Every bathroom should have one

Friday, 1:10 pm

By Kate

Feb

06

2009

First, turn down your speakers, then go take a gander at the fish-n-flush.This might be the one thing that the family who has everything doesn’t have. Don’t you just want one? No? Well, what’s wrong with ya?

The Road, finally

Thursday, 6:35 am

By Kate

Feb

05

2009

Last evening I scanned through my digital pile of books on my Kindle to see which one I might be in the mood to read. I was thinking along the lines of light-hearted, but somehow my finger clicked on Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. I took it to bed with me, thinking I might plow through one chapter before my eyelids drooped.

Well, not quite. After several chapters, I had to put it aside or I’d have read all night. What a magnificant book.

The Road is about the bleakest book I can remember reading. The story is bleak. The landscape is bleak. The colors are cold and bleak. But the language is oh-so-rich. He paints detailed pictures with words. And yet, the sentence structure is quite spare—except for the similes that pepper every page. One would think that might distract, but they are just so exquisite and they flow so naturally. It’s a work of art.

I have never read anything else by Cormac McCarthy, so I am unfamiliar with his style of writing. I wonder if the spare style in this book was intentional to mirror the bleakness of the story. If so, it works beautifully. It that is his usual style, well, it still works beautifully.

There is not a single word in the book, so far, that could be removed nor one that needs to be added. It is about as perfect as anything I have ever read. And I don’t recall having ever thought that about a book. I wish I’d tucked into it sooner. And yet, I’m in no rush to finish it. Savoring each page slowly is the only way to go.

Itty bitty things

Tuesday, 3:32 pm

By Kate

Feb

03

2009

It is...ahem...snowing out. But it’s pretty snow, not the “gonna bury you ha ha ha” kind. So it’s rather enjoyable looking out the window at the lazy flakes. And here you probably thought I’d never say a good word about snow again. But I’m in a great mood anyway because…

The UPS man visited me this morning and left a package on my doorstep. A tiny package even.

These are miniature iHome speakers, small enough to fit in the palm of my hand. Such winsome little things. They hook into my laptop with a USB cord to charge them and there is another cord to hook into the earphones jack. They’ll also fit into iPods and other audio devices (like my tiny television). While the sound isn’t as sumptuous as larger speakers, they produce a hearty and respectable sound. Considering their size, the sound is amazing.

When the lad left for school, he talked me into letting him take my desktop speakers. He had already absconded with my Bose speakers in August. And that left me with zero speakers. I’ll get my Bose speakers back eventually, but a little something would be nice NOW. So...here they are and I am so pleased with them. Not only decent sound, but they are tiny. I love tiny. They go with my house. When I’m finished using them, I can tuck them into the little drawstring bag that came with them.

Today my house is filled with tunes. Makes me want to do some waltzes with my broom. I suppose I should anyway. Everything (and anyone) works better with music.

Oh my

Sunday, 1:45 pm

By Kate

Feb

01

2009

So, I scanned the weather report a while ago. The computer models apparently have been all over the map for the past four days, which made forecasting the upcoming storm difficult. For a while, the Appalachian region was going to get walloped. Then the models started pushing the storm eastward out over the water. And then the two storm fronts that were supposed to merge down south somewhere got waylaid and will, apparently miss each other. One will skirt the coast and give us a little bit of snow. The other will sail out into ocean, gather strength, then come barreling up the coast—meeting a strong cold front. Now I’m beginning to hear words like bombogenesis and the biggest snow storm of the season. Maybe even 20 inches of snow.

Because weather forecasting is an inexact science, we’ll just have to wait to see what we get. I hope they’re wrong. Where would I put 20 inches of snow? WHERE?

But I’ll plan for the worst. That means....

Today I haul lots of wood in the house.
Anchor the tarps so they won’t blow away in the gale force winds.
Go to the grocery because I’m out of almost everything. Chocolate is on the list.
Anchor my snow shovel where it won’t get buried or blown away.
Make sure batteries are all recharged.
Cry a little bit.

Honestly.

Someday I will talk about something besides the weather. But it has been an undeniably intrusive factor in my life lately. It rules everything. I loathe snow. It used to be fun when I didn’t have to shovel the wretched stuff. Now it seems like that’s all I do. Shovel. Chip ice. Shovel. Shovel some more. Chip ice. More ice. Shovel. Etc. Only about 58 more days of this to look forward to.