little more twinkle as they open homemade gifts from their grandchildren.

I have few memories of what any of the gifts were, either received or given.  What stays in my mind is that shared moment when a group of people lean forward with barely contained anticipation.  In that single moment, before the first gift is unwrapped, we all share in the possibility that our love for one another will transcend any disappointments, any difficulties, any trials or tribulations and we will achieve the perfect manifestation of love through the act of giving.

That is the moment I look forward to every Christmas.  When people ask why can’t Christmas last all year, this is the moment I imagine hanging onto year round.  That perfect moment that is absent of disappointment, history, baggage, judgment.  That perfect moment when the excitement that we might be able to amaze and delight those we love electrifies the air.

When we recall Christmas past, we usually find that the simplest things – not the great occasions – give off the greatest glow of happiness.  ~Bob Hope

Playing Santa

Posted by dkrashb on

‘Tis the season to be jolly, fa la la la la la la la.

Demonstrate our great folly, fa la la la la la la la la.

Ah, Christmas.  Where did the magic go?  The days when I used to agonize over the perfect gift, going store to store to store–returning home frustrated and desperately in need of a nap.  I would put up decorations, wrap every gift with homemade bows.  And I always, always sent Christmas cards.

Then, the circle of friends with whom I exchanged Christmas gifts started to shrink.  As we grew older, there were fewer things we wouldn’t just buy for ourselves if we wanted them.  Besides the occasional bottle of wine in a reusable, decorative bag, we were down to just exchanging gifts with family.

Then, my family had what I like to think of as the “epiphany Christmas.”  We realized that we didn’t know what to get each other and it was silly, as adults to be making lists.  We called a truce on gift buying and agreed just to get the kids gifts.  This simplified shopping and allowed us to focus on the boys, who really made Christmas fun.

But then, my nephews seemed to lose their enthusiasm.  They used to try to stay awake all night so they could catch Santa; now they sleep later and later on Christmas morning.  They used to carefully open each toy, set it aside and play with the box for so long that we’d have to remind them to open the next gift if we wanted to finish in time for lunch.  Now, gift opening barely lasts a half an hour.  And their wish lists get shorter each year.  Until, finally, the youngest stop producing them all together, preferring to be “surprised.”

I have to agree that wish lists feel like cheating.  There’s something really special about a gift that says someone was paying attention to the things you’re interested in or, even better, found the perfect symbol of something special between the two of you.  I love giving gifts when I know I thought of something only I could have thought of and only the receiver can appreciate.  Even if it’s a silly, cheap gift, when it feels like the exact right gift, it really is magical.

The problem is it’s impossible to think of that perfect gift for everyone I know (and remember what it was).  In fact, if I don’t see someone regularly, the probability that I’ll have any clue as to what to give them is so small that it depresses me.  The thought that I know so little about what my father, step mother, brother, sister-in-law, nephews, friends, etc have and don’t have, need and don’t need, want and don’t want serves to remind me that I haven’t been paying enough attention.

Perhaps that will be my New Year’s Resolution–to know the people I love well enough to think of the perfect gift for each of them.

Stuffed

Posted by dkrashb on

It’s begun to look like we will be in Chattanooga for longer than we originally thought.  As such, it’s time to get serious about getting organized.  I am torn between getting organized and getting rid of more stuff.

We still have things laying around that we haven’t used in years, but it’s still functional and we have yet to get our money’s worth out of it.  With only one large closet and virtually no furniture that creates storage space, we are constantly moving stuff around from spot on the floor to spot on the floor and we’re never able to find any of it when we actually need it.

We’ve asked the building manager if we could have an extra door put in our very large closet to give us better access to about 7 feet of space currently behind a wall.  Now, we need to get the rest of our stuff out of the way and stored so that we can easily cover it up when they come to do the work.

So, today, our big undertaking will be to find an inexpensive and reusable way to store the miscellaneous stuff that we want to have accessible inside the apartment.

Now, Pat and I have different ideas about how to tackle tasks like this.  Me, my priority is efficiency.  Pick the place most likely to have what we’re looking for, go to it, and if they have anything even close, buy it and go home.

Pat has a different approach to shopping for home goods.  I don’t really understand his approach, but it usually involves making multiple trips to several places several times and not buying anything.  If I have no vested interest in a project and I’m not forced to go shopping with him, I’m OK with him spending time looking at things and not making a decision.  But, I am not wired for shopping.  I like to get in, buy something, and get out.

Today is one of those days when we will compromise.  I let Pat take us to Home Depot “just to look,” and then to Target, and finally to Lowe’s.

Then, just when it looks like Pat is content to go home, I talk him into a couple of sets of industrial-looking shelving units that are on sale and some baskets.  We have to return to Target to get more baskets to put on the shelves.  While this breaks one of my cardinal rules, “Thou Shalt Not Go Backwards,” I figure it’s less backwards than going all the way home and coming back another day.

