Nocturne

It's late . . . but that's nothing new. I get home from work late: late at night, later than I planned, etc. I come in the door knowing that Grandma is already sleeping and chuckling to myself over her last suggestion before I left for work (an "unexpected shift"; yes, the quotation marks belong around both words)--she told me that I should just change into my pj's so that I could just fall into bed when I got back home. Was she ever right! About how late I'd get home, that is. I'm still glad that I chose not to wear the pj's to work tonight.

She says she doesn't hear anything much after her door is shut. And I do know how this house muffles things, but I wonder how much she really can hear. Am I waking her up by opening the pantry door (the closest door to her bedroom)? It clicks so loudly in the stillness of the house as it opens and shuts. I'm craving something starchy. Chips and salsa fit the bill. I stealthily open the pantry door. Click of the handle. I grab the bag of chips. Crinkle. Crinkle. I shut the door. CLICK. At least the refrigerator door is quieter as I get out the salsa, but there's still the small thud+suction sound the door makes (would that sound be called "thuction"?). A cuboard opening for the bowl to put my snack in. thung! Clickch! Another cupboard opening for a pitcher to put some milk into. thung! Clickch! Refrigerator door again. thuction? Jar lids being opened, sounds of pouring--ahhh! much quieter. Now to open the bag of chips. There is nothing stealthy about a bag of chips. There is not chip bag material known to man that allows for stealth. I'm convinced there was one once: I think that it was banished after complaints from parents who couldn't tell that their kids were sneaking unlawful snacks before dinner. They lobbied for chip bags to be made out of crinchy material rather than quiet and supple material. Now as for the reason that said chip bags cannot keep chips from getting stale as well as Ziploc bags can? That's another story. But these chips are stale. I knew they would be. But they're starchy. And Great-Uncle Carl's salsa can cover staleness quite handily! Besides . . . stale chips are quieter =) But the chips bag was not: crinch. crinch-crinch. crinkle-crinkle-crinkle. Cronch. strunch. Scronch-Scronch-Scronch. crinch-crinch-crinch. crinch. I poured out the rest into Ziploc for the sake of getting rid of the bag. So now I'm keeping stale chips fresh? Yeah, something like that.

What is it about night that makes all sounds clearer? As though the sounds are distilled and separated and displayed one-by-one in a shop window? I've always found that aspect of night fascinating. And amusing tonight. Especially when I re-open the door to put away the rest of the chips.

Did I say rest? I think it's time to get some rest myself =)

Funny

1. When I searched for a poem today that I had published in an earlier blog but couldn't go to at the moment on my own blog, one of the first sites that came up with the poem was my own blog!!! So wierd =) and cool.

2. I had my taxes done professionally this year. I had a coupon but thought that it was only for easy tax situations (mine is not "easy"--two states to file in, plus filing for my own business does not qualify as "easy"). So I hoped that it would at least get me a percentage off of my charges. It did--the whole coupon applied for me! I paid just what the coupon said!!! and only that =)

3. The weather decided it wanted to be nice today. I drove part of the way home with my window down listening to the frogs croaking along the River.

4. Grandma locked me out of the house. She thought I was home when she got home from church because my car was in the drive, so she locked the deadbolt when she got in. Then she saw my note telling her that I was at a house down the street. But she forgot to unlock the deadbolt. I couldn't figure out what was wrong when my key in the door failed to turn the handle. She had to come rescue me. =)

Tired

It hits you in between the eyes in the middle of the day. Or it suddenly throws your mouth wide open before you can stop the urge to show the people around you a glimpse of the Grand Canyon for free. It makes you do dumb things like leaving the ends off of your words or forgetting what you came into the room to do in the first place.

It's called "being tired."

And it usually hits you when you can't stop. If your bed were handy, you could fall right into it and go to sleep, but it's not and you can't.

Silly thing is that it makes going to bed at night harder. Here I sit, knowing I ought to be in bed. But my body is moving slowly, and my brain keeps losing its train of thought. Bother! And then I start checking e-mails and catching up with friends and forget that I was supposed to be checking my bank account online! Bother!

I couldn't help but laugh when, as I re-read a C. S. Lewis book recently (The Silver Chair), I saw myself in one of the main characters:

"It is a very funny thing that the sleepier you are, the longer you take about getting to bed; especially if you are lucky enough to have a fire in your room. Jill felt she couldn't even start undressing unless she sat down in front of the fire for a bit first. And once she had sat down, she didn't want to get up again. She had already said to herself about five times, 'I must go to bed,' when she was startled by a tap on the window."

So, here I sit in a cold basement, finding things to do before going to bed. I'd REALLY be in trouble if I were "lucky enough to have a fire" in my room! Actually, with all the papers lying around waiting to be dealt with, I wouldn't dare light it!

I think it's time to go to bed =)