Shhhh ....

This is kind of your quintessential California picture, wouldn't you say? I took this picture in the spring at Filoli Gardens which is a gorgeous estate here in the San Francisco Bay area. I took many, many pictures there. Like ... 100. I'm sure we'll be seeing more pictures from Filoli Gardens.

I am 50 now. FIFTY. Half a century. Five decades. FIFTY. And with age, has come a complete and total intolerance for noise. Some may argue that it's not age that has made me this way but the fact that I share an office with someone who talks from the moment she walks in in the morning until I drag my butt out of there in the evening. I kid you not. And 95% of what she talks about is not work related. It's her dysfunctional relationship with her boyfriend. It's her cat that's had a stroke. It's her gluten allergies. I am slowly, but surely, going out of my mind here.

Now you may be thinking, "Hey April, slip on the big girl panties and just tell this woman to hush." I have. On numerous occasions. My boss has told her as well. One of my co-workers even went so far as to buy me a t-shirt that said STFU. I have ignored her. Pretended I didn't hear her. If I don't talk to her she sits and stares at me. Have you any idea how hard it is to work when someone is staring at you?

Apparently she cannot cope in an environment devoid of noise. Because if there is no noise to distract her she can "hear the buzzing in my ears." Some days all that stands between me and a jail sentence is my trusty bottle of Vicodin.

Clearly the answer is to move to South Dakota. I have heard that South Dakota is very quiet. Probably because there aren't a lot of people there. This is appealing in more ways than you can imagine. I would move to Walden Pond but I'm sure it's probably a major tourist attraction now and I'd never get any peace. So South Dakota it is. Unless I go deaf in the near future.