Category Archives: home

Heathenish Noise

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Why does that adjective heathenish come to mind? Maybe because peace and quiet are hard to come by anymore, and seem to require diligence and mindfulness. The current practice of designing alarms into every machine makes no provision for our need for refuge from the noisy world that is often right outside the door. They are uncivilized in that way.

My house is starting to resemble a hospital emergency room, with all the many and varied BEEPs signifying matters that need to be attended to. As in the ER, the matters are not usually life-threatening, and the messages might just be that things are working as they should. The oven beeps to let me know it has reached the desired temperature. My car beeps to tell me it is locked.

My new refrigerator beeps if I leave the door open longer than one minute. This is less of a problem now that it’s been moved into the kitchen where it belongs, but it was a constant annoyance during remodeling when I would go out to the garage to get some cold item and find that by the time I arrived, I’d have forgotten what I wanted, and stand staring into territory that was also unfamiliar. Or I was trying to figure out whether moving a shelf would improve the organization, but the psychic tension of waiting for the beeping to start was almost worse than the beep itself, and would make it hard to think calmly.

My old appliances did beep once to tell me when the timer expired, or when the microwave turned off. The new ones never stop the infernal beeping until I do something about it, like open the microwave or press a button on the stove. And all this for my convenience, I’m sure. Though I would rather risk my mug of tea getting cold in the microwave than have one more seemingly gentle alarm. All these many small beeps are like a constant and aggravating sound of dripping, or like the raven quoting “Nevermore,” that threaten to take my sanity from me.

This morning as B. and I were standing in the kitchen, I heard a beep so faint I thought it must not be in the same room. Perhaps it was from a neighbor’s house…but when I stuck my head out the back door, there was quiet. I walked toward the garage, and it got louder. Oh, no! The washing machine had stalled and was flashing a new error message along with a frequent beep, just minutes after I’d canceled the Sears repair request because the other error message was in remission.

I was getting ready to have a friend for lunch for her birthday, even though the house is still in great disorder, but all morning I dealt with the washer. Decided to call a different repair person, because I had had enough of the impersonal (and also heathenish) Sears telephone system. Then I had to be sure I kept the washer malfunctioning so that the repairman wouldn’t come for nothing. That took so much time I had to drastically alter the menu. Also, I don’t know what box my baking pans are in, so I realized I can’t make banana bread yet! I don’t know where the citrus juicer is, so bottled lime juice instead of fresh lemon juice went into the kale chips.

I was getting items from the fridge to start lunch when the microwave beeped, because I’d put my tea in there to reheat after it was forgotten in the flurry over the washer. So I went to take it out, but I must not have shut the fridge, and that started beeping. Shut that door…o.k….Now go out and check on the washer, to see if it will start now that it’s cooled a bit. No, it won’t start–but the beeper is working great.

When I came back in the kitchen there was, I hate to say it, a new and different beep happening. God, help me! This one was very fast and furious. Was it the refrigerator telling me that it’s too hot, perhaps? No….How about the stove? Is something burning, or shorting? This beep sounds so urgent. But it seems to be between the fridge and the stove…..in the drawer.  Oh. It is a comparatively old-fashioned electronic timer that must have been accidentally bumped when I shut the drawer. Simple to turn off.

I wonder if anyone has done a study on how this uncivilized beeping affects the health of humans? For myself, it seems certain it would make me sicker if I had to be in the ER hearing all those sounds. Can’t we have ring tones, say, of Pachelbel’s Canon, or a few notes of other good-mood music?

Perhaps the situation has generated a new kind of business opportunity; if I look in the phone book maybe I can find a listing for someone who will disconnect all the beeps that are getting on my nerves. The old-fashioned people noises we heard camping last week in Yosemite–I didn’t appreciate them enough.

Blogs and Babies

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Before I was married I didn’t keep a journal, at least not after the 5-year diary attempt in adolescence. And newly married, before children, I limited my writing to letters and sermon notes. It was only after having a child or two that I wanted to write at all, and I don’t understand all the reasons for the delay, but I used to think it had something to do with types of mental or creative energy.

I noticed after two or three pregnancies that I had no urge to write while I was pregnant. There are five long blank periods in the recorded history of my thoughts, scrawled in a mishmash of notebooks and stored in a box on a shelf. Much of my journaling over the years was filled with angst over church tensions or worries about whether I was being lazy about finding a “ministry” other than my family. I wrote long lists of what I had accomplished in a typical day followed by the lament, “And it wasn’t enough!”

