A Bit of Tuesday Gloom

"Melancholy, indeed, should be diverted by every means but drinking."

-Samuel Johnson

Slane is crying.

He walks back-and-forth in my office, voice raspy after hours of complaining into Peg's ear between 1 a.m. and her departure for work. Occasionally he pads over to his scratching post for a little claw therapy, then back to circling me like a shark, moaning and puling in almost human tones.

It's that sort of morning, I guess.

I awoke to the alarm at 5:50 to find the pillow next to mine vacant. Peg was curled under a blanket on the couch, driven out of the room by the combination of Slane's kvetching at the top of his lungs, which awakened her, and my snoring, which made it impossible for her to get back to sleep.

What to do about this snoring?

I can't say it's new. A dozen years ago on a ski trip to Colorado the boys had the misfortune of sharing a space with me in one of those family-friendly hotels with big, sprawling rooms and a couple hide-a-beds. All let me know that my sawing of logs kept them up all night, and asked if perhaps going forward we could retire to separate rooms.

Peg's always been good natured about it, but if she's sleeping down the hall I clearly need to do something about this. Tomorrow I have a doctor's appointment, one of those anodyne affairs we used to call in the military a "poke and stroke", an annual visit to take vitals and go over meds, such as they are. Maybe I need to ask about my snoring, and see if there's some contraption I need to wear on my face as some sort of nocturnal anti-aphrodisiac that will at least give P a few hours of quality shut-eye.

Then there's Slane--he hates being inside at night, and starts howling sometime between one and four every, single morning. I suggested we put him out at bedtime, which likely means I need to keep a shovel and garbage bag handy to retrieve his remains off of Chemung Street when inevitably one of the cars speeding past squashes him. Peg wants him in the cat carrier before we turn in, and placed at the other end of the condo behind a closed door. I'm guessing that will be tonight's solution.

Last week Peg became concerned when I mentioned the news of Corning's dirty little secret--its history as a toxic waste dump, owing to decades of industrial activity centered around making glass. Just down the hill, Denison Park was named as a Superfund site, the fourth within about six blocks of where I'm sitting. This whole valley hides under the brilliant grass and verdant valleys a thick layer of toxic goo, the lingering cost of past prosperity. She wants water testing before she returns to the jacuzzi tub that had been her favorite part of this new home, a key ingredient in enabling a restful night for P when I'm not snoring and Slane's not singing.

It's almost a literary trope, the sojourners arriving in a bucolic paradise only to realize it hides a secret that will take their lives. We knew something was amiss based on the sheer volume of severely physically handicapped people at the Y, at Wegman's, limping down Market Street on a pretty day. I guess "deformed" is not the kindest characterization, but I'm not sure how else to put it--hunched backs, missing limbs, you name it. And this place hosts a surfeit of that sort of thing. I reckon the polluted environment explains why, although I imagine the corporate owner of the town would never allow an empirical inquiry into cause-and-effect, and the locals are so grateful the company hasn't relocated to the South they'd never venture to ask.

Some of our best friends here live in a neighborhood down next to the river and one of the four Superfund sites. It's named for the founders of the company, and apparently the tidy little houses rest on top of a slag heap of glassmaking waste. The company has offered to do things to stabilize the soil and make sure their little girls, the oldest just now emerging from elementary school, don't breathe the stuff. I think I would move. Instead, they asked for legal advice regarding the proposed fix. I reckon moving is easier for some than for others.

It's beautiful outside, a little foggy and just now climbing over 50 degrees. I wish I could put my finger on what summoned the Black Dog this morning, although I could feel the familiar SOB starting to make himself at home in my head by yesterday afternoon. This was to have been a week spent in a jury trial now postponed; empty weeks are always the worst, because although I'm buried in things to do there is still time to ponder a little. Best not to do that, especially at a moment marked by the confluence of a decided professional senescence and the end of the republic in its present form.

Time for a tax lesson. Maybe that will cheer me up. Then again, suggesting that an hour immersed in the nuances of Subchapter S taxation might serve as a picker upper demonstrates the depth of the gloom.

Slane's crying again. The little bastard.