Day Two-Sixty-Nine - My Tree Cut

Thursday afternoon I took the Christmas tree and all of the decorations down.  It took a total of about 4 hours to get it all down and put away.  Of course, it is now Saturday and I still haven't vacuumed up the remnants or moved other stuff back into place.  But at least the tree is back in it's box in the garage for another year.  In the process, I think as I was putting the tree in the box, it fought back and I now have a nasty cut on my right hand to show for it.

I say "nasty" not because it is deep or life threatening or anything.  It barely bled at all.  I call it nasty just because it hurts like hell!  It's like a really big paper cut.  I hate paper cuts!  I think paper cuts exist to remind us that we aren't as tough as we think we are.  You know in that game Rock-Paper-Scissors (or if you are a Big Bang Theory fan, Rock-Paper-Scissors-Lizard-Spock) paper only covers the rock and disproves Spock.  But in reality, I think paper and the trees from which they come are actually much more powerful.  Okay, granted, it was a fake tree that got me.  But still, I have a swollen and throbbing hand right now as a result of something I would describe as a really big paper cut that I got from a fake tree.  Here's a picture, you be the judge....

I have already admitted that no stitches were required.  It's really more of a scratch than a cut and yet I can barely type!  I woke up twice during the night to confirm that there was not literally a heart beating in the palm of my hand..... because that would have just been gross!  You might be happy to know that it was just the throbbing of my "tree cut" and not an actual heart.

So now I will be covering the scratch with Neosporin and bandaging it to get rid of the infection.  Meanwhile, I know that you are all sitting in your nice warm homes with your cut free hands ridiculing me right now because I am acting like such a big baby over something that amounts to no more than a paper cut.  But I am here to tell you that this is why we live longer today than the cavemen and people of the Victorian age did.  They died from these sorts of wounds.  That's right.  Depending on how you look at it, this could be considered a life threatening scratch.  If I were to show this to a caveman, he would no doubt start digging me a grave away from the others of our tribe where I couldn't infect others after my death.  I'd basically be Dead Girl Walking.  I need to check my Blue Cross policy to make sure that I am covered for "tree cuts".

Once I douse it in Neosporin and bandage it up, I'll probably have to spend the day on the couch in recovery mode.  The real problem with a cut on your hand is that the mere act of washing your hands requires that you start all over on bandaging.  To me there is almost nothing worse (other than an infected paper cut) than a wet Band-aid.  Why can't they make real waterproof Band-aids?  You would think there was some very inventive out of work rocket scientist out there who could start working on this.  Of course, it could be a Band-aid conspiracy.  Maybe a waterproof Band-aid was already invented but the evil makers of Band-aid put the ka-bosh on it so that we would be forced to use a new Band-aid each time we wash our hands.  I wouldn't doubt it.  Damn commercialism....  Anyway, I figure if I take it easy and don't do much today, there will be less need to wash my hands as many times, so I won't have to re-bandage as many times either.  So, I have the perfect excuse for lying on the couch, reading and watching TV all day long.  I suppose every cloud really does have a silver lining.

I'll finish today by warning you all to be very careful as you take down your Christmas trees and put all of the decorations away.  It can be very painful and even deadly if you are a caveman....

Day Two-Sixty-Seven - Christmas Wrap Up

Okay, I've been useless for a week as far as writing goes so it is time I got busy again.  I don't have any great insights or lists today.  It is pretty quiet in my house for the first time in about a week.  No company arrived here until Sunday.  But prior to that I was busy with baking and cleaning.  So, yesterday after my brother and his family came and took all of their stuff away I finally was able to sit down and relax for the first time since last Wednesday which meant that the cats could relax as well.

I have read a book and a half in the last 24 hours.  Shiner and Jingle have pretty much just laid around and slept.  Christmas was rough on them.  I mean Shiner had all of that constant petting and attention forced on him while Jingle stayed upstairs as much as possible hiding in my bedroom.  Jingle loves it when Mom and Dad are here.  But as soon as others arrive, he hides.  Shiner on the other hand is an attention hog.  He rolls around on the floor while people pet him.  If Dad sits at the bar to watch me cook, Shiner sits on the barstool next to him and watches too.  Shiner is a people cat.  Jingle is a people cat too, he just likes to pick his people.  Shiner discriminates against no one.

