Town day yesterday. Time to refill the larder, empty the recycling bin and pick up parts. Usually we do this every three weeks – give or take a day – but this time it is a ‘top up’ and a ‘drop off’ in advance of soon-arriving guests. Got a bunch coming. So, we’ll be back in town again in a week with the larder depleted early to stock up for the next batch due soon after.
Summer is busy.
Generally speaking, I don’t mind town days. Well, I hate ’em actually, but I can usually find something to interest me even if it is only a tool purchase or lunch at the little Syrian restaurant on the hill (Damn, their food is good! Visit Baba Ganoush at Meercroft Village if you get the chance).
I can ‘tolerate’ a town day as a rule. It is lengthy. It is routine. And it is boring and </b>necessary. Haven’t figured out an alternative to it yet.
We gotta take the ferry and it is a logistical challenge to get everything done and get back in a reasonable time. We never do succeed so that is what makes it the challenge. Leave at 8 or 9 and arrive back and settled in by 7 or 8 on a good day. Exhausted.
Yesterday was particularly irritating. For me. It was really noisy!
I know what you are thinking, ‘Poor baby!’ and you’d be right. I am just getting sensitive to noise-in-a-busy-place. I never used to be. The noise level was not really extraordinary by any usual standard, certainly not by Vancouver standards. But it seemed like a lot.
Seemed like a lotta Harleys gurgling and puking rapidly down the street, seemed like quite a few ‘hot cars’ with glass-packed mufflers, seemed like a lot of big machines chewing up streets and it seemed like a lot of machine noise everywhere I went from the big pump-truck at the gas station roaring full tilt to the too-frequently used PA system at Home Depot. Even the damn ferry roared and shook and broadcast stupid messages. It was an assault. It was horrible. And I wished I had ear protectors.
Is that a sign of aging or what!?
The reality of it is this: I am now much more accustomed to hearing the breeze through the trees and the wash of the seas on the beach. That background noise is accented by the occasional buzz of insects and the daily arrival of the Raven’s wings settling him onto his feeding platform. I get the nattering of the squirrels and the too few ‘pffts’ of sea mammals going by. And I get Sally’s sweet voice now and then asking if I want tea. Really, it is a sonata in Read minor compared to even Quadra. By the time I get to the city or the mini metropolis of Vancouver, it begins to sound like working in a factory punctuated by terrorist attacks.
I am no longer suited.
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