We get home and begin assembling the shelves.  The instructions say it takes 10 minutes to assemble them.  Ten minutes in, we have the first set out of the box and have removed the plastic wrap.  There really are few things that test a relationship more than assembling something together that’s supposed to take 10 minutes.  Especially when I’m already cranky from our shopping excursion.  We manage to get both sets assembled in about an hour without filing for divorce.

Next, we need to put our stuff into the baskets and put the baskets on the shelves.   My sweaters go in one basket.  Jeans go into another.  The stockpile of lightbulbs goes into a third.  The collection of miscellaneous bike tools and accessories goes into a fourth.     Then there is the pile of cables that we don’t seem to need anymore, but I’m sure we will need the second we get rid of them.  I decide they can go under the lightbulbs.  The dirty laundry gets a basket for each sort.  Then there is a small basket for gloves, hats, and scarves–items I’m sorry to say I’m starting to wear more and more.  I am quickly running out of baskets.  Is it really possible that I still have this much stuff?

We’ve sold, donated, given away, recycled, and, when all else failed, thrown away all of the miscellaneous crap that we thought we could live without.  We’ve gotten rid of dishes, glasses, furniture, area rugs, electronics, camping gear, and what seems like an endless amount of clothes.  How is it that we still have piles of stuff we don’t know what to do with?

My sudden desire to get all of the crap that has piled in the corners of rooms up off the floor expands into the living room.  I find myself standing at my desk (which is really a table) and wondering if I need an actual desk.  One with drawers so I wouldn’t have the entire top covered in crap.  Then I ask myself, am I heading down a dangerous path?  Am I about to start replacing all the stuff we just got rid of?  Does it really make sense to buy stuff in order to organize stuff that we probably don’t need in the first place?

All this thinking about stuff is making my head hurt.  I decide I’ve had enough for the day.  We now have the things I haven’t known what to do with it hidden away in baskets that look, well, if not nice, better.  It’s sort of dorm-room like in decor, which is not exactly the look I was going for.  But, that’s OK.  Better a dorm room than something less reusable.  After all, someone can always use shelves.

Recovering

Posted by dkrashb on

I am still feeling like crap.  Having gotten a call at 11PM last night that kept me working until after midnight has not contributed positively to me getting over whatever I have.  I drag my tired rear out of bed and start my day.  All day, I keep thinking I’m going to have to take a break and lay down, but I have back-to-back calls and things to get done.  The day goes by until at about 6:45PM, I decide I can no longer think clearly and I really do need to stop.

I haven’t showered since Sunday morning.  I am puzzled as to why this is–for some reason, I grew up believing you’re not supposed to shower when you’re sick.  Maybe because having wet hair makes you feel cold?  But not showering only makes me feel sicker.  I decide I am going to the gym in the morning unless I’m dying when I wake up.  As such, I absolutely must shower tonight.

Pat asks what I want to do about dinner.  I look out the windows and realize it’s Wednesday night and I haven’t left the apartment since we returned from our weekend in the smokies on Sunday afternoon.  I briefly consider going out to dinner.  But, realizing that we have too many things yet to get done tonight and I want to go to bed early, I decide it makes more sense for Pat to pick up carry out while I convert myself back into a human being.

That’s exactly how I feel in the shower.  As difficult as it was for me to coax myself out of the 6 layers of clothes I’m wearing in an attempt to stay warm, I don’t want to leave the shower once I’m in it.  The hot water strikes my feet, making me realize how cold they really are.  They feel like giant ice cubes melting in a vat of scalding hot water.  My stiff neck and shoulders likewise feel like they’re melting under the heat of the water.  I stick my dirty hair under the water and I feel like the water just runs off.  My hair has grown waterproof after 3 days of wearing a ski cap and not bothering to so much as run a comb through my hair.

I use way too much shampoo, wanting a nice, thick lather to break through the grime.  Having converted my helmet back into hair, I feel like my transformation into a human life form is complete.  But I decide I should rinse some more anyway–I really cannot bring myself to step out from under the hot water.

Did I mention that we haven’t turned the heat on yet?  I don’t know why; it’s just a thing.  We want to make it to December before we turn the heat on.  Up until yesterday, there was only one other day we were tempted to turn the heat on.  But yesterday, the temperature inside dropped to 61.  And then, to 58 overnight.  Today, things warmed up considerably.  The apartment is back up to 65 thanks to the passive solar effect of the windows facing South.  But still, it’s enough of a chill that I really don’t want to get out from under that hot water.

Eventually, I talk myself into turning off the water and wrapping up in a towel before stepping out of the tub.  The bathroom is, thankfully, full of steam, helping to preserve the warmth from the shower.  Pat returns as I am pulling on about my 5th layer of clean clothes.  I am grateful for the numerous layers of warm clothes I have accumulated for winter activities–after all, I am about to brave the temperature of the apartment outside the bathroom.