Once everyone was gone yesterday, I realized exactly how tired I was.  I went to bed at 9:45 last night which hasn't happened in at least 6 months.  I slept until 9:30 this morning.  That happens more than I would like to admit.  Tomorrow I intend to be fully back in my routine of getting up by 8 and writing the blog each morning then working on travel stuff.  I got a phone call from KHM a week ago reminding me that I have more training to go through for my certifications.  So, I'll start working on that tomorrow.

I'm considering taking the Christmas tree and all of the decorations down today.  The issue I face is that when I look past the tree through the window and see all of that snow and icicles out there it just looks so pretty.  Looking out the window to snow and icicles would normally depress me, but for some reason, having a Christmas tree in the picture makes it better.  I know, I'm a freak.  I'm the only person I know who hates snow.  My sister-in-law was so excited on Tuesday with all the snow and it being a white Christmas and I just kept thinking about how nice it would be to spend Christmas on a beach with a few decorated palm trees blowing in the breeze as the temperature climbs to a pleasant 85 degrees.

I have a friend who is in New Hampshire skiing right now.  For her and her family, it is a vacation.  For me it would be torture.  How could anyone think happiness is high temperatures in the 20's while flying down a mountain with sticks strapped to your feet????  I don't get it.  I personally believe that skiing should only take place on a body of water, with sticks strapped to your feet as a boat pulls you across the surface.  And that is questionable.  I honestly think the best option is lying on a tube while the boat pulls you through the water.

I've obviously never been snow skiing.  I can't even comprehend the attraction that people have to it.  Again, I hate to be cold.  So, that is the first issue I would face.  Add to that, the fact that I am accident prone and it's not a winning combination.  Can you imagine the sort of body cast I would come back in if I ever went snow skiing.  I mean seriously, traversing the stairs to go up to my bedroom on a regular basis is an iffy proposition.  Going up the side of a mountain on a flat board attached to a cable with a small board across the back and then jumping off of it only to slide back down the mountain while maintaining my balance on two sticks is just asking for trouble.  Then when you get down to the bottom of the mountain you just have to do it all over again!  This does not sound like fun.

I'm thinking that skiing was invented by someone who needed to get to the bottom of a snow covered mountain quickly.  He is probably rolling over in his grave right now at the number of people who head right back up the mountain so that they can do it again.  He was trying to get away from the misery that the snow created and these crazy people just want to keep doing it over and over again.  What the hell?

Maybe when Katherine and her family get back from their ski trip she will enlighten me on what makes it joyful so that I can write positively about a ski trip and post it on the travel blog.  But for now, I'm just going to put this on my personal blog since I don't think it would encourage many people to want to book a nice long Spring Break ski trip through me... or anyone else.

Have a great Thursday.  I'm going to start on that tree now....

Day Two-Sixty - Could I Be a Disney Writer??? Nah....

I read this article yesterday about a right whale that has a nursing calf and has adopted another orphaned calf off the coast of Africa.  I love stuff like this.  Apparently, raising even one right calf is a "monumental task" as the article states.  But this whale has taken a second calf that is not even hers on and it's heartwarming.  Apparently, the two calves are playing with each other and it would seem that her calves contentment with the orphaned calf resulted in the adoption.  It is amazing what a mother will do for her child.

http://www.petethomasoutdoors.com/2012/12/right-whale-mother-adopts-abandoned-calf-off-south-africa.html

After reading the article I was intrigued and did a little bit of research on right whales.  First of all they are called right whales because they have a great fat content which makes them very buoyant, whale blubber equals dollars in the whaling world and the buoyancy means when the whalers kill them, they have plenty of time to get them onto the boat.  So, the whalers called them right whales because they were the "right" whales to hunt.  They can grow to 59 feet long and are an astonishing 13 - 20 feet long at birth!  Apparently, when the orphaned calf first approached the mother whale and her calf it attempted to nurse and she ran it off, but it refused to go far.  Now in less than a week, it would seem that they are a family and just in time since shortly they will have to make their annual migration to Antarctica and the right whale feeding grounds.  The lifespan of a right whale is not certain.  There was one documented case in which a female was initially spotted in 1935 and seen many times throughout her life.  The last time she was seen was in 1995.  When she was first seen she was an adult with a calf.  She was estimated to have lived for 70 years only dying after being struck by a ships propeller.

