Rudder and I spent the five nights of our Thanksgiving break sleeping in a
(mercifully comfortable) sofabed, on the fifth floor of a corner building, where
sirens spin by from the nearby police and fire stations, cars drive by at all
hours, and people walk by and sometimes yell to each other on the street below.
(We also slept on pillows with a strong resemblance to
griddle cakes. I know what my uncle is getting for his next birthday.)
During the day, we pushed through crowds at museums,
spoke loudly so we could hear each other in crowded restaurants, and tried to find
enough quiet in our heads to properly appreciate monuments and a
cathedral.
When we got back, the first thing we noticed was the
quiet. There is a small airport nearly next door, but it's not all that busy even
during the day and hardly anyone lands there at night. We're toward the back of a
quiet subdivision that backs onto fields and an Indian reservation. When the
lights and fans are off, the only thing we hear at night is the ever-present 60-
cycle hum all modern buildings have, and an occasional car on the street out
front. There is an easement in back of us, so the houses and streets behind us are
a good bit away. A couple of times the power has gone off and even the normal hum
has gone quiet, leaving the house in an uncanny silence.
It's not at
all fancy; though we have some good wood pieces, most of the house is not so much
decorated as furnished, and the condition of the upholstered furniture makes it
clear that our cats are not declawed. The place is big -- 5 bedrooms for the two
of us. There's always somewhere else to go if you don't like where you are, always
a free room. It's very restful.
Or at least, it would be, if I got to
spend any waking time there.