Sunday, with the budgies chirping...
Apr. 6th, 2008 02:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
First thing I remember this morning was hearing the birds start to sing when the sun came up. No one had covered the budgie cage last night, and I hadn't the energy to cross the living room to do it - I'm still sleeping on the sofa in the living room to coddle my broken foot, but crossing the room with my walker is an energetic and time-consuming project. So I just left the birds uncovered.
There was something out of doors chirping, a long, single drawn-out chirp that I haven't heard since last summer. Pretty. Then I realized that my budgies were trying to reply to that chirp, trying to respond with the same sound. It isn't in the least like a normal budgie chirp (if any budgie sound can be said to be 'normal') but I loved the way they were trying to say 'good morning' to our feathered neighbour.
Then at seven a.m. my alarm clock went off. Remember how I begged
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I got my walker and hiked slowly into the bedroom to see if I could reach it to turn it off. Not a chance. I couldn't get within eight feet of it - it's on the other side of the queen-size bed.
I could tolerate two hours of CBC morning radio, no problem. This beep? Not a chance. So I phoned
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"Help!" I screamed. "My sanity is at stake! You have to rescue me!"
So at 7 a.m. on a Sunday,
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Eep.
The device is the creation of some evil mastermind.
Luckily,
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Date: 2008-04-06 07:30 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2008-04-06 08:52 pm (UTC)I've had that happen - though not with this particular alarm. But it's startling, that "what is that?" moment when you hear a voice or music where you don't expect to find a voice or music.
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Date: 2008-04-06 08:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-06 08:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-06 08:04 pm (UTC)Do you have crutches as well as a walker?
Anyway, look on the bright side - now that you're home you can put your foot up and watch lots of Buffy. (That's usually what I do when I'm stuck being ill but not in bed).
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Date: 2008-04-06 08:55 pm (UTC)She certainly does. I must think of something really special for her. I can't think what would be special enough.
Do you have crutches as well as a walker?
No, at present just a walker. I think the instability of crutches right now would be sort of scary, though I might like their handiness later. It's a rental so I can adjust as necessary.
now that you're home you can put your foot up and watch lots of Buffy.
And I no doubt will! First have to find a way to stay awake for a few hours at a time.
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Date: 2008-04-06 11:08 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2008-04-06 11:21 pm (UTC)Indeed, you have brave and noble friends on hand.
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Date: 2008-04-07 03:18 am (UTC)That would be way too benign. We'll see what it decides to do to me tomorrow at 7 a.m. - before I pound it into dust with the sledgehammer I do not have.
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Date: 2008-04-07 03:57 am (UTC)Me: twice.
The first was my own fault. Well, also my fault that I'd broken my current alarm clock by kneeling on it (silly story, too bad I don't have the time!) and utterly had to get another one or else I would not wake up for work the next day. And it was December. And I work for the post office. Calling off or being late were not options. However, because it was indeed December, the local K-Mart was open 24 hours a day, and so off I went. They had exactly one style of alarm clock -- and it was a plug-in model. At the time, I lived in a very small town with intermittent and unpredictable electricity outages (usually only a few seconds long, but enough to reset one's VCR, microwave oven, and other electrical clocks). Thus, I'd had a battery-operated clock (till I knelt on it... silly story, no time right now to tell it). Reluctantly I took this clock home. Then I found that it had a battery inside, too, and I was pleased -- aha, if the power goes out, I'm still safe! (All the same, note to self: find another battery clock, fast.) So I sighed in relief and went to that exhausted place of sleep that only December-overtime-saturated postal workers (and new parents, and nurses on 12-hour shifts for weeks at a time) can experience. And the alarm got me awake at the proper time. And then I realized that it didn't have any kind of shut-off that I could find. Crap, forgot to add that it had two alarm settings, and that I'd set both of them, the second for one hour later, so that I could catch one last nap -- extended "snooze," if you will. However, when I was wakened, I found that I could not turn the first one off to get to the second one. Went nuts looking through the manual. Nothing. Made in China, btw (surprise). So I unplugged it.
