The Gift Of Time Is Priceless

This clock was a gift to volunteers at the hospital where the grand mamoo spends one day a week. I see it every time I use her bathroom.

I find it depressing, somehow, and we're locked in a struggle, this object and I, that I finally had to address. 

Although I understand its intended sentiment, in the home of my mother the clock seems to taunt me with the thought that the time I have with her is ticking down. That my own life is ticking down. When faced with this clock it's hard to maintain a purposeful state of enjoying the moments we have now as we're having them. 

Yes, it's important to consider the meaning of time, but dread won't help us move through the time we have with each other productively or happily.

You bug me, Clock.

I'm gonna stop using that bathroom.

++++++

Update:

After reading this post that nice boy called to make sure Mom was o.k. That's why he's known as that nice boy. Yes! Mom's great. She volunteers at the hospital and this was a gift to volunteers for their "gift of time".

When he and I were talking about the clock, mrguy overheard and asked "Are you talking about the clock in your mom's bathroom? I hate that thing! It's morbid! And it's loud. Tick! Tick! Tick! Your life is counting down." He hadn't even read the post yet :)

Update 2025 -- the gift of time is priceless but there can also be too much of it. We had another 13 years with my mom and I wish I hadn't worried so much...

A Saturday

It's been a while since we've had a restful Saturday. Last weekend was Maternal Tax Bunker 2012. The week before that we visited our beloved and very ill auntie. The week before that I was under the weather. Which brings us to today.

We had three entirely satisfying estate sales. 

Lunch in a log house. 

Bought a new traveling uke, with which to get the flock out of Dodge. 

Took a big power walk. 

The monthly auction catalog is online!

Soon I will punish my glutes and make my physical therapist happy.

Then to the kitchen to make some soup because I apparently didn't have enough at lunch.

The only speck in the frosting, so to speak, was an odd encounter with an old friend after which I have inferred that I am to be avoided. Message received.

And the sun just peeked out from the foreboding clouds :)

It seems like the only time I have time to write is when I'm sick. And here I am. There's a tummy bug going around work. The worst aspects left quickly, but then the bug stuck around in the form of tiredness and body aches.

I have slept for almost the entire day. My goal for the evening is to make some poi later. That sounds like something that would settle my stomach.

A440

I'm an archivist, but at times I'm also a facilities gal, too.

This is a pile of earplugs necessitated by the guys who are tiling around the front door of our space.

The only way to get out of the building and to the taco truck for lunch is through the back stairwell and through the bowels of the first floor (think of a more well-painted version of that early scene from Spinal Tap).

Meanwhile, our building engineer has the HVAC guys doing our regular service while he replaces lightbulbs in the suite.

The front door, propped open for the tile guys, is sounding an alarm whose pitch I identified as A440.

Annoying.