So maybe these two calves will be best friends for the next 70 years.  I think it would make a great Disney story.  Maybe in the story the evil Japanese whaling fleet like the ones on Whale Wars will chase their pod down as they head to Antarctica, not this year, but maybe next and they'll be separated from their pod as a result.  They will learn to survive on their own and worry a lot about their mother and the other whales they've known since birth and get into all kinds of whale adventures.  Then maybe one day they will get back with their mom and then the two will find mates of their own and they'll all live happily ever after.

See this is why I could never write for Disney.  A real Disney writer would have had the evil whalers kill the mother leaving them both orphans.  I'm not capable of writing that story.  Who is?!?!?!?  I don't understand how Disney continued to sell movie tickets after killing Bambi's mother off and that was 70 years ago!  Apparently, other people aren't as sensitive as me about things like that.  I can't watch shows where young animals or kids are in distress.

I had a personal ban on Disney movies for a long time.  They are very upsetting!  In Cinderella, that step mother and the step sisters were so mean.  And don't even get me started on Pinocchio!  That was just scary!!!  As a result I have never seen many of the Disney classics.  So, I can't name any of the Disney princesses.  I really think this is one of the reasons I am okay with not having kids.  I could never have taken them to those movies.  Okay, I guess I could have taken them, but when the movie was over I'd be in a fetal position under my chair and the kid would have to coax me out and that just wouldn't be pretty.

So, I've never seen the fish movie where Ellen DeGeneres was the voice of one of the fish (I can't remember the name of it) but I hear it was good.  I never saw Lion King except the musical production and quite frankly I was too distracted by the costumes to pay any real attention to the story.  I never saw the Little Mermaid... wait was that the fish one with Ellen DeGeneres????  Either way, I never saw it.  I also didn't see  Pocahontas, Aladdin or Beauty and the Beast.  I was forced to see a few that I had no wish to see thanks to my niece and my friend Sherie's daughter, Alex.

I kept Alex overnight once and she brought her Tarzan movie with her and insisted that we watch it.  Right off the bat, Tarzan's parents got killed.  Ugh!  I was sobbing and Alex thought I was a freak.  Then as soon as the horrible part was over she went to sleep and I had to watch the rest of the movie to find out what happened. Stupid movie!  I think I was literally shaking I was crying so bad when it finally ended.  Meanwhile the 5 year old was sound asleep on my couch.  (I'll get you for that, Alex!)

When my niece Rebecca was 5 or 6 she gave herself a haircut to end all haircuts with a knife after watching the Disney movie Mulan.  Well, I had to find out what about that movie would result in a small girl taking a knife to her hair so I rented it and watched it by myself one weekend so that no one could ridicule me when the sobbing began.  Honestly, I don't remember crying while I watched it which would have been a first for me in any Disney movie.  I mean let's face it.... this is coming from someone who practically went into convulsions while watching Herbie the Lovebug.  What can I say, it was touching!

I did love That Darn Cat! in the 60's.  I even read the book once I learned how to read.  You really can't go wrong with any movie starring Hayley Mills.  Plus there were no sad parts.  Mary Poppins is my all time favorite Disney movie.  In fact, it might be my all time favorite movie.  Apparently, I can deal with Disney movies that aren't animated much better than the animated variety.  I don't know what that means.....  There is probably something psychological there that should be examined.  I do cry in parts of Mary Poppins, but it isn't one of those heaving, obnoxious cries that I do when something happens to an animal or a kids parents.  I also liked The Parent Trap with Hayley Mills.  Heck, I even liked the remake with Lindsey Lohan and Dennis Quaid.  In fact, that was the last good movie she made.  (What happened to that girl?)