Pat’s hunting and gathering expedition has turned up Taco Mamacitos.  Unfortunately, it’s gotten cold between the walk from the restaurant and waiting for me to get dressed.  Plus, my taste buds are not fully functional yet.  I eat it all anyway, realizing that I haven’t had anything to eat yet today besides a cup of soup and some crackers.

We flop on the couch with our cold food and turn on the TV.  I eat and worry about whether I’ll sleep tonight.  My cold is turning into a cough and I didn’t ask Pat to get me anything for a cough when he went to the store for me earlier today.

I find myself wondering about the human immune system.  Why is it, for example, that I get sick more than Pat?  He rarely catches anything.  He’s even more resistant to stuff like parasites.  I was violently ill at seemingly random intervals over 3 years until I finally figured out I was getting parasites from eating sushi.  Pat was eating at least 3x the amount of the same sushi I was eating, yet he never got sick.

Given that Pat and I live in the same place, eat mostly the same foods (I generally eat healthier than Pat, if anything), and are exposed to the same germs, it has to be genetic, right?  Or could it be that he drinks more beer?  Is beer the secret ingredient to a healthy immune system?  Perhaps I should try matching his diet exactly to see if it makes any difference.

Whatever the cause, I am annoyed that I am sick.  I feel like it’s personal weakness somehow that I have succumbed to a virus.  I ask myself what I have done wrong that has led to this illness.  I go down the list of possible errors on my part:  what have I been eating; how have I been sleeping; how careful have I been about washing my hands?  I find that I’m at fault on eating and sleeping, but hand washing has become almost an obsession.  Then, I wonder if I’m washing my hands too much.  Is that possible?  Am I denying my immune system its required exercise?

I take a deep breath and stop my root-cause analysis.  I am sick and I need care, not blame.  Why is it easier to sit around chastising yourself than to just figure out what you need and provide it?  I think about the Nonviolent Communication book I am reading and realize that’s the basic premise.  I’m too tired to think about it any more than that, though.  I try to take another deep breath, but I start coughing.  I decide I need to just watch TV mindlessly and I settle myself more comfortably into the couch.

Closing Doors

Posted by dkrashb on

When I arrive at the Columbus office Wednesday morning, for the first time, I feel like a visitor.  My group has changed buildings.  Although I’ve been to many meetings in this building, I don’t belong there.  The people in the foyer, on the elevator, in the hall, look up as I go by and their eyes roam for a badge.  This is a sure sign that I seem out of place.

I wander around the perimeter of the building, stopping to say hello to a colleague I haven’t seen in a while and asking for the general vicinity of my team.  I wander around some more until I locate the office of one colleague and then the cubes of the rest of my team.  I stop to say hello and then find a vacant office to set up in.  I miss seeing my name outside the door.

I have a face-to-face meeting scheduled first thing.  It’s a team meeting with my one-person team.  He and I catch up and spend time going through all that’s going on until we run out of time.  Then the conference calls start.  I do not leave the office until a half an hour break in the early afternoon allows me to run across the street with a colleague to grab fast food.  I am dialing into my next conference call by the time we leave the restaurant.

I return to the office while on my call and realize I haven’t had a minute to use the restroom since arriving this morning.  I’m scheduled with back-to-back calls the rest of the day.  My calendar is triple-booked in some cases.  I sit in my windowless office in an uncomfortable position with no monitor or keyboard separate from my laptop or fancy office chair with a head rest and I wonder if coming into the office is worth it.

After my next call ends two minutes early, I decide to take the opportunity to run to the restroom.  I manage to get a hello in to a couple of people on my way and then return to the office for my next call.  I wonder if I should have sat in a cube so I’d get to see more people.  But, it’s hard to take conference calls all day in a cube.

At the end of the day, Pat picks me up, forcing me to wrap up on time.  We have social commitments every evening, so working late will mean working after going out to dinner if I have things I have to do in the evening.  Fortunately, I managed to get a lot done during a couple of my calls today–the kind where there are 80 people on the phone and only about 2 minutes of a 90 minute call pertains to me.

We have to stop to pick up a package at the house we rented for a year between selling our house and moving to Chattanooga.  I didn’t realize I hadn’t updated my shipping address until the package was en route and it was easier to make arrangements with the new tenant to pick it up there than to try to get it resent to Chattanooga.

It’s the first time we’ve been by the rental in months.  It looks the same minus the wreath on the front door.  I knock and a woman answers.  The living room is full of children behind her.  A small toddler wanders over to the door and smiles at me.  I smile back at him, get my package, thank the woman and am on my way again.

I pause for a moment, realizing that I have no desire to go inside the house and see what it looks like even though I know it’s been freshly painted since we moved out; it’s now the home of a stranger.

But our route home takes us by our old street, Walhalla, and Pat asks if I want to drive by our old house.  I say no.  I have no regrets about selling the house.  While not having a house makes it difficult to entertain, limits the comforts we can offer overnight guests, and subjects us to more noise from neighbors, I like the trade off.  When we sold our house, we eliminated a huge sense of commitment.

