I muse

I muse, but first I must digress. I will build up the story and inspiration for this singular yet encompassing thought.

Leaving for Lolo on Christmas day, a journey which took four hours due to road conditions...and returning in similar conditions resulted in another four hours of driving. Topping the hill and rounding the bend, I discovered my left-behind truck buried under another 12 inches+ of snow, and plowed in. I could see one white stripe of the mid-body left amongst the rubble of quite a storm (or a few) that occurred in the two days we were gone. Irritating to know that I had to dig it out since it was raining at the time and I knew it was going to be some pretty hard work.

Topping that was finding the stairs down to my door were not shoveled at all. Despite having my very own landlord, her daughter, and her daughter's sonS (I emphasize the plural) around while I was gone. The way into the garage and the carport (where the daughter is currently still parked) shoveled...the roof over the carport shoveled...and yet my lonely little walkway is left untouched. Except, by the way, for the paw prints of two large dogs who found that the perfect place to defecate...without being picked up. I must impress upon you that Sarah was scolded this summer by my lovely landlord for not picking up HER dog's shit. I will make a point of this if it ever comes up again. Moving on.

So, Sarah and I unload her car of all my precious Christmas goodies and she takes off. I immediately begin shoveling the truck out lest if freezes into a solid mass of ice. Mind you, this is 3:30 in the afternoon. I had numerous interruptions from the daughter as well as the landlord about how much it snowed and how, "it was so light and fluffy until this afternoon!" Who cares? It's wet and heavy now, thanks for the assistance. She had the AUDACITY and IGNORANCE to ask, "Did you take Sarah's car to Missoula?" I replied with, "No, we took the truck." She looked at me and then at the buried truck and ACTUALLY SAID, "But your truck has been here the whole time!" *sigh* Now, digging out the truck didn't really bug me because that's my business. But not digging out my stairs of 12+ inches of snow kinda got me...especially since last year...when there was ONE inch of snow on the stairs I got a lecture / guilt trip on shoveling them. "It's kind of a safety hazard" she said. Hmmm

Moving on.

Having being gone and shoveling for two hours, I kinda wanted to do some laundry and get some fresh clothes to wear. Someone was using the washer and dryer. No big deal, I can do that on Sunday. Well, Sunday rolled around and that damn washer and dryer was going the entire day! To top it off, come about 8:00 p.m. the music started upstairs. Loud enough I could hear the words! Too loud. At 9:30 I got pretty pissed, but it was turned down. I could still hear it, but it was muffled. About 10:00...until 10:30 there was running and thumping upstairs, barking, dogs running, banging, clanging...any word you can use to describe noise that was totally unnecessary and ridiculous. Laying in bed I called the landlord and said exactly this, "Evelyn....what the HELL is going on up there? It is ENTIRELY too loud. Shut it down NOW!" She tried to tell me about a letter for me that she left in the laundry room and I said, "uhhuh, yea. Got it." Then I hung up on her. The music and the thumping died. But by this time it's 11:00 and someone decided it was time to draw a bath...then turn the jets on! Right after that, someone else decided it was time for a shower. I finally slept around 12:30, just because of what was going on with someone else. Doesn't sit well with Tommy when he gets up at 5:00 a.m.

Today all the water on the road (from the thawing) froze and we got another 8 inches of snow on top of that. Treacherous driving so they shut work down at 12:30. It's bad enough around here, I didn't want to come home, so I didn't use this "gift" from the government. Rather, I finished what I was doing and went to the gym. Then I ran errands and finally got sick of stupid drivers...so made my way home. Instantly I could tell someone had been parked in my spot since when I left, but hadn't shoveled it. Nice. So I shoveled out my area (while it started raining again.) I then shoveled out my stairs...and since I'm a nice guy, shoveled the area around the common gate (which hadn't been done yet in the ten hours since I'd left home) yet somehow all their parking areas were free and clear of snow. While doing this, an angel pulled up.

She rolled down the window and asked if the power was on there. I said, "I'm sorry I don't know. I haven't been inside yet." Shortly after, I DID go downstairs and found the power was out.

Here it comes...

IT WAS BLISSFUL!

After all the noise during the past couple of days, it was DEAD silent. There was no refrigerator / freezer / computer hum. Nothing but the 10-mph wind outside. I donned the headlamp and sat down with a beer and read the next chapter in "The River Why" when all of a sudden, the power turned on again; I could tell by the refrigerator kicking on. I left the lights off and continued reading in the dark with a warm cat purring contentedly on my lap. It was that moment..that 45 minutes of absolute silence that finally calmed my nerves for the day. A three mile run didn't do it. A strenuous shoveling exercise didn't do it. It was SILENCE that made my day. It made me realize how little of that we all experience on a day to day basis.

Then the daughter upstairs thought it was a good time to play the piano. Luckily she sucks and only knows a few snippets of songs...so she was done quick.

I heard once the Sahara is one of the quietest places on earth. That just may be somewhere I have to visit sometime.

Meanwhile, I hope (cross your fingers) that we pull a launch on the Green River this spring. A place called "Desolation Canyon" should be a good stand-in.