The non-animated Disney movies that I can't watch are the ones featuring animals that are lost.... like Homeward Bound and The Incredible Journey.  My mom took us to see both of those when I was a kid and I was miserable in each one.  I sobbed the entire time and my brothers made fun of me.  I used to hate it when my brothers would say, "It's not real."  Like I couldn't figure that out!!!!  I don't know why I get hysterical when animals are lost in a movie, but I do!  And telling me it's not real doesn't fix that.  Dumb boys!

Anyway, so I think the whale story could be a great Disney movie and if you are inclined to write it, just thank me in the credits or something.  But I don't think I am capable of writing it since I would end up in a fetal position under my desk as soon as the orphaned calf becomes an orphaned calf.... Ugh!

Day Two-Fifty - The End of the World As We Know It...

So here's my question....  Does the Mayan calendar end at 12:01 a.m. on 12/21 or at 11:59 p.m.  I just want to know so that I can plan accordingly.  I mean, if the Mayans thought it would end at 12:01 a.m. and at 12:02 a.m. I'm still here, it's going to be something I'll want to know, right?  On the other hand, if I party all day long thinking that the Mayans were wrong and then the world really ends at 11:59 that night, that's going to suck, right?  I've looked on line and no one really specifies.  So, if any of you know any Mayan's with an "in", I would really appreciate a "heads up".  I know I still have like a week and a half to worry about this, but I'm thinking about having a party.  So it would be nice to know if I should have the party on the 20th or if it should be planned for the 21st.

If I have the party on the 21st, I obviously will only need enough liquor to last until midnight.  It's a Friday so some of my friends who still work at the former employer who shall not be named may flex that day.  That will mean they can get here fairly early in the day.  So that will effect the amount of alcohol and hors d'oeuvres that I'll need.....  These are all considerations that must be taken into account.  If, on the other hand, the world ends at 12:01 a.m. on the 21st, those people from the former employer who shall not be named will leave early on the 20th, you know, because they are so dedicated.  In case the Mayans were wrong, they won't want to be late for work on the 21st because of that whole dedication thing to the douche bags who axed the rest of us..... so I won't need as much alcohol (no, I'm not still bitter....).

Many of you who might be reading this have no doubt seen my new profile picture on Facebook this week.... a picture of my nephew Matt who is graduating from Texas Tech this weekend. In the photo he is standing in front of a Mayan pyramid at Chichen Itza.  Not only is it meant as a tribute to Matt on his graduation, it's also a bit of a nod to the Mayan gods.  You've gotta cover all of your bases in times like this.  In the event that we are all still here on the 22nd all bets are off and that will once again be considered a simple visit to a tourist attraction in which I took a photo of my nephew.  Nothing more.  Sorry, just had to get that on the record.

The other thing I am wondering about is how the Mayan's saw all of this ending.  If it is a really big meteor, shouldn't we be in it's shadow by now????  Maybe that is why it got so cold suddenly last night....  Or maybe it's just December.  But wouldn't the people at NASA at least know it's coming now?  Wait, for a minute I was worried that perhaps NASA had been done away with so that more people could have free cell phones, but then I remembered that just last week NASA was bragging that they discovered something really cool on Mars but they aren't going to tell us for a few more weeks so that they can confirm that it really is as cool as they think it is.  So, apparently all is status quo at NASA.  Either that, or the people at NASA decided to mess with us in our final weeks by telling us they found something really cool on Mars since the big gigantic meteor would be obliterating us shortly and we wouldn't be able to call bullshit on it anyway.

The other possibility is that all of the people who work at NASA have been secretly evacuating Earth for the last few weeks and are currently in flight headed to Mars....  If any of you know any bigwigs at NASA, now would be a good time to call and make sure they haven't left the planet.  Maybe they just told us "Big news from Mars.... hold please...."  to keep us busy while they evacuated.  You never know.  I saw a thing on H2 or TLC or NatGeo or one of those other semi-educational channels last week about evacuating Earth and how they would decide who gets to go and who stays behind.  I'll go ahead and clue you in now.... they aren't taking me.  So, if they know something we don't know, I would still be sitting here writing my blog waiting for the giant meteor to strike and whining about the former employer who shall not be named and you would be none the wiser.

