{"id":802575,"date":"2019-12-24T13:04:00","date_gmt":"2019-12-24T20:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/?p=376249"},"modified":"2019-12-24T13:04:00","modified_gmt":"2019-12-24T20:04:00","slug":"lark-ascending-whats-that-noise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/lark-ascending-whats-that-noise\/","title":{"rendered":"Lark Ascending: What\u2019s that noise?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Christina Holbrook<\/strong>
Courtesy Christina Holbrook<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Shrieeeeeek!<\/p>\n

Alan and I sit up in bed. \u201cOh crap,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Shrieeeeeeeeek!<\/p>\n

Driven by a horrible, high-pitched sound, we both jump out of bed. It\u2019s 2:30 in the morning. Our dog and cat scramble into the closet to hide.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy do we have to have these stupid alarms?\u201d I yell, as if it is all Alan\u2019s fault. \u201cI hate them!\u201d Another piercing shriek goes off from one of the multitude of smoke alarms that are wired into the house.  But which one?<\/p>\n

For the next half-hour, we go up and down the stairs, into the guest room, down to the basement. We wait for that brain-rattling wail to blast from one definitive location. \u201cWe have to have them,\u201d Alan reminds me, which does nothing to stop me from complaining that I\u2019d rather risk the house burning down than be flung out of bed in the middle of the night by this heart-stopping racket. \u201cThey\u2019re wired in, and they have 10-year backup batteries. They shouldn\u2019t be going off like this!\u201d<\/p>\n

It turns out the offending smoke alarm was right over our bedroom door and had gone off due to dust on its surface. \u201cWhat?\u201d I say defensively, as inside-house cleaning is theoretically my department. \u201cI was supposed to know about dusting the smoke alarms up on the ceiling?\u201d<\/p>\n

There really are too many supposedly helpful but, in actuality, horribly annoying beeping, whirring, shrieking electronic devices in my life. There is the dishwasher pinging cheerfully to let us know where it is in its cycle, and that weird sound outside our bedroom window that we still have not identified but sounds like mechanical squirrels fighting. The hot tub, the wine cooler, the furnace all add to the din, as does the regular \u201cbing\u201d of our cellphones.       <\/p>\n

My worst nightmare is being alone in the house when one of the many electronic apparatuses decides to malfunction.<\/p>\n

It is almost always in the middle of the night. Last summer, while Alan was away on a call assignment at a nearby hospital, I was jolted out of a deep sleep by a piercing repetitive blast of noise, followed by what sounded like the garage door opening. What in the world?<\/p>\n

I went downstairs to the basement and out into the attached garage. There, the electronically controlled door was going up and down, accompanied by a blaring alarm.   <\/p>\n

It was the middle of the night, and Alan was possibly in scrubs and occupied with delivering babies. I called him anyway. \u201cSee that flashing switch by the basement door?\u201d he said. \u201cJust unplug it. It will turn off the automatic garage door closer. Then you\u2019ll just have to close it by hand.\u201d<\/p>\n

When weighed in balance with being woken up in the dead of night by inexplicable screeching and a garage door going up and down as if possessed, I\u2019d much rather just open and close the door the old fashioned way. Why is all this technology necessary?   <\/p>\n

Just the other morning, it was early and still pitch dark, and I was considering getting out of bed to make coffee. Suddenly, there was a strange sound in the living room \u2014 a \u201cclick,\u201d a very definitive \u201cclick!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAlan, did you hear that?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHmmm?\u201d he said sleepily. \u201cWhat did it sound like?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLike, I don\u2019t know, like \u2018click!\u2019 \u2018Snap!\u2019 Like maybe someone outside trying to open the front door.\u201d That was a disconcerting thought.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy don\u2019t you go out to the living room and see,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

It was up to me to protect us from a possible burglar?<\/p>\n

As I crept into the kitchen, heading toward the living room, I saw the soft glow of colored lights coming from around the corner. It looked magical.<\/p>\n

It was our Christmas tree, and all the lights were on, glowing sapphire blue and brilliant white. Coming upon the tree all lit up like this made me think of how it was as a child, waking up on Christmas morning, sneaking down to the living room. Somehow, mysteriously, all the lights would be glowing on the Christmas tree. In that enchanted moment, I could almost certainly hear reindeer on the roof.<\/p>\n

\u201cI put the lights on an electronic timer,\u201d Alan said, joining me in the living room. \u201cI thought you\u2019d like to see the Christmas tree all lit up when you made your coffee in the morning. I hope it isn\u2019t too high tech for you.<\/p>\n

\u201cMerry Christmas, sweetie. \u201d He gave me a kiss and went back to bed.  <\/p>\n

Christina Holbrook\u2019s column \u201cLark Ascending\u201d publishes biweekly in the Summit Daily News. Holbrook writes about life in the mountains, from the beauty of the natural surroundings to the quirkiness of friends and neighbors to what makes a good life. She moved to Breckenridge in 2014 and is the author of \u201cWinelands of Colorado.\u201d Contact her at <\/em>peak1studio@gmail.com<\/a><\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Christina HolbrookCourtesy Christina Holbrook Shrieeeeeek! Alan and I sit up in bed. \u201cOh crap,\u201d he says. Shrieeeeeeeeek! Driven by a horrible, high-pitched sound, we both jump out of bed. It\u2019s 2:30 in the morning. Our dog and cat scramble into the closet to hide. \u201cWhy do we have to have these stupid alarms?\u201d I yell, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-802575","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-29 21:25:08","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=802575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802575\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=802575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=802575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=802575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}