Ten-Finger Exercises

noise and tears

It' Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and we have a holiday from work.
That's a benefit of working for the government (Bill, even though it's just the county) and for a low paying non-profit: at least you get all the extra days off. I do love sleeping in late.

Bill already had the big screen on. He went through his DVDs yesterday and saw that he had two Apollo 13's, one in high def. So, from the bedroom, I could hear the sound booming. (Bill is a little deaf, plus he likes things much louder than I do anyway.)

As I was getting dressed, it laughingly occurred to me: by the time he retires, I'll either have to go deaf too, or we'll have to move to a house with a family room, or we'll have to get the basement remodeled. I guess the last one is the best. Maybe I should start working on that project today to get out of the sound blast. :)

(If you come across any words you can't read, my laptop is having a problem, first with the letter 'd', now with 's' as well.)

Then I thought about Lola, who was plaguing me to throw her squeaky toy, and who has been a pest for days. I've got to get her to the dog park today, regardless of the weather. She needs the running and the social contact as well.

Maybe that's part of Bill's problem too. We went to a neighbor's house for dinner last night for them to show us their pictures from a trip to Italy they took. Another couple was there who had taken the same trip at a later date. Bill had never met them, and I knew only the man, an Adventist pastor I met when he came to the hospital to visit patients and played the violin for them.

Despite the vegan dinner, which was a big change for us, we had a good time. Ralph did an excellent job on the slides, and skipped over the peculiar name of the tour with a probably embarrassed disclaimer. I'm not sure what the implications of it were, but the church sponsored tour covered Rome and famous Reformation sites. The hostess, unwittingly, made some mention of the conquest of evil, by which she meant the Catholic Church, I'm sure. I don't think Bill noticed.

He did talk a lot though, about our trip to England, his family tree, and assorted other topics that didn't quite fit the rest of the conversation. In fact, if we'd been drinking, I would have blamed the alcohol for his garrulousness. But what I'm thinking now is, like Lola, he needs more social activity.

So, after this bunch of thoughts, I came in with my coffee and started to watch Apollo 13, giving up on writing because of the constant attention of the dog flopping her squeaky on the keyboard to get me to play. (That's probably why the keys aren't working quite right, although she usually approaches me from the right side rather than the 's' and 'd' side.)

And suddenly I was crying. The Apollo had its explosion that changed everything, diverting its course to the moon, and threatening the crew's survival. I've seen it at least twice before, and I know what happened, so why was I crying?

I've found myself getting teary about odd things a lot recently. Can't think of any examples at present, and they all were brief. This time, though, I was just sitting here, crying.

I imagine it's about Lenore, and the way her life has been changed. I haven't cried much about her recently, have been trying to stay single-mindedly positive; and when friends ask how I'm doing, I've said that I just don't think about it much. But it's there, lurking, and it came out this morning. And I'm reminding myself that the crew of Apollo 13 survived, even though they didn't make it to the moon. I don't think she wants to go there anyway.