Okay, I have one more question before I shut this blog down for the day and get busy.  How many downloads do you suppose R.E.M. will get between now and the 21st on the song "The End of the World As We Know It"?  I mean other than the Mayans, they've gotta be getting the biggest bang for their buck on the publicity front out of the end of the Mayan calendar.  They'll probably get more downloads this week than any of the contestants from The Voice.... Nah.... Now I'm just getting crazy.

Day Two-Forty-Nine - Will This Get Me Off The Couch?

The winner just crossed the finish line in the Metro PCS Dallas Marathon, formerly the White Rock Marathon.  This is always one of my favorite Sunday mornings of the year.  I love getting up and watching the runners.  Several years ago as I watched, I was inspired to start running myself so that I could run the 1/2 marathon the following year instead of sitting on my couch watching other people be fit.

It nearly worked.  I joined TNT and began training.  I went to White Rock Lake every Saturday morning to run with the TNT group.  I loved my coach.  She was very supportive and was centered on getting me ready for my 1/2 marathon.  Then on the Saturday I was supposed to run 9 miles in late September I was unable to make it to White Rock due to another commitment.  So, on Sunday I sat out to do my 9 mile run on the bike/pedestrian trail near my house.  I made it about 7 miles before I started to experience pain in my right knee.  By 7-1/2 miles, I was reduced to walking and although I finished the total 9 miles the last mile and a half were done walking and nearly in tears because of the pain.

The following week, I ran on the days I was supposed to, but with horrible pain and usually finishing walking since the pain was just too great.  On Saturday, I made my way to White Rock and ran with my coach.  We talked about my pain as my coach told me to talk to the chiropractor who came out with us on Saturday mornings as soon as we were finished and have him look at my knee.  She ran along side of me as we ran up our final hill and then walked with me to the chiropractors make shift exam room near the picnic tables.

Dr. Doyle looked at my knee and basically told me that I needed to see a doctor in a real examining room later in the week.  That day, I went to the state fair with my mom, sister-in-law and others and just toughed it out through the pain.  The following week, I was diagnosed with a stress fracture and a sprained MCL and told that I was done running for the next few months.  I cried knowing that I wasn't going to be able to do my 1/2 marathon that year after all of those early Saturday mornings and that if I didn't do it then I might never be able to.  I haven't run since.  That was two years ago.  Even with the 4 months of treatments that I went through, I have continued to experience pain significant enough following exercise that I am afraid to try running again.  It makes me mad because when I ran, I LOVED it!

Now this morning, I watch the marathon runners crossing the finish line and I desperately want to try it again.  I still don't think that I would be capable of running it.  Quite frankly right now, I don't think I could walk it.  But it sure makes me want to get outside and do something.  And that's the point, right?  Maybe we aren't all marathoners or even 5K runners, but we can all do something.  In the last two years I have gained weight - a lot of it as I have sat on my couch.  So, my work will be cut out for me.  But here I go, trying once again to get motivated to get fit.  There is a very good chance that in 6 months you will be reading again about how I have been motivated to get off of the couch.  But I figure if I keep writing about it in a forum where someone else can read it, I stand a better chance of following through.  After all, lying to myself is easy.  Lying to all of you is much more difficult.

Have a good week!

Day Two-Forty-Five - An Awful Tuesday Night

I normally wouldn't post a blog on this site on the same day that I post a travel blog.  But I have something to get off of my chest.  So, I must.  Last week after years of vacancy someone finally moved into the condo across from mine.  You may know it as the squirrel condo that has been featured in this blog on occasion.  I was so happy to have a neighbor finally in that unit.  On Sunday I was outside sweeping the front walk and the new neighbor came outside and started cleaning his glass door.  We introduced ourselves and talked briefly.  Judging from his accent, I would guess that he is probably Jamaican.  Just before coming back inside, I told him that if he or his wife ever needed anything they should not hesitate to let me know.