The freedom I feel now is such a sense of relief that I can’t imagine why I thought home ownership was a good idea.  At the same time, I loved our last house dearly.  It was an heirloom built by my father and a remembrance of my mother.  I needed that house when we bought it and changing it from my parents’ house to our house was an essential process to mourning the physical loss of my mother and the virtual loss of my father when he moved hundreds of miles away after my mother’s death.

But having gone through that process, I do not feel the need to cling to it forever.  The final farewell for me was said the day I walked among the blank walls and empty rooms and remembered.

I remembered the moments I had with my mother in that house.  The time that I spent with my father helping to build it when I was in college.  The day my parents and I moved in.  The day I moved out into my first apartment.  Returning to do laundry.  Much later, staying for a few days when I broke my face playing softball, content to allow my mom to mother me again for the first time in many years.

I remembered the Christmases we had there.  And my wedding reception the first time I got married and the potluck the second.  I wished that my mother could have been at my second celebration, but that was the only regret I felt as I walked through those rooms.

I remembered the times that Pat and I shared as a couple in that house.  And our amazing canine kids whose lives were lived out amongst those same walls, now devoid of all the marks they left from dried drool.  I cherished every memory for that moment, but then I walked away with only a few tears in my eyes, refusing to fall.

My thoughts turned to self-pity when I reached the foyer:  “I am the only member of my family left in Columbus.  My mother is dead.  My aunt is dead.  My father moved away.  My brother moved away ages ago.”

I stood at the threshold of the open door for a moment longer feeling sorry for myself–orphaned in Columbus.  But then I turned away from the inside of the house and looked out the door.  Out there, there are people I love and who love me.  Some of them are far away, but the world gets smaller every day.  I closed the door behind me and concluded a chapter of my life.  Today, I have no need to reopen that door.

We arrive back at our hosts’ house with still-hot pizza and I shift my attention from musings on the past to enjoyment of the present.  This house is full of life and love; it would be a shame to miss it.

To Clean or Not to Clean

Posted by dkrashb on

This week is a short week for me-I am taking Friday off because friends are coming for a visit for a long weekend.  This weekend is the Head of the Hootch regatta–apparently one of the biggest regattas around for rowers.

I’m getting email newsletters from Outdoor Chattanooga, the Tennessee Aquarium, two farmer’s markets, and a hiking organization and all of them are hyping the Head of the Hootch as a an event to see.  Given that we can practically see it from our living room, I think it will be hard for us to miss.  But, back to our visitors, one is a rower and will be racing on Saturday.

It’s a funny thing about taking a day off.  It means that every other day suddenly becomes both compressed and extended.  In preparation for taking off 1 day, I work more efficiently and with more intensity and I still end up working more than one day’s worth of extra hours in the four days that lead up to it.  Is that really how vacation days are supposed to work?

In any case, I’m looking forward to acting as tour guides for our friends when they come.  I have a vague itinerary in my head ranging from going up to Point Park to enjoy the view of the fall leaves and downtown Chattanooga to taking them on a River Gorge tour at the Tennessee Aquarium.  They have told us about two restaurants they want to go to, neither of which we’ve been to before, which is even more exciting.

We actually chose to move to Chattanooga because of this couple–they had come down before for the Head of the Hootch and really enjoyed the city.  When we told them we were thinking about moving to Tennessee, they were the ones who advised us to check out Chattanooga.  So, we will take turns playing tour guides.

I’m more or less ready for their visit, which is good. They are staying in a hotel, which is probably for the best given that our guest bed now consists of a queen sized air mattress placed on our living room floor.  If I were competing in a rowing race, I would want better sleeping conditions, too.

But, since I assume they will come to our apartment at some point in time, I do feel like I should clean up the place before they get here.  I haven’t really thought about when I am going to do this.  I’ve had a few vague thoughts that maybe it would be a good time to try a housekeeper, but upon reflection, I realized that I cannot have a housekeeper when I’m working from home.  Given that there are only two distinct rooms in our place (besides the bathroom) and my office is in the largest of the two, the noise of the housekeeper cleaning would disrupt work.

I miss having a housekeeper.  We had a great one at our house in Columbus.  Having her come every week was the perfect antidote to my natural tendency towards messiness.  I don’t know why, but I would rather throw my clothes on the floor at night than to take the time to put them in the laundry.  I’d rather put dirty dishes in the sink than to rinse them and put them in the dishwasher.  Someone once told me that this was just a form of prioritization.  Apparently, having a neat house is low on my priority list.

But having a housekeeper who came once a week forced the issue.  Since the housekeeper can’t clean if the floor is covered in dirty clothes, I was forced to pick up at least once a week, which is not enough time to accumulate an enormous mess.  And, the house gets cleaned regularly in addition to being neater.  I love having a clean house; I just don’t want to be the one who has to clean it.

But now, in our apartment, it seems ridiculous that I still don’t want to spend my time cleaning it.  I am happy to have a reason to have to clean it now–we still have piles of excess stuff lining the wall of the entry hallway that we haven’t figured out what to do with yet.  The whole place could really use a good scrub.

