Arise, ArtisansEarlier this evening, my brother phoned with harrowing news. We traded voices in low confidence, set about in quiet spaces. This was all thrown apart by the kitchen timer which perches on my refrigerator, waking up and shrieking at us. I apologized for that; I had to pull the pizza out of the oven. He laughed: "every time I call you you're making pizza!" As of late, this is nearly correct.
I've been practicing.
For a few years now, I've been having some trouble getting up in the mornings. It was pointed out to me that one useful way to pull oneself into the day is to set the radio to our classical music station here in town and let it spring to life at whatever doomed hour is appropriate. I have had mixed luck with this. It used to be that the radio station in question was well aware that this technique was in use with listeners, an offered programming to match that goal during those hours. These days, they seem to have backed off a bit. While I often get woken up to some usefully thumpy thing, some days bring less effective pieces. They've been somewhat fond of the Festival At Baghdad bit from Korsakov's Scheherazade, and while this does a tremendous job of waking me up, it also keeps me still in warm wonder for the entire thing, waiting for that long, long note.
Add to this that the venerable clock component of my clock radio is showing both age and weariness from the daily ham fisted morning battle with the snooze button, and seems to no longer be fully reliable in the thin light of the morning. Not to mention arbitrarily turning on the radio in the middle of the day, giving me the curious experience of coming home to a house just left by a mysterious interloper with reasonable taste and an occasional penchant for the traffic report.
A newer, better alarm clock bears investigation. In the meantime, I suppose I should see about prising open the old one and peering in to see if there's anything fixable in there. I do not necessarily expect success, but it should be fun. There seems to have been need for much tinkering, as of late.
Sleep well. But not too well.
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