Fast forward to 10:45 last night.  I was sitting at my computer with the lights on downstairs, windows were open so that I could enjoy the nice weather, the TV was on and could no doubt be heard as you walked past the open windows down the sidewalk in front of my condo.  The Christmas tree was lit in my front window with the blinds pulled all the way up so that you can see it from outside.  Then the doorbell rang.  No one rings my doorbell at 10:45 p.m.  I just don't get visitors that late at night.  So, I immediately stood up and went to the front door since it is one of the few places downstairs where I could not be seen if you looked in a window.  I picked up the baseball bat that I keep in my umbrella stand and stood there waiting for the "visitor" to leave.  I thought that as they walked away, I would be able to see them through one of the windows and if it turned out to be someone I knew, I could call them back.  Finally, I saw a man run, not walk, down the sidewalk and into the parking lot.  He ran around the building across from mine and behind it down the alley.  He was wearing a white tee shirt and black gym shorts and carrying something in his left hand.  He was also barefooted.

So, I went and got my phone just in case he came back and went back to stand behind the front door with my baseball bat.  A few minutes later, the doorbell rang twice more back to back.  Then he ran away again back across the parking lot and down the alley.  It was the same man and this time, I looked closely at what he was carrying in his left hand as he ran across the parking lot in the dark.  It looked like it could be a handgun with a long barrel.  I freaked and called 911.  The 911 operator asked me if he was black or white.   Black I answered.  He wanted to know what he was wearing and I told him.  Then I started thinking and I thought, if he was a bad guy, why would he be barefooted????  And then I started thinking, wait... my new neighbor is black and could fit the description of this man....  So I told the 911 operator that.  The operator asked if I could see him now so I kept peeking out the window to try to get another glimpse of him.

He ran by again, but under the lights this time and I realized that the object in his left hand was not a gun but a monkey wrench.  So I told the operator that and I told him, I really thought it could be the neighbor.  Maybe something was wrong or someone had broken into his house.....  In all honesty this was a desperate attempt to try to redeem myself.  I was almost 100% sure now that I had indeed called the police on my new neighbor. So, finally, two police cars arrived and I hung up the phone.  The police cars stopped at his alley and the cops got out of their cars.  He came walking up to them and they all walked toward my front door together.  The police knocked on my front door and told me that he had a massive water leak in his unit and was trying to figure out where to turn the water off.  He had rang my doorbell to see if I knew.

I felt AWFUL!!!!!  So, now I am officially the worst neighbor in the world stereo-typing the very nice black man who lives across from me and literally calling the police on him when it was he who had an emergency.  On the bright side, the police called the fire department who came out to help him.  I hope they didn't get a lot of water damage.  I need to go to the grocery store so that I can bake a cake to take over as an apology.  But I can't leave the house since the idiots finally showed up to work on my foundation.  You will be happy to know however, that the response time from the Dallas Police department was only 2 minutes.  Last night when I was lying in bed feeling horribly guilty about having called the police, I tried to think of how that could have been avoided.  If he had yelled through the door, "Hey, this is Ben, your new neighbor and I have a huge water leak in my house!"  That might have helped.  If I gave them my phone number so that they could call instead of ringing my doorbell at 10:45 p.m.  That might have helped.  I honestly believe that if he had been white, and had been running around like that carrying something in his hand and ringing my doorbell, I would have reacted exactly the same way.  But I'll never know.

Ugh!  I'm the worst neighbor ever!

Day Two-Forty-Four - Elves and Such

I have several friends who have elves loose in their houses this Christmas season.  For them, it might be a hassle or just something that is kinda cool when their kids discover what the elf did while they slept the previous night.  But it makes me jealous.  This is the one time of year it would be so fun to have small kids.  Kids who believe in the magic of Christmas are about the funnest things in the world.