Unfortunately, I get an instant message from my friend telling me that she and her fiancé will not be coming after all.  As it turns out, two of her team mates have health issues that preclude them participating in the race.  Since the boat requires four rowers, my friend won’t be racing after all.

I’m bummed–I was really looking forward to having friends come to see us.  Pat and I discuss the change of events that night and decide to take advantage of my planned day off since I’ve already cleared my calendar and I need to use up my vacation days or lose them.  We decide we will go hang gliding on Friday with the thought that it will be less busy on a week day and we will get more flights in that way.

The next day, I call the flight park and schedule time on the training hills both Friday and Saturday.  That settled, I decide I will not worry about cleaning up the apartment and will focus on keeping up with work instead.  That gives me pretty much unlimited time to work, besides sleeping, eating, and working out.  I’m secretly relieved that I can continue to ignore the state of the apartment for a while longer yet.

I suppose if we had a place to put everything, I would be less overwhelmed by the prospect of cleaning.  But having to figure out what to do with a bunch of stuff that I’ve already tried to figure out what to do with at least a half a dozen times before makes the whole notion seem like way too much effort.

For a moment, I wonder if I could call that TV show that comes and puts your stuff in 3 piles:  keep, donate/sell, trash.  It feels like we’ve gotten rid of so much stuff in the process of downsizing that there wouldn’t be much left to deal with.  What we really need is someone to organize what’s left.  But, there’s no point in getting organized when we have temporary living accommodations, so I decide to look the other way instead.

When I turn away from the mess and look out the windows, I see the moon rising over our apartment.  I turn my attention to capturing the moon, which seems far more interesting than cleaning the apartment.

One Small Chirp for Man; One Giant Mistake for Womankind

Posted by dkrashb on

It starts with a small beep. A high-pitched chirp that demands my attention even though it’s coming from somewhere outside the apartment. It sounds like a smoke detector with a low battery, but our smoke detectors are wired. Every 15 seconds, “Chirp!” It’s like an alarm clock with a leak.

During the day, I manage to distract myself most of the time. I cannot hear it over my headset when I’m on the phone. For the first time, I find myself looking forward to conference calls.

But at night, I lay in bed waiting for the next chirp to come. Finally, I pull out the iPad, put in some ear buds and watch a show from my cable company’s app until I nod off. Still, the next morning I wake up feeling like I’ve been fighting with that chirp all night long. My jaw has practically seized into a clench, my TMJ flares when I bite into an apple, and I am cranky. Cranky, cranky, cranky.

I wander around trying to hear where the stupid chirp is coming from. It could be on the roof. It could be next door. It could be below us. After I’m dressed, I walk out into the hall and listen. Eventually, I determine the beep is coming from next door. It go back inside and check the time. It’s only 6:30AM. I decide that a) it’s improbable our neighbor is there, listening to the chirp and doing nothing about it, and b) it’s too early to knock on her door to find out because I will wake up many other neighbors in the process.

For the next hour and a half, all I hear is “chirp!” I try taking my coffee outside. For once, there is very little traffic. I can hear the chirp even from the balcony when there are no cars driving by. I go back inside. Pat gets up. I ask him, “Do you hear that?” He looks at me like I’m insane. I am beginning to have memories of “The Tell-Tale Heart.”

At 8:00AM, I go next door and knock. No one comes to the door. I knock again, standing there, listening to the chirp echoing inside. One of the disadvantages of a loft-style apartment, by the way, particularly one with finished concrete floors, is that sound bounces all over the place. I wait for the next “chirp!” and then knock one last time. Another neighbor comes in with his dog. I smile, but don’t ask if he hears the chirping or not.

I go inside and tell Pat I’m going to send an email to the manager to see if maintenance can come without the tenant calling them. He is upset by this notion and tells me not to. When I ask him why not, his justification is because we watch TV loudly (to hear over traffic noise) and no one complains. I give him a look. I cannot understand his logic on this–it’s like he thinks I’m telling on the girl next door for having a chirp. After much debate, I finally decide to give it a day.

I make it through the day, but the chirping doesn’t abate. I tell Pat I’m sending an email and, once again, this leads to a debate. Now, I am irritated with him. I cannot understand how he can think it’s a bad thing to tell maintenance that there is something wrong in the apartment that needs to be addressed when the resident is clearly not home to take care of it herself. Finally, the core of the argument seems to hinge around Pat’s assumption that our neighbor must have something in the apartment that belongs to her that’s beeping whereas I tend to assume it’s something that goes with the apartment. I allow Pat’s anxiety about upsetting our neighbor infect my thinking and forego the email again.

But now, my ire has turned from the chirp to Pat. The chirp is now his fault. Every time he is in he room, I wait for a chirp and then say, “Did you hear that?” What I discover is that he can’t hear it most of the time. Only if there is absolutely no background noise and he’s listening for it is he able to hear it at all, and even then, it’s so quiet to him that he’s not annoyed. Now I am doubly angry. He doesn’t want me to solve the problem because it’s not bothering him!

