Timing Is Everything; Scenes from the Journey, vol. 18, no. 42

I can't cook without a timer. Once I could. Once I'd remember things. In those olden days I could use a simple timer that went "ding" when the time was up. Numerous failures led me to know that what I needed was a timer with infinite settings, one I could clip on to my clothing so that it stayed with me and that had a continuous beep that I couldn't ignore. (Okay, I could push the little off- button and ignore my pot in the kitchen—but at least the beep got my attention, so it was a great improvement over the single-beep kind of timer.)

 I found the answer to these dreams at Lee Valley, the go-to place for all my wants. The package cost about $10 but there were two timers to a package. I had two timers! Hurrah!

 One of them I keep upstairs. The other lives in the kitchen. I set it and clip it on whenever I am cooking or baking, and then I leave the kitchen to do other things. So handy. When I'm finished cooking I unclip the timer and leave it on the counter for next time.

 And then, ten days ago, it disappeared. I hunted. I checked all the clothing I'd worn for the previous two weeks (because sometimes I would leave the timer attached to a sweater or an apron.) But no timer.

 Dino, helpful as always, made sure it was still available in the Lee Valley catalogue, just in case, and then, because this is who he is, he also found it on Amazon—at more than twice the price! He also (again, this is who he is) ordered a set of eight baby batteries

in order to re-activate the dead timer that I hadn't told you about because that story is long and boring. So as soon as the batteries arrive he will insert one into the old dead timer. If that doesn't work (for some arcane, battery-type reason) we can order a couple of new ones from Lee Valley.

 In the meantime, however, I had to make do with lesser timers—the kind that "ding" one feeble time and are then silent.

 This morning I was trying to put together an outfit to wear for a day out in the world--writing class, a theatre matinee, dinner at a restaurant. [This was written back in the days when one could go out and about with impunity.] As usual I locked myself into shoes first and then had to scramble to look pulled together above the ankle.

 I began pawing through my large tub of sweaters—most of them handmade and left from the days when I knitted one-of-a-kind sweaters for the world. I'd gone through the top four or five sweaters in the tub when I finally pulled out a store-bought black and white knitted coat-jacket. I hadn't worn it since early autumn. I knew I hadn't. Yet there was the timer, pinched onto the lapel of the coat-jacket. Big as life and twice as ugly, as my mother often said. It was the answer to my (admittedly shallow) prayers.