Ahhh, it’s lovely to have fresh air and NO AIR CONDITIONER running!
It’s been a long hot summer, and it’s taken its toll on me. At first I bravely soldiered on and tried mind over matter attitudes. But one can only do that for so long. The mind says eventually, “Who are you trying to fool, you idiot?”
One thing that drives me wild is the noise of the AC in our unit, it’s small and works well enough. But what a racket, just to move the air around a little!!! It’s not the compressor that is making that din, it’s the fan. And we never have it on anything but LOW!
Okay, so scientists can land a rocket ship on the moon and probes on Mars and light years into space, but we can’t produce quiet window units for air conditioning? When one thing is loud other things have to be louder to compensate, thus Buck Martinez is shouting at me from the living room for hours while my guy watches baseball. I think sports announcers should have to pass voice modulation courses before they are hired. I don’t care how much they know about the subject. At least Buck should have to! Now Alex Trebek, no problem.
So I’ve actually stuck in my earplugs in the daytime a few times just to turn off that constant onslaught of noise. Oh, that’s another thing. A hot water pump in our end of the building is humming so loudly this summer that my Korg tuner registers it. It’s a B Flat, apparently. For the uninitiated, a tuner is built to react to a musical instrument playing at it, and its dial tells you if you’re flat or sharp, while it also tells you the pitch you are playing. So a flute, a violin, oboe, trumpet etc would make the tuner respond. Hmm, how strange there is enough damn sound in my wall to light it up. Hence, earplugs to be able to sleep. The Hearo brand, to be specific.
So while I love this weather, and am so glad the living room is back to normal Buck Martinez levels I’m still bombarded by a constant B Flat coming out of the wall.
Oh well, when the boilers get turned on in October this particular pump gets turned off for the winter. Another great day to look forward to. AAhh, that will be SO lovely!!
(Watercolour painting above was done sitting in the quiet woods, circa 1975 by Yours Truly)
Eleanor Lawrie, Author 