For reasons I do not understand, instead of just ignoring Pat and sending the email to the manager, I’m now pissy about absolutely everything. The apartment is a mess; there’s too much clutter that we still need to find places for. That is Pat’s fault. I stand up without realizing my foot is asleep and sprain my left foot. That is Pat’s fault too. I am tired and sore and it’s raining and I need to get away from that incessant chirp! All of it is Pat’s fault.

His tenacity is remarkable. Four days later, the chirp is still going and so am I. I’m amazed that he hasn’t begged me to write a letter to the manager by now. Instead, he just seems puzzled as to why I’m so irritable. Even when I explain that I’m not sleeping well because of that damn chirp, he doesn’t believe that the chirp (which by now he seems to think is just a figment of my imagination) could possibly disturb my sleep.

Finally, on Saturday, Pat walks out to get something out of the car and runs into movers coming out of the apartment. He asks them if they heard a chirp and they say no. Now I’m really pissed. Pat feels like he’s taken action to resolve the problem, but all he’s done is prove that I have better hearing that a total of 3 men. However, at least it eliminates Pat’s argument that I will upset the neighbor if I report the chirp. I sit down and send a note to the manager.

Of course, the manager won’t get the note until Monday. This is Pat’s fault, too.

A funny thing happens to me when I’m overly tired. I start dropping things a lot. Usually little things. This time, it starts with the hair clip I use when I wash my face. I drop it, pick it up, and drop it again. I pick it up a second time and it falls from my grasp before I can even stand up again. Next, it’s my glasses. Same thing. Three drops in a row. Then, it’s a bottle of beer, which I drop only once because it shatters on the concrete floor. Each time I drop something, my temper ignites. By the third drop, I can literally feel the anger shooting through my body in a trail that runs from my toes to the top of my head. If I were a rocket ship, I would be airborne. Thankfully, the weekend distractions keep me from completely losing it. When we are out of the apartment, I feel much, much better.

We both live through the weekend. Monday, I get a note from the manager that maintenance will be over the next day and they will fix it then. I decide to concentrate on ignoring the chirp. It’s like the old trick where someone tells you not to think about elephants and that’s all you can think about. Fortunately, it’s a work day and I spend most of the day with my headphones on. The weather has also warmed up again and I discover that sleeping with the ceiling fan on helps drown out the chirp.

The next day, I hear men in the apartment next door, but the chirp is still going strong. I walk over and knock on the door. When the door opens, the chirp echoes even more loudly with the apartment empty and the door open. I look at the men inside and ask if the can hear it. They look at me like I’m playing a joke and they are waiting for the punchline. After a moment, one responds that they have to get batteries for whatever it is (maybe it is a smoke detector after all). I explain that I just wanted to make sure they could hear it because my husband can’t and he thinks I’m insane. The men laugh at this and assure me it’s loud and clear to them. I am relieved to know I am not crazy (well, at least not in this particular way).

I return to work and am on the phone for several hours straight. When at last I take off my headset, I am still thinking about work as I get up to grab a bite to eat. Suddenly, I realize I feel a little happier and less annoyed than I’ve felt in days. I freeze and listen. The chirping has stopped! I sigh with relief. But when Pat comes home that evening, I am annoyed again. I don’t know why I’m annoyed with him because I let him talk me out of solving my problem a week ago, but I am.

I suffered through that incessant chirp for a week because I listened to him. I suppose I must first stop being annoyed with myself for listening. Then, I must stop being annoyed with Pat for thinking it’s more important to avoid irritating the neighbor than to stop the neighbor from irritating his wife. I wonder how long that will take?

My First Chattanoogan Drive

Posted by dkrashb on

The hardest part of taking a two-week vacation is going back to work.  I ease into it gradually, getting up early and taking a morning walk with Pat and even taking my camera so I can shoot the sunrise.  We wander along the riverfront slowly, shooting every few minutes.  We run into another photographer.  I ask him how he likes his tripod (having still not bought one) and he chides me for trying to take landscape shots without one.  OK, maybe not “chides,” but I was pretty humiliated when he asked me how long I’d been shooting and I said, “about 7 years” and he said, “time to get a tripod!”  He also points out a sunrise rainbow that’s formed on the other side of the bridges, which I had completely failed to notice.  Strike two.  We manage to enjoy the sunrise none-the-less, but as a rainbow predicts, rain drops started falling so we high-tailed it home before we (by which I mean my camera) got too wet.

After two weeks off, I’m ready to go back to work from an emotional perspective, but from a pure memory standpoint, it’s like bits and pieces of information have fallen out of my brain and have to be swept up and poured back in again.  However, the last bits of dust that make it all fall back into a coherent picture have to be chased around and forcibly gathered.  Things that seemed vitally important two weeks ago are now just distant memories that I don’t know the status of.  I find myself wishing I had timed my vacation differently, but then I pause to wonder when would have been a better time?  It’s never a good time to take a vacation.

