Sound Effects

The frozen woods at night, add a little wind. Sometimes it sounds like conversation you can't quite understand. People talking in the distance. Guttural language, a coyote near by, two crows discussing why you haven't left any dead rodents on top of the outhouse in a while. Another grueling week and my feet hurt. Sanding, painting, hauling away debris. D put up the first pieces of cherry plywood in the back hallway and they look great. The bathroom guys (David, the father, two sons, Josh and Cody, and a family friend, Alfred) are at that awkward point in a job in a job where they have to wait for something to dry before they do the next thing. They have another job going, somewhere, and flit back and forth. After lunch yesterday I prepped the Richards Gallery for painting. D and I discussed various aspects of the projects going on. There are no drawn plans, so it's difficult to keep track of what's going on where. Pegi asked me to stay in town for another night as we were supposed to get an ice-storm last night and someone needed to be at the museum to let in the sub-contractors. We did get an ice-storm, though not as bad as expected, Pegi didn't make it in until noon; but D made it on time and we worked most of the day building a wall extension, adding furring strips, cutting and applying cherry panels, then considering the trim problems that we'd created. A student came in, she had been in one of the college tours of the Carters I did last year; Tiffany, and she was enthusiastic about the museum and the work going on. I would have shown her the new Carters and lapsed rhapsodic, but we were just installing a last couple of cherry panels and decent carpentry requires absolute attention. I was set to leave an hour early, but a board member came by, wanting to see what was going on, and wanted me to rebind her family bible; which, by circumstance, I can do. One thing and another: D gets called away, I get called away; leave a little early but still have to stop at Kroger. Carry a decent pack up the hill, not making a point, just trying to achieve the ridge; not even that difficult, really. I stop a few times and notice the differences, the way a rock might have moved, the way you follow a trail. Where B had mucked out the catchment there was a pile of leaves. More leaves than you've ever seen. Leaves several inches deep. Way beyond anything you might imagine. There were police cars pulling in from every direction. The first thing I planned was my escape route. I hate lights and sirens. They were at the wrong place. I fry potatoes and make a very nice omelet with mushrooms and cheese. Go to bed early. I'm very tired.