The Myth of Time

The photos pile up as do the books and magazines on the ottoman. There are dishes waiting to be done, waiting and waiting again. I walk across the living room floor and feel the grit of an unswept floor. Pilchard yells at me because, rightly, the litter boxes haven't been cleaned in 4 days. I look across the detritus of my life and think, "If only I had more time."

Time. Elusive. Fleeting. Never enough, especially when the great and exciting and the horrible and nasty events wander through our lives.

I've been feeling pulled in so many, many directions lately. Since February of 2013, my office has been working double time, triple time, in some cases. According to the boss, our office contributed 52% of total company revenues; 52%. I come home from a full day of work so very tired. With that weariness, the things which I enjoy doing get shunted aside. On the plus side, there's a lot of overtime which translates into a padding of the paycheck.

Add to this, the weather. The heavy rains had water seep into the basement. Step 1 is to wait for the rain to stop so the water stops coming in. Step 2 is to run a fan to dry the floor out. This whole month has been about survival. I knew I needed to clean the basement, sort and move things around so I can deal with the dying washing machine. But when the basement floor is wet, it's hard to clean. Finally, tonight, I was able to move everything that needed to be moved. Then the floor was swept and I'm ready.

Problem. The washer I want seems to be out of stock through the 7th. I have endured, thanks to Pam and Patt, without much in the way of washing clothes with my sorry machine. But, this is another week and I'm slowly running out of clothing. I suppose it's a fallacy to expect a reasonably priced washer to be in stock for next day delivery, but I'm going to the store after work tomorrow to see if my choice of machines, either #1 or #2, is available faster through the store. This is frustrating. It takes time to do all of this. It's more to do, on top of the things that I want or need to do.

I'm frustrated. I feel as if I'm spending way, way more time not getting things done. I feel as if I can't do things, like blogging, which are important to me, because there's too much other stuff going on. Mowing the lawn leads to trimming back the branches which have been bent by the wind and rain. It needs to quit raining so I can weed.

This is the mess in front of the air conditioner. I mow and I see this and I know it's not good for the unit to be so surrounded. It's like every weed seed in the ground germinated with the rains. I cleaned for an hour in the basement and then pulled weeds for an hour. This is as far as I got.

I need to spend more time; there's that word again; working through this mess to liberate the unit. I need to put down landscape fabric and cover it with rocks. That would effectively remove 90% of the weeds around the unit.

The cross-stitch isn't going to be done unless I can devote a full day to just stitching. Do I have the time to do that? I thoroughly cleaned the litter boxes and that area yesterday after mowing the lawn. Mowing is going faster now. I was able to mow the back, the side and half of the front before feeling tired. I did have to sit down with my feet up for an hour in order to finish the rest of the front. This is a victory. I'm looking toward the day this summer, when I can mow the whole lawn without stopping. I can feel this coming. It feels good.

But there are piles to go through and I just don't feel that I have time to devote to them. Clear away a block of time and something else pops up needing my attention. Overtime is coming, simply to get through all the reports I have stacking up. I'm on the road again tomorrow. There is a giant job looming. As much as my boss wants that job, the indecision of the general contractor and the confusion of the owner over what they actually want could mean we don't get any of it. I cannot say that I would be unhappy.

Friends have told me to let things go. It's terribly hard to do that. I am not, in any way, shape, or form, asking for you to pity me. I reiterate what I've said before with regards to pity. I don't have a use for it. I'm merely telling you how frustrated I am that all these things I find I cannot share because the muse parks herself over in a corner and refuses to play with me when I'm tired and I am so very, very tired.

I want to promise that I'll blog more but that would be a hollow promise. I can only promise that I'll turn up, every so often, to show you things I've found. I hope you'll check back every now and then. Maybe you'll find something interesting on these pages.

Beverage:  Dr Pepper

Deb

The Things I See

I get to go into a lot of spaces in my line of work. Some spaces take your breath away.

Sunrise while heading east to pick up equipment.

Some spaces reward you with a meal.

Some spaces allow you to see things in unexpected places. Such was the case on Wednesday.

If you could peel this off the surface where I saw it, it would probably be worth quite a bit. Otto Kerner, Jr, was Illinois governor from 1961 to 1968. I have no idea if time has weathered the bumper sticker or if it was printed like this. He has the dubious distinction of being the first of 4 Illinois governor to be convicted of fraud of some sort. He was not a sitting governor at the time of his trial and conviction.

I think this predates the bumper sticker, but maybe not by much. It's clear this hasn't worked in a very, very long time. It's just quite interesting that this location still has it. They also had a "friend" sitting next to it.

Oh my lord. Let's get out some James Taylor, Chicago or Little River Band should we? It's a Hotpoint brand avocado-colored top freezer refrigerator. I remember these. They were the middle of the line of fridges one could get. You don't hear much about the brand although it's still around. Thankfully, kitchens decorated solely in harvest gold, bittersweet or avocado are not. And don't get me started on those dangly ball-trim things you used to edge your kitchen curtains with. There are some things that shouldn't ever come back, ever.

Finally, this kind of made me sad. I'm reasonably sure it's a sundial. The dial portion is still there but the mechanism which would allow it to tell time appears to be gone. The location of this piece is adjacent to a huge public works highway project. I've thought about asking the owners of the building where it's located if they intend to fix it. Probably not. It's really not worth anything and people are not encouraged to be in this location as they might have been 20+ years ago. Plus, in this day and age, the only reason it's still standing is because it's cemented into the ground. If it was fixed would someone break off the time piece just because they can?

It does make me think about the sundial I have in my back yard. It's hidden behind overgrown brush. I should get it out and do something with it. And that leads to the idea that I need to haul the book "Time Lord" from the stash and read it. Sometimes I wonder exactly what time it would be if we'd never done time zones.

Beverage:  Water

Deb

I Can't Tell Time

I mentioned earlier this year that this clock had ceased to work and that I would need to replace the clockworks to get it running again. It has a distinctive "tick tock" to it which was was so used to that the only time I noticed it was when the power went out. "Ah yes. The clock still runs."

Well, that ceased. It was low on the list of things to do, to fix this. As a visual piece of art, it still had a place on my wall. A number of you probably have a clock inherited from some long departed family member, a clock that doesn't work and you're not sure how to make it work. An aside, the digitization of everything has left clock repair people in extremely short supply. Can you even train any place to fix grandfather clocks? How sad if you can't get great aunt Tillie's clock fixed. It becomes, like the one above, an art object.

In spite of knowing that it wasn't working, I would still consult it every day. It's right twice a day, even if the hands are frozen. So, imagine my surprise when, about mid-May, I was reading and heard the familiar "tick, tick, tick" of the clock. I looked at the clock and darned if the second hand was moving. I grabbed my phone and, wonder of wonders, the time was even correct.

I swear. Unless I'm sleep walking, and I've not been known to do that, I didn't do anything with the clock. Nothing. Not one thing. With a vacation upcoming, I decided fixing it would wait until I returned. The only thing I didn't like was that every other clock in the house is electrical, excepting my cell phone. If it's 12:35 a.m. and the power goes out, finding my cell phone at the bottom of my purse isn't a guarantee, either, and, knowing me, it's liable to be dead because I forgot to put it on charge. I have no clue what happened.

Since this time, it's stopped and started and stopped and started. The time on it is about 35 minutes later than real time. But it's working. I should replace the mechanics. Then I know it's keeping proper time, but being a half hour early for something isn't necessarily a bad thing. Perhaps I just like the reassuring "tick, tick, tick".

Beverage:  Water

Deb

Stuck in Time

I've had this clock for years, decades even. This was handmade by a guy who lived in my hometown. It was a Christmas present years ago to us from my parents.

I have it in the living room and, when the power goes out, I always know the time because it runs on a single AA battery. Two weeks ago, I came home from work and it was 2:25. Well, that wasn't right so I replaced the battery and fixed the time. Monday I came home and it was stopped at 1:55. I replaced the battery again, although I thought I'd put in a fresh battery, but you know how that goes, and fixed the time to what you see above. Nothing happened. The second hand didn't move. Now this battery I know is fresh because I got it at Christmas. So, I have to think something has broken within the clock mechanism itself.

There are some things you'll fix forever and this is one of them. I looked at the mechanism and I know I can get these at JoAnn or Michaels craft stores. I wonder how simple it would be to replace the mechanism. I need to go to JoAnn anyway if I'm going to make valentines for the valentine exchange. I can look at clock mechanisms at the same time. Has anyone ever replaced a mechanism? Is it easy to do? It seems kind of silly but I sort of feel lost without this clock keeping time in the living room.

Beverage:  Rooibos tea

Deb

Lost Time

I worked more on the cross-stitch last night.

There are probably a couple of days of work left.

I was sitting in the recliner with a cat in my lap stitching away and thinking, "Okay, so Thursday, I need to spend several hours stitching. Then, Friday, I can stitch later in the day after cleaning and it will be done. Then I can wash it and it will be dry overnight. It will be ready to be framed on Saturday and I can use the coupon. This will work."

Yes, this will work. That's good planning but there is one small detail. The coupon is good through December 1st. I get paid on November 30th. That's NOT this weekend. It was this morning when I realized I do not have to push myself to get this done other than wanting it done. I have another 9 days, really.

It's funny how time skews. Thanksgiving falls on the earliest possible day it can be this month. There is a full weekend after the holiday in order to finish things. This is good because I have an overseas package I need to prep for shipping next week, but it makes me think things are coming faster than they already are.

I have specific goals for this holiday weekend. Finishing this is one of those goals but I have the luxury of having 9 more days in which to finish the words. I'm actually planning on some small decorating this year, at least in my head, I think this will work. I can relax now and finish this without feeling like I'm under the gun.

Beverage:  Orange Pekoe tea

Deb

Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?

As I was walking to the book fair on the 9th, I saw this clock on a building at the corner of State and Jackson Streets.

 I hadn't noticed it before and I've lived in this area for almost 30 years. I'm pretty sure this is not a recent addition to the building. I can't see anyone putting up an analog clock nowadays. New clocks on buildings would have to be digital. Do young people even know how to tell time? Don't they whip out their phones and read the numbers?

There are other clocks at the other end of State Street that are quite famous. The former Marshall Field State Street flagship store has a clock on the northwest and southwest corners of the building. When I started making friends who lived in the city, it was common practice to say, "I'll meet you under the clock at State and Randolph."

 These public clocks were once very common throughout cities. Banks usually always had a clock as if banking made you the keeper of the time for the town. Even now, pretty much every bank sign gives you the time and the temperature as you drive by. We've come to expect that of our banking institutions. Don't we notice in April and October when the time changes and the bank doesn't get around to changing the time on their clock? Probably now, it's done automatically and is rarely incorrect, unlike my office computer which isn't usually right until a month after the time change.

I don't wear a watch anymore. I have several, including a very lovely one Carole gave me for Mother's Day several years go. The batteries have died in these and I don't really have an incentive to replace them. I am surrounded by the time. There are the little numbers at the lower right corner of my computer screen, the clock on the wall in the office above the microwave, which I can see from my desk and my cell phone. A watch is kind of redundant.

Yet, there is something quaint about a clock, an analog clock, mind you, on the corner of a building. It's a landmark. We will lean back in our chairs and talk of a "simpler time", when you paced your life by the clock on the corner of the bank. It wasn't really "simpler", just different. People using the above clock or the Marshall Field's clocks felt just as rushed as we do. They just didn't watch the time digitally.

I know, if you're a certain age, you've been singing that song.

As I was walking down the street one day
A man came up to me and asked me
What the time was
that was on my watch
Oh ye~~a~~h that day

Does anybody really know what time it is
Does anybody really care
If so I can't imagine why
We've all got time enough to cry

Beverage:  Edinburgh's Finest tea

Deb