I dive into my email.  It’s actually not as bad as I was afraid it would be.  Fortunately, there is someone to cover for me for once and the more urgent items got taken care of while I was gone.  As I hunch over my keyboard sitting on an ottoman, I am quickly reminded of something I didn’t take care of before going on vacation–I must get an office chair.  The pain in my neck has not gone away even after 2 weeks away from my “desk.”  After only a couple of hours back, I’m in so much pain that I have to move back to the couch where my head is supported.  I decide that I will go chair shopping tonight.

Pat left this morning to go back to Columbus for three days.  I could have gone back with him and worked from Columbus, but I feel a need to stay home for at least a week.  He wants to go home next week, too, so I will go back then.  In the meantime, I am left to keep myself busy for the next three days.  There is one advantage to having just come back from a two-week vacation–I will have plenty to do.

It’s now after 5PM EST and I decide to take a break to go chair shopping.  I google office furniture and discover a website that has some really nice office chairs.  Just out of curiosity, I look up their location and discover that they are located 1 block from me.  This is a nice surprise!  I walk over there to see what they have.  The woman there, Leslie, gets down chair after chair and asks me to sit in each one for a while to get a feel for it.  There is one chair that has a funky neck rest on it.  It’s the only chair that has it.  I sit down and the neck rest hits a sore spot in the crick in my neck.  I think it feels rather awkward and it’s uncomfortable, but Leslie gives is a tug and adjusts it so that the top edge is sitting just under the ridge at the base of my skull.  There is something relieving about being able to set the weight of my head on this headrest.  Although it’s still putting pressure on my neck in ways that I don’t like, I find myself wondering if it might feel better after getting used to it.  Leslie makes the most amazing suggestion:  She tells me to take the chair home and try it for a couple of days to see how it works out.  This is the perfect solution–I get to try the thing before I buy it!  However, I wasn’t optimistic when I came over here that I would find anything, so I didn’t bring the car.  I contemplate rolling the chair down the sidewalk, but see scuffed wheels full of road dust in my head and decide that’s not a good idea.  Instead, I walk back home, pick up the van, and drive in Chattanooga for the very first time.

Yes, it was only a block from home, but, remember, I had to drive 2 blocks by the time I went round-trip.  I did not even use the GPS.  I got in the van, started it up, and drove it like I’d been driving every day for months.  I think about it and realize I haven’t driven since our last trip to Columbus when I drove part of the way home.  That was a month ago.  But, I make it to the furniture store unscathed and amused that this tiny jaunt would end up being my first official drive in Chattanooga!

I retrieve the chair that I’ve signed out on loan and manage to load it into the car with only a couple of new bruises, and then go into the grocery store (which is right across the lot) to get some beer and dinner.  I pick up some stuffed shells, which have become a standard “lazy” dinner lately, and Sierra Nevada.  I forgot to grab a shopping bag when I left the apartment and was unable to find one in the van, so I tell the cashier I don’t need a bag.  Normally, I get $.10 for each bag that I bring and use.  I’ve always thought it was $.10 for every bag of theirs that I don’t use.  Apparently not.  I do not get $.10 for not using a bag at all.  When I think about it, I bring in reusable grocery bags that are 2x the size of the paper bags they use if they bag my groceries, yet, I don’t get $.20 when I fill one of my bags because I saved two of theirs.  No.  I get $.10.  It occurs to me that perhaps I should try bringing a bunch of hand-puppet-sized bags and put one item in a bag.  Would I still get $.10 for each bag I bring?  I may have just found a way to make shopping at Green Life affordable!

When I go back to the house and get my chair upstairs, I go back to work while my pasta shells heat.  I adjust the chair just right and feel my neck stretching and my shoulders relaxing.  I think maybe I will like this chair.

Airport Adventure

Posted by dkrashb on

For once, we are relaxed getting to the airport. It’s a funny thing; even when I used to fly nearly every week, I always got anxious from the point when I started packing to the point when I was sitting at the gate. Of course, back then, that was only a couple of hours, but it never went away. But today, we are a 20 minute shuttle bus ride from the airport, we woke up earlier than we needed to, we were already mostly packed from the night before, and we find ourselves getting on the shuttle an hour earlier than we planned. Our flight doesn’t leave until 11:30AM, but we prefer to allow as much time as possible for getting through security since Pat has been detained numerous times, his name confused with someone on the no-fly list. Although it’s usually a bigger problem clearing customs in the US than in departing from other countries, it still makes us nervous since we’ve missed flights as a result of how long it takes for immigration to figure out that my Pat is not whoever it is they’re looking for.

