Free!!! Free to free flow.
This morning I heard the heater go on. We've had it on for a while now, but the house is usually too loud for me to hear the click and whir of its mechanics. The sound took me so far back into the deployment that I was almost disoriented.
My life is nothing like it was. I'd completely forgotten how isolated I was last winter. I knew that I would miss the quiet and I do. Only on the dreariest, saddest evenings would I sit upstairs in front of the large TV. Now we practically live there.
I haven't been to the library for weeks and weeks now. Granted, I haven't finished "War and Peace," but I wasn't really expecting to. About that, I was expecting doom and gloom in that book, instead I found an incredibly detailed description of the social mores of the Russian upper class during that time period. I mean detailed to the point of making note of how an eye brow was raised and then someone else said something in a particular tone of voice and then twisted his body to the left and then someone else smirked.
I did finish "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer." I was just curious and nostalgic for a simpler America. It was like reading in sepia tones and it was incredibly off putting to hear the word "nigger" used so casually all the way through the book. It helped put into place all this talk of racism in the political world of late; America has come a long, long way.
But back to the TV: my god, I watch way, way too much. Cable TV is like having a bottomless box of cheap chocolates by the side of the bed. One doesn't want to eat them, knows it will make one sick and yet cannot resist because it is endlessly available. It is much worse because we have a TV in the bedroom and both living areas.
Keith had one of his crew come over to help with a repair on the house. They worked on that all day; it was a bright, cool day and their equipment was all over the yard. There were coiled extension cords, pliers, end bits of boards and over all, the fallen yellow leaves.
Later on that evening, a couple we've been riding with a couple times dropped by. We were suddenly a party, sitting around a football game on a chilly fall evening. The candles were lit and gave the whole room a nice glow.
I don't know how it came up, but Keith's friend Rob mentioned that his wife's pillow was softer than his. Keith exploded beside me, he flung his arms out in exclamation and then leaned forward, roaring on about how thank god someone else could confirm this very important fact: that the women's pillows were indeed softer and therefore greatly to be coveted. Laughter rocked the household as the men expressed their delight in knowing they were not alone in this particular issue.
"Why is this?" my husband demanded. "Why are their pillows always so much better?"
We women were having a side conversation of our own.
"I just end up giving it to him, it's easier that way," she said.
"I don't," I said, stubborn. "That's my damn pillow, that's the pillow I brought with me all the way from New Hampshire. He's not getting my pillow."
He has tried; we had about an hour long wrestling session over said pillow. I may or may not have been knocked out of the bed, but in the end, I retained my rightful property, and my pride.
Shortly after the pillow discovery, the men bounded outside in order to do something unintelligible. Mere seconds later the football game gave way to HGTV's "Color Splash" and we women were comfortably talking about how our men were getting on our last nerve.
"We just spent the last four days arguing," my guest said calmly. She's always calm.
"Us too," I said. "And over the stupidest things. I don't know what the army's thinking, keeping people apart for a whole year and then throwing them together with nothing to do for a month."
We watched the program long enough to critic the end result of the show (too much stripes, uncomfortable looking dog bed...) and then went out to see what the men were up too.
Spot lighted in the glow of the open garage, our men were leaping like baboons on and off the trailer and running at and then over the fence all the while whooping and hollering. Seriously. We watched as one guy tore a fence post loose with his bare hands while another one popped up on the other side of the fence triumphant, lost basketball in hand.
Apparently this is how soldiers in the United States Army play "Around the World." It's not surprising Keith has gone through a number of basketballs in his day.
The couple went home, but the original soldier stayed the night. Keith and he were up until the early morning hours. I came out of the bedroom once to hear Keith talking about the jug of Irish whiskey that has remained untouched on the counter since his return, as the stuff is about a hundred dollars worth of pure burn.
"Honey, are you really getting into that stuff?" I called down from the stair landing.
"Busted," I heard Keith say quietly, with a certain amount of amused resignation.
The soldier did take a shot of the stuff and declared it to be excellent. As he is, in his own words, of pure Irish/Scot stock, I trust his judgement.
Not at all coincidentally, the next morning both of them teetered down the stairs around ten am looking like escapees from a nursing home, in order to fall into the welcoming embrace of the leather sofas and hold their heads. They were fed cheesy eggs and toast, coffee and SunnyD and recovered.
One more day and then Keith and I are heading up to Minnesota for my brother's wedding; over sixteen hours in the truck together.
"It's going to be a fun ride," Keith said to me earlier today, with a Cheshire Cat grin.
I'm sure it will be.
