SILENCE!

It's been almost three months since we moved closer to DC. On my second week at this house I had this wonderful dream that we moved to a Penguin Colony. I would walk out to the woods, and there were Penguins coming up from the ocean and walking through the woods. I was in heaven just watching them right outside my backdoor. When I woke up I had a huge smile on my face and proceeded to tell my husband about my dream. His reaction was "ok, that's stupid! How can we have any Penguins in our backyard if they've been eaten by the snakes in the swamp?!" If we ever have kids, I think I need to start on a therapy fund for them.

So feeling rather sad about the loss of the Penguins, I told my mom about my dream. My dad's response was "you're the only person I know on earth who lives in a Penguin colony!" Within a couple of days, he sent me the new drawing above. His interpretation of where I live now.

I may live near DC but I can still dream of other places of wonder.

A month after we moved I caught a serious flu and stayed home all day. As I was recuperating, it happened to be the two very warm days outside, so I opened the sliding back door and read a book.

No. I TRIED to read a book.

Apparently, I'm perfectly fine with Big Bird outside my window, but I'm NOT fine with small chirpy birds outside my window. And oh.my.god can these damn birds settle on ONE type of sound and stick to it? What is their fucking deal? Why do they do this chirp chirp [long pause] CHIRP CHIRP ???

In the old house I couldn't fall asleep with a window open because of the crickets, frogs, and crows. So yay, I got rid of the crickets and frogs, but instead they were replaced by ten different types of birds chirping with their own accent at their different pace and attitude in life. I could not relax and enjoy a quiet book. I just wanted to scream SILENCE at the world and hope that "someone" would pay attention and possibly drop a cat on each bird in my neighbourhood, but seeing that I have a dog I didn't think it likely to happen.

I just can't stand nature noises outside my house. Give me the bus, the police car siren, the ambulance, and a bunch of rude teenagers with loud music in their cars, and I can fall asleep to the serene sound of humanity. But if those are absent, I don't want to hear anything that isn't an artificial sound. And definitely nothing that would alarm me, cause me to jump off my seat, or irritate the hell out of me because it's repetitive and won't shut up on command.

Nature should be seen and not heard. Just like small kids (which is what my father strongly believed in and he was right!).

The only acceptable sounds on earth should be music. Nature should be completely silent, and there should be these music boxes installed next to natural spots (the beach, the lake, the mountains, etc), so if you're tired of the silence, you pick the box up and you listen to the selected sound track.

Disclaimer: I suppose I should mention that I do have Sensory Integration Disorder and therefore any sound irritates me and I'd only be happy in vacuum.