You know those moments when you're expecting an important call, one you really don't want to miss, and when the phone finally rings you're, er, indisposed so that to answer it you come leaping wildly out of the bathroom like you've just been set on fire, partially clad and tripping over half-on pants legs but somehow managing to stay upright and heading in the right direction, and the answering machine picks up so that someone is already leaving a message that you can't hear 'cause you've got a Dandy Warhols CD playing at top volume in the living room, and when you grab the phone you're yelping, "Hold on! Hold on!" as you stagger desperately into the other room to turn the music down, holding phone to ear with one hand and pulling clothes on with the other?
You know those moments? There's nothing quite like 'em, is there?
*************
In slightly more than two weeks I'm out of here, heading back to Spain by way of Eastern Massachusetts. My teeny little brain must have grasped the reality of this impending shift because daily activity has recently become increasingly oriented around prep. And so far so good -- things that need to get done are getting done with a minimum of fuss. Which is what happens when I don't nag or pressure my humble self, doing things, instead, when the impulse to do them comes up. Makes me feel so grown-up and high-functioning.
On the other hand, days like today -- a spectacular Indian-summer style crowd-pleaser -- tempt the part of me that would love to lounge about outside reading and eating bonbons. For some reason, though, that part of me hasn't had much sway over my existence this summer. I've leaned more toward the human doing thing, Descarte winning out over Sartre time after time. (Do be do be do.) I did attempt some mid-afternoon lounging today, tossing myself into an Adirondack chair, pulling open a copy of a recent New Yorker. That lasted a good three minutes, until one of the local woodpeckers appeared, showing far too much interest in the house's eave-ends, the kind of interest that has already, over the last year or two, left a few exploratory holes.
Part of the problem is that the more popular of my two birdfeeders hangs outside the dining room window, right below some likely eave-ends. The local cold season being what it is (long)(freakin' cold), woodpeckers have become regulars at the feeders, just like the rest of the feathered locals, spending enough time here that weathered spots on an eave-end attract attention the way any weathered wood might (given that weathered wood suggests, to your standard woodpecker, a potential bug haven). Addressing this, repairing the damaged sections of eave-end, is one of the two major household tasks I managed to avoid this summer. And for that reason I found myself up on an extension ladder yesterday, nailing pieces of plywood over the problem areas to hold them until next warm season while warding off wascally woodpeckers.
So far no one I've mentioned this to has ever heard of woodpeckers going after a house before. I must be even more special than I'd previously thought.
Be interesting to see how my interim measure does over the winter months. Next summer I'll get serious.
Bet that'll be fun.
******************
Further overdoing of the 'autumn in New England' thing --
Columbus Day weekend, East Montpelier, VT:
Madrid, te echo de menos.
rws 1:56 PM [+]
Comments:
Post a Comment