I'm going to vent. But before I do, some disclaimers. We are empty-nesters, hubby and I. We make very little noise since no one is here to hear it. We go about our everyday chores and hobbies with an occasional crossing of paths, but really, he's retired, I'm not, so we are companionable in our separate paths for the most part. Also, you should know that I like this most of the time. I enjoy our solitude pockets. When we do sit down to a meal or to watch the television (even if I'm reading and he's watching basketball), we converse and make jokes intermittently.
But he has to have noise. Almost all the time. If he's working on a project, he has the radio on. If he's eating a meal, he has to have music on. He listens to the local news station as if his life depended upon hearing the same weather, traffic/transit (he isn't going to work, why does he care the traffic conditions?), and top stories every few minutes. I'm not here most of the time, so it doesn't matter, really. But this is his modus operandi at all times of the day. For some reason though, Saturdays are the worst. For the past bazillion years he turns on some station that plays weird music. Scat stuff or new wave cacophony. Saxophone symphonies. Clarinet and piano pieces that go all over the map. Sometimes I catch a melody from some old song, but most times it just goes on and on until suddenly it stops and something else comes on to mutate before our ears. Our routine on Saturdays is that we get up basically before 8:30 and I make eggs and Spam. As we eat, we look over the papers from the morning. But I have to say some Saturday mornings, it's all I can do to not stand up and throw his iPad through the window. He enjoys this noise I know. He looks forward to Saturday mornings with anticipation. Why don't you turn off your hearing aids, I hear you ask. Well, remember that conversation piece I told you about while watching TV? It's the same for reading the paper. We share snippets of things we saw of interest, or funny things we've read. I don't want to miss the conversation, which I would if the electronic ears were off. But I really hate this sound in the morning, mornings are when I am my most grumpy, uncommunicative and cranky. He doesn't understand some days when I go into the living room to sit in the blessed quiet while the radio continues to blather on and on. I have explained my annoyance with this radio station, but he likes it, you see. And well, we do live together and have for 35 or more years. He doesn't ask for much. He isn't a mean person or vindictive. It's a small price to pay once a week to be in his company with something he so obviously enjoys. And so here I am in the living room writing on the blog waiting for the crinkling of the newspaper to cease and the never-ending noise to stop as he realizes that I'm no longer sitting across from him. He'll go upstairs to get dressed and our routines will continue as they have for years. And its quiet now. Until the next time he turns on the radio.
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