2005年NPR美国国家公共电台十二月-Finding Beauty, and Fun, in Every Day

It's Friday, and once again we bring you StoryCorps, the oral history project travelling the country that gives family and friends the chance to ask one another about their lives. Copies of the conversations go to the Library of Congress and excerpts¹ are heard here on Morning Edition.

Today, an interview from Missoula, Montana. Here are close friends and business partners Anne Garde and Catherine Combs.

"We are house painters, 20 years of working together."

"We are like the Matt & Jeff of the painting world. I'm a big girl and you are just a little sleepless² thing. When we have to get up to paint something high in stairwell, I put one leg of the ladder on the stairs and I put the other one on my knee and then I say, 'It's OK, Anne, you can trust me, come on, climb up here. ' And she always climbs up here."

"But I usually I'm going 'why did I let you talk me into this?'"

--Giggling---

"You know sometimes on the job you actually call me 'the Queen of the Inconsequential', because I'm always there looking at the little part that's underneath³ the cabinet and 'How come I can't get a straight line there', you know?"

"And I prefer to get a little piece of tape and put it down there that says, 'what are you looking down here for anyway? ' Yeah, We love to play the 'Name that Tune⁴' game."

"That's right. That's one thing that we can do on the job while we're working."

"Ok, Catherine, name this tune 'M-M-M---'."

"Venus in blue jeans..."

"You are right. I can name that in three notes."

"We have all kinds of ways of making our bad day at work be fun."

"We share an eccentricity⁵ and a certain verve for a life and we respect the things in each other. You are also one of the people with the most verve and love of life that I've ever met, I mean you love life so much you can hardly bring yourself to go to sleep at night because you'll miss living some of it."

"Yeah, yeah, sometimes I just go out of my little porch and I look out, there's the trees and the sky and beautiful mountains and I think, 'I'm alive, and it, you know, this little joy comes, you know, and then it just goes, you need go to work and need do your thing, but you just have to remember that , it's like, hey, you could be dead.' You know, you could not be here, you know, not being around for this beautiful world."

"Yeah."

Anne Garde and Catherine Combs, at a StoryCorps booth in Missoula, Montana. To schedule your interview or listen to more stories. It's at NPR. org.

StoryCorps is made possible by a grant from Saturn⁶.

1 excerpts   

n.摘录，摘要( excerpt的名词复数 )；节选（音乐，电影）片段

参考例句：

• Some excerpts from a Renaissance mass are spatchcocked into Gluck's pallid Don Juan music. 一些文艺复光时期的弥撒的选节被不适当地加入到了格鲁克平淡无味的唐璜音乐中。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He is editing together excerpts of some of his films. 他正在将自己制作的一些电影的片断进行剪辑合成。 来自辞典例句

2 sleepless   

adj.不睡眠的，睡不著的，不休息的

参考例句：

• The situation gave her many sleepless nights.这种情况害她一连好多天睡不好觉。
• One evening I heard a tale that rendered me sleepless for nights.一天晚上，我听说了一个传闻，把我搞得一连几夜都不能入睡。

3 underneath   

adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面

参考例句：

• Working underneath the car is always a messy job.在汽车底下工作是件脏活。
• She wore a coat with a dress underneath.她穿着一件大衣，里面套着一条连衣裙。

4 tune   

n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整

参考例句：

• He'd written a tune,and played it to us on the piano.他写了一段曲子，并在钢琴上弹给我们听。
• The boy beat out a tune on a tin can.那男孩在易拉罐上敲出一首曲子。

5 eccentricity   

n.古怪，反常，怪癖

参考例句：

• I can't understand the eccentricity of Henry's behavior.我不理解亨利的古怪举止。
• His eccentricity had become legendary long before he died.在他去世之前他的古怪脾气就早已闻名遐尔了。

6 Saturn   

n.农神，土星

参考例句：

• Astronomers used to ask why only Saturn has rings.天文学家们过去一直感到奇怪，为什么只有土星有光环。
• These comparisons suggested that Saturn is made of lighter materials.这些比较告诉我们，土星由较轻的物质构成。