I’ve noticed that when I’m feeling overwhelmed with pressures or tasks, my peripheral observation skills seem to become more acute. This past week was finals again and more home remodeling and that nagging legal matter I’ve referred to without referring to and the result of being hyperfocused on so many things was that little snippets of sound kept popping up on the fringe of my consciousness.
Husband was channel surfing the other evening while I was studying and I heard an anchor on one of the entertainment news shows say, “Police were speaking with a former woman he lived with.” Okay, so that’s either a woman he lived with formerly or a woman he once lived with who’s no longer a woman. I knew what was meant but it drew my attention.
If I look at the TV while Husband is jetting through the channels it has a hypnotic effect until the waking-state rapid eye movement makes me feel like puking. I was about to leave the room when he landed on a different news channel talking about O.J.’s latest foray into public spectacle, the sports memorabilia theft that could actually send him to prison. O.J. Simpson is a good example of that famous quote about the first time being tragedy and the second time comedy. Who said that anyway? The next thing the newscaster said was, “So the prosecution has to decide about this piece of evidence; should it come into the trial or should it doesn’t?” Which was my exit line out of the room or I don’t know an exit line.
In between taking finals and having the driveway excavated, Husband and I had to decide on tile for the bathroom which is our contractor’s next project. Doing all this work on the house is huge for me because I hate the mess and the people tracking mess into the house and the mess they leave behind and I find it messy. Husband and I agreeing on home decorating choices is a different kind of mess so we strolled through Home Depot, where good times go to die.
Amazingly, we instantly chose the floor tile we both wanted, a great black and white pattern reminiscent of the subway bathrooms we’re all so terrified to go into and we joyously presented it to our contractor who shook his head no right away saying it would make the room look too small. We said to do it anyway and he said no. At least this time Husband heard it, too.
Son moved out of the house while we were on vacation in the Southwest and before we left I asked him to remember to take all the stuff he piled on the ping pong table in the basement when he came home from college four months ago. We returned to a silent house with Son gone and the driveway scheduled for demolition the next day. I walked through the rooms smiling at how neat Son had left things. Missing him already, I went down to the basement to see if he had indeed taken all of his belongings. I have to report that everything that was on the ping pong table was gone. So was the ping pong table.
Either you can’t believe your ears or you can’t believe your eyes. Daughter’s Featured Fotos from her birthright trip to Israel will leave you wondering.
popping out in tel aviv
climb out of there, will ya?
stone chair on the street
i see you