What was it about carrying a child in my womb that eliminated the need for hashing everything out with pen and ink? Perhaps it wasn’t anything to do with the creative aspect of my participation in a magnificent process of nurturing a new and unique person–though my writing had been potentially creative in helping me to make sense of my world.

I started to write this blog about the similarities with my current life, where I am participating in a months-long creative work–thank God it isn’t nine months–and don’t have the thinking power to devote to any questions other than towel racks and paint colors. It’s only with great faith that I can imagine having anything significant to say ever again.

The idea I started with when I sat down just now doesn’t stand up to more scrutiny. Maybe my intellectual life 30 years down the road is entirely different. In the former time it was in a somewhat dormant stage, really, as I reminded myself in a recent post. The simple reality is that being with child made me happy and content. Maybe it was hormones. In any case, I didn’t need to write.

Now it’s that I can’t think well, that prevents me writing as I’ve become accustomed to. I hope it’s just a matter of distraction and overload, and that I will return to a version of my old self within another month or two. Already I have started sleeping better; it happened when I got the appliances into the kitchen. Family get-togethers and summer vacations will delay putting everything else back in place, but when the day comes that I don’t have to be ready at 8:00 in the morning for invading construction workers, it will be the beginning of my full return.

No, no, I mean the beginning of the next phase of my life. I know I can’t even return to last week, much less last year, intellectually or creatively or any other way. There’s always something new replacing something old, some loss and some gain. Today we moved the old furniture on to the new wood floors, and it all looks pretty, but we have lost some quietness from having (dirty) carpeted stairs.

The disruption has forced me to thin out my belongings, and take stock of how I actually use my kitchen. Having canisters of flour and sugar on the counter doesn’t make sense for someone who rarely bakes anymore. Maybe stress and insomnia and change will blow some cobwebs out of my mind as well, to make room for fresher and clearer thoughts that I can type into blogs on my computer when it is re-installed in the room with the pretty new floor.

Bit by Bit Remodel Report

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This picture shows the living room while Armando is refinishing the ceiling. Last week I painted the family room ceiling three times, in order to get a primer coat and two finish coats on it.

I do love painting, though I am as slow as molasses in January. My tutor in the art was my friend L.M., ten years my senior, lo these 30+ years ago working on a church project. After we moved here she visited from New Hampshire and helped me paint my own walls. Naturally I always think of her when I have a brush in my hand.

My new stove is in, and the sink, so I heated water for tea this morning and washed a sinkful of dishes. That felt good.

Yesterday I worked at cleaning up the garden and planting the remainder of the things I bought two weeks ago, because rain was forecast for today. I brought in some lilies in honor of the milestone of usable counters and sink.

This window will be getting some wood trim, and before the end of May I’ll have more progress to report and broader views to display of our beautifying efforts.

Not the camp cooking I love.

food and cooking, home, housework,

For a few weeks now I have been cooking with a microwave, electric skillet and toaster, set up in a corner of my living room. Sometimes I wash up in the little bathroom sink, and lately I’ve had my old sink set up on plywood, without counters on the sides.

When I got all organized and ready for the demolition of my old kitchen I thought positively about what I might accomplish with minimal equipment, and was undaunted. After all, I have cooked on a camp stove year after year, and washed up tin plates without any kitchen at all. We often needed to hide our food from bears between meals, but the dishes we ate around picnic tables were tasty and I enjoyed putting them together.

It hasn’t been at all the same here. The most obvious difference is that we must cook and eat in a dimly-lit corner of the living room. No trees, no fresh air that whets the appetite. The scenery is also blighted by over-crowding–extra furniture in disarray close by, all the dishes and condiments and dishtowels stacked around instead of stowed away in camping boxes.

But another kind of space is lacking, the mental and emotional refreshment that comes from being away from home and with greatly reduced responsibilities. Some years ago I discovered that when I’m camping outdoors or even in a cabin somewhere, after a few days of rest and relaxation, the creative urges surface and want to be expressed. I learned to bring along some ingredients that might take extra inventiveness or work to make a meal out of.

The ability to focus my mind on cooking at this time is completely lacking. There are too many decisions to muddle over, walls to wash, important papers to hunt around for. A storm has hit my artist’s studio, as it were, and the tangible and intangible tools aren’t where they need to be; the artist is disabled. If I get through this without getting depressed it will be enough to show for my work.

It’s a good thing we are coming to the end of the worst period of remodeling. In the next few days the stove will be hooked up, and the sink. The counters are in, so there will be a place for rolling out pie dough! Next month we’ll be kicked out for a few days so that floors can be put in, but I have already started stowing some clutter away in the new drawers.