At the time of the second alarm, I was called back into the bedroom. Hey, remember that battery?
And then I couldn't turn off the second one, either.
I took out the battery.
And, later, put it back in. At which point (a few hours later) the alarms went off again, on schedule.
The clock made a satisfying thump at the bottom of the dumpster, I'll have you know.
But the favorite one of these infernal items I have known is one that is identical to the one I now use, and which serves me faithfully indeed. I got it to carry with me in case I ever had three hours between classes and work, when I could find a spot and nap in my car. Alas, the clock got damaged in the bottom of my backpack through the months, and would not work right. Basically, when you turned it to "no alarm," the alarm would still go off. Even after I brought it back inside the house and looked it over and took things apart and put them back together, and thought it was fine, it kept doing this. So I disgustedly put it into my bathroom cabinet's top drawer... wheere it then rang the next day.
Add to this, without glasses on and barely awake, I could not pry the battery out of it! I had to go grab the tool that I'd been using to open paint cans, for some handywork projects. After that, this clock too made a satisfying thump in my wastebasket... and I still have the battery, in my bathroom cabinet; after all, the battery was still good, huh?
Sorry. Took too long. Next time I'll be succinct, I promise!
Lovely tale of the early-day budgie song-communion. Very sweet. What an amazing thing to have been able to witness.
(Your budgies may have seen you fall, do you realize? Do you think they noticed, or no?)
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Date: 2008-04-07 07:06 pm (UTC)And just look at how tiny their ankles are - !
I'm listening to "The Glue" (http://www.myspace.com/thegluespace) on their myspace page and the budgies love it. Chirping very happily and loudly.
Loved your alarm clock stories. I think a lot of alarm clocks must suffer similar fates.... And they think they're only doing their job!
I wonder if Russell T. Davies has ever considered a Doctor Who story in which the evil alien invaders were alarm clocks.
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Date: 2008-04-07 05:07 am (UTC)Hang in there, kiddo, and, boy, am I glad you've got Nobel-deserving local friends. That sort of folks are worth their weight in platinum.
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Date: 2008-04-07 07:07 pm (UTC)Oh dear - that sounds like something better forgotten, I'd say! How much I will remember of this week in six months, I'm not sure. Sleeping, sleeping, and then sleeping some more.
Yup, my friends have been magnificent.
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Date: 2008-04-07 11:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-07 07:08 pm (UTC)Yes, I am feeling very, very grateful for my wonderful friends right now. I don't know what I'd do without them.
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Date: 2008-04-07 11:52 am (UTC)PS:I'm reading now "Disorderly Knights" - do you remember Dragut? He was born in Turkey in Turgutreis next to Bodrum. I was in Turgutreis about 15 years ago and I wondered at the name of the small city.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turgut_Reis
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Date: 2008-04-07 07:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-07 02:38 pm (UTC)Glad you have such great friends!! :-D
By the way, did you get the email I sent yesterday? I sent it to fajrdrako@livejournal.com, but I could have (should have?) looked up the address you use on the LMB list, probably. I sent you a small .jpg file. Nothing special. Let me know if you didn't get anything and I'll look up your email address and send it again!
Hope you're feeling good and relaxed at home with plenty of painkillers and fun stuff to watch on TV!!
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Date: 2008-04-08 06:51 pm (UTC)Definitely relaxed - if I stop talking or moving, I fall asleep.
Plenty of painkillers - yes. Lots and lots.
Stuff to watch on TV - yes, I just have to stay awake long enough to watch it!
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Date: 2008-04-08 03:44 am (UTC)Glad you're home and in one piece with all bones correctly aligned.
And remember... painkillers are your friend.
*snuggles*
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Date: 2008-04-08 04:54 am (UTC)Big grin - so true!
And today, blessedly, nothing beeped or rang or spoke at 7 a.m. I was already awake anyway, but aah, the peace!