Saturday, August 30, 2008

It's Quiet ... Too Quiet

As I start the first day of the Labor Day weekend, the stillness that set in to Official Washington last week seems to have spread. My neighborhood is strangely silent this morning. [OK, it's a cul-de-sac in Fairfax, so it's normally quiet, but there's usually some sign of life on a Saturday morning.] Not a single lawnmower or weed-wacker is buzzing; there is no scent of burning charcoal in the air; I haven't seen any neighbors walking dogs, or even the guy next door working on his house expansion project. My Blackberry is still becalmed in the communications doldrum that we entered around noon on Friday. As I did yesterday in the office, I've sent an e-mail to myself just for an assurance that the BB is working.

The eerie sense of depopulation is getting on my nerves. Virginia's bird hunting season opens on Monday, and I've decided to go out and shoot at some doves just to hear noise again. [My apologies to anti-hunters, but doves are both challenging to shoot and edible. Think of them as fast and nimble free-range QuarterPounders on the wing].

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