But, here we are today, at the airport before 8AM and hungry. First, we check in. I have checked in online already, so all we have to do is print boarding passes and drop our bags. There is no one in line at one of the kiosks, we walk right up and start entering information. However, I have to go through all the steps of checking in, including swiping each passport into the machine. This process takes a few minutes. As I struggle to figure out which direction to put a passport in, a man suddenly appears just over my left shoulder. Everything about his body language says I’m in his way and he would like me move faster. Having never had an American stranger stand so close to me, I am thrown by his behavior. Pat immediately perceives danger and steps closer to me as if he is going to end up punching this man. The man must sense he’s triggering hostility because he says in a New Jersey accent, “They really ask for a lot of information, huh?” as if he’s just trying to be friendly. Yet, he continues to look over my shoulder and stand too close. I stop what I’m doing and turn to look at him. Perhaps the realization that he is slowing me down causes him to step back or maybe I’ve unknowingly given him one of my looks, but he takes a step back. However, he continues to participate in the process verbally, counting out each boarding pass as it prints and trying to joke about how slow the machine is. We are happy to take our bags and move on quickly when all four boarding passes finally print.

There are only two people in front of us at the bag drop. I begin to suspect that most of Germany is still in Munich at Oktoberfest–I have never gotten checked in to an international flight so quickly. Barely past 8AM, we have completed the bag check process and are ready to approach security. Since it’s so early and we can’t remember what’s on the other side of security, but we have memories of being stuck in a secure area with no restaurants or even a restroom on some flight that might have been out of Frankfurt, we decide to have pretzels and coffee before we hit security. We sit where we can watch the volume of people heading towards security in case there is a sudden rush, but we are able to eat our pretzels uninterrupted. Pat even goes back for more food. When he returns with an ice cream bar, I raise my eyebrows at him, “Breakfast of champions?” He smiles and enjoys his ice cream guilt free.

We discover a classic Mercedes convertible on display in the airport. There is some drawing where you can win 100,000 Euro to spend at the Mercedes classic shop. It requires finding out how much a certain perfume costs in the Duty Free shop. We determine that the duty free shop is on the other side of security, so we go through the security check and then head for duty free. Now, checking the price on a bottle of perfume may seem like a harmless request, but Pat gets scent-triggered migraines if he’s exposed to heavy perfumes for too long. Interestingly, since giving up perfume for Pat 16 years ago, I have now developed a sensitivity to it as well. Although, I get more of an allergy response involving congestion and sneezing. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a way to sell perfume without the scent lingering in the air all around the displays. We scope the perimeter, trying to stay outside the danger zone. Then, I make a break through one of the aisles trying to quickly identify where the brand we’re looking for is located. When I find it, Pat surprises me by breaking through the perimeter and joining me as I try to figure out which one is the particular scent we’re looking for. We find it and then retreat quickly from the noxious odors to a safe, scent-free zone where we can fill out our entries in the drawing.

Next, we head to the gate. Oddly, we must clear security a second time before we can enter the gate area. Discovering that there are plenty of shops between the first security checkpoint and the second, but none in the gate area, we decide to eat a real breakfast at a restaurant across from the gate. But having had my fill of fatty foods, I opt for yogurt and muesli instead of a more American breakfast. When we finish eating, I spot a spa across from the restaurant and suggest we get chair massages while we’re waiting. Pat counts out the last of our Euros and decides it’s the perfect way to use up what we have left. We each get a 10 minute chair massage, which does wonders for my aching neck.

Now we are fed and relaxed. We go through the second security checkpoint (where they are suddenly concerned about the battery charger for my camera battery) and then sit at the gate. We discover there is a restroom in the gate area and Pat decides to go use it. While I wait for him, a woman comes over and tells everyone sitting in the gate area that it’s a secure area and we must leave. Given that we’ve passed through security 2x already, I’m not sure why we need to leave, but she allows me to stand and wait for Pat to return, so I don’t argue. A few minutes later, several gate agents set up in front of the seating area and tell us we can now go through a line to get checked into the seating area. An agent looks at each person’s passport and ticket before we can enter. I count the number of times I have now shown someone my passport: 1) Swiping it into machine, 2) Agent to get into line at bag drop, 3) Agent who checked our bags, 4) Security downstairs, 5) Security upstairs, 6) Agent to get to seating area. Six passport checks just to get a seat at the gate. When they finally start boarding the plane, they check our passports a 7th time. Given that they don’t seem to be scanning our passports to get any data from them, I find myself wondering if this repeated checking is due to an inherent distrust of others’ ability to adequately look at a passport or just a desire to be annoying. In any case, I’m pretty sure that everyone on the plane is carrying a passport. It may not be a legal passport, but everyone’s got one!

Fortunately, given how relaxed the overall experience of getting to the airport has been today, I take the passport thing in stride and maintain a sense of calm. After all, we’re about to spend 8 hours on a plane, so there is no point in getting worked up. We “upgraded” to comfort seats on this plane. It’s not really an upgrade, the seats just have more leg room and recline further. But, it makes all the difference as we settle in and stretch out. We test the recline as we wait for take off. We exchange giddy smiles as we think back to the cramped seats we flew over in. Then, we return the seats to upright and prepare for take off.