A few days ago, people started posting pictures on Facebook late at night of the positions their elf was in for the night.  I know that this is happening for your kids, but some of us adults look forward all day to what your household elf will do overnight.  In fact, it can become a little difficult to go to sleep before we know.  Seriously, I thought the other day that perhaps my cats needed some elf action just so that I could play along.  Fortunately, I was able to stop myself before I got carried away mostly because I worried that people would be like....  "Wait, why does Susan have an elf roaming around in her house???  She has no kids...."  Then all of the crazy cat lady rumors would start up and we all know where that leads.

So, I live vicariously through your elves.  If you have an elf in your house and photos of it can safely be posted on FB without fear of exposing any of your elf helpers, those of us without one of the little rascals roaming around our homes would love to see what he is up to.  Honestly, this could be more fun for the adults than the kids.  If you can't act a little like a kid at Christmas time, when can you, right?

In other news, my foundation repair is scheduled to begin today.  I got up bright an early at 7 a.m. since they made a point of calling and reminding me a number of times that it would start today and I needed to be here to let the foreman in the house.  I guess he has to take elevations in the house again although that has been happening on a regular basis for the last several months.  Meanwhile, I am up and dressed and waiting, waiting, waiting and no foundation guys are here yet.  I wonder if they will show up sometime before lunch.  They obviously are unaware that they are dealing with someone who has an aversion to the first 7 o'clock of each day.  I completely prefer for my 7 o'clocks to fall in the evening.

I feel like I should clarify.  Nobody told me to be ready for foundation guys at 7 a.m.  But I know that laborers generally begin work early in the day and so I assumed that they would begin at least by 8 and I wanted to be prepared.  It is after 8 and the only traffic I have seen in the last hour is the handicap school bus that picks a kid up a few buildings over everyday.  I mean, the garbage truck always empties the dumpster one building over before 8 a.m.  Don't foundation repair guys and garbage truck drivers work on roughly the same schedule?

My sleep schedule has become a little bothersome lately.  As you all may have heard, you know unless you are deaf or didn't know who I was prior to today, I will be going on a cruise in 47 days.  As you also may know my travel buddy, Jenny still works at the former employer who shall not be named which means she still has a normal work schedule.  So, she still gets up early every morning and therefore she apparently goes to bed slightly earlier than I do every night.  In the last month or so, she has expressed concern about how we will be able to share a cabin on the cruise ship with our sleep schedules differing so much these days.  I have tried to assure her that when necessary I do go to bed at a normal time and get up early like others.

For some reason, when I am at my parents house, this is true.  I can go to bed prior to midnight every night there.  I think it has something to do with a relaxation thing.  For me, spending a few days in Nacogdoches is like taking a handful of Lunesta.  What does this say about Nacogdoches???  I don't know.  But the fact is that I do go to sleep before midnight when I am there.  Maybe the motion of a cruise ship will have the same relaxing effect on me that Nacogdoches does.

Meanwhile, since Sunday night I have been making an effort to get sleepy and hit the sack early and last night I was even upstairs before 11 p.m. and still I sat up reading until after 2 a.m.  At 12:30 I suddenly put my Nook down and decided that I simply would not be able to sleep unless the litter box was not just scooped but completely changed with a new liner and all, so I brought a fresh 40 pound box of cat litter in the house at 12:30 last night.  Even the cats had puzzled looks on their faces.  I'm sure that if I spoke cat, I would have heard Shiner saying to Jingle, "What the hell is she doing????  Does she know what time it is????  That box doesn't need to be changed tonight.  Shouldn't we be sleeping now?"  Shiner is very inquisitive....

So anyway even though I have made an effort to get to bed earlier all week this week, it has actually resulted in a lot less sleep for me than normal.  I think I haven't slept more than 5 hours any night since last Saturday.  I am sure that if I continue on this schedule, my body will eventually give in and just start sleeping when I get in bed.  But for now, it is making me pretty grumpy.  I am no fun to be around when I am sleep deprived.  So, if all of you could have conversations with your house elves this evening and ask them to get to work early tonight so that I can see where they end up before 10 or so, I would be grateful.  Thanks for your support.  Have a good Tuesday.