What I hate about night time

I 've become semi-nocturnal, I think. By the time night has fallen, my brain has woken up completely; and in the stillness night brings I can think and ponder. I love the quietness that comes with night--no place to go, nothing that I have to do anymore . . . except get ready for the next day. But even the getting ready seems a little easier now that night has come and everyone is asleep and I have fewer things to distract me.

Unfortunately, my mind and body have become too used to doing things at night. Going to bed at 9 or even 10 seems too early, so I stay up doing just a little more. 11 is the neutral time of night when my mind and body have agreed that it would be fine to go to sleep . . . if I wasn't already wrapped up in what I am currently doing (since I went ahead and started something at 9 or 10). By the time I have finally wrapped up everything and gotten ready for bed, it's approaching 12.

To throw a moneky wrench into the way things work, I am starting to get sleepy around 8 or 9 (which, of course, my mind and body have agreed is too early for bed). However, by 10 or 11, I am awake again and ready to think about things or get things done, and by the time I wind down or get sleepy again, it's . . . you guessed it: 12 (or 1 or 2!).

Counting sheep doesn't work.

Reading wakes me up (unless it's in the day time).

Writing wakes me up, too.

In fact, I can't think of anything that makes me sleepy at the "awake" time of night. Unless I have somewhere that I have to go to get home at that time of night. Then I fall into an awake kind of sleep--awake but unaware and semi-incoherent. I'm a mess right now =)

So, though I do love night time (it's a great time for a lot of things!), right now it's a battle for me. A strange sort of negotiation with myself.

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Nocturne

It's late . . . but that's nothing new. I get home from work late: late at night, later than I planned, etc. I come in the door knowing that Grandma is already sleeping and chuckling to myself over her last suggestion before I left for work (an "unexpected shift"; yes, the quotation marks belong around both words)--she told me that I should just change into my pj's so that I could just fall into bed when I got back home. Was she ