Settling Blues

I’m not sleeping very well at the new abode yet, it’s much too quiet. After the planes and trains have been put to bed there’s a complete vacancy of sound other than the previously mentioned exhaust duct. The growl of traffic spiced with the wail of sirens and the odd fusillade of gun shots have become like the beat of a mothers heart to me, a lullaby gently caressing away the anguish of consciousness. Had I realised what a habit I have I would have made a recording. I wonder if there are any commercially available out there? Must make a point to Google, hmmm “sounds of mayhem”, “audible chaos” something like that. The exhaust duct is too random to be of much help. After rain I can hear a sound like a drip on a kettle drum and the other night lying awake it began to go “pop-pop-pop” to which I tried to count as sheep as the pauses started to stretch ”pop-pop--pop---pop” until a very large pause was followed by a popping impersonation of Boris Karloff entering the room not even attempting to act sheepish.

Aside from this I’m settling in quite well. My neighbours all seem young though on reflection I suppose I could just as easily say I’m the only old fart. Noise doesn’t seem to be a problem. I can’t hear theirs or mine though that may be explained in terms of the historical family tendency towards deafness. Just kidding, I think. The east facing windows on my living areas including kitchen and bathroom provide me with a cheerful morning vista and the light coming through the ruby glass in the bathroom and cutting across the toilet pan turns my morning stream into a gay sparkling red streamer. I guess the only thing I miss apart from urban roar, and surely I’ll get use to that is the lack of an outside dimension. The block itself is surrounded by regularly mown and healthy Buffalo and the only tree hangs over the fence from the neighbours (fortunately outside my bedroom window) not very conducive to hanging around in unless a gang came to play cricket or touch. There’s a hills hoist but how long can you hang around one of them unless you’re a sheet He! He!

Glad to have all that searching and moving stuff behind me now, there for a while I was glad to get back to work and relax which, as we all know, is wrong. Work which makes no effort to hide its’ glee at the demise of their only local competitor, has signs welcoming new trade customers and a knee jerk new opening time of 6;30 AM one week before the end of daylight saving. Work which on Easter Saturday had one of the younger co-ordinators dressed in a bunny suit trying to embrace, no not embarrass, the big boss (who bears a remarkable resemblance to Elmer Fudd), only to have him take up a fighters stance and offer punches. What example does this set you have to ask, the poor guy is his bunny after all as are we all I would say. What do I care as it only goes to lower the bar under which I would have to slip in order to loose my job.

I was certainly glad to be up for work at 6:30 this Saturday morning when the next door neighbour’s burglar alarm went off at 6:45 followed by the Rail Corp. jackhammers at 7:10. The neighbours whose home is only marginally smaller than our nine unit block found it necessary to build themselves a – cabana - I suppose, twice the size of my flat, in their ample back yard and still there’s no one there when the alarms sound. A state that has me reflecting on the recent stock market crisis which has clawed its way up from the sub prime retail white trash end of the market place to the dizzying heights of the Opes prime upper end where James Packer and who would have thought Chris Murphy reside. Good old market forces working there hardest to rectify the gap between rich and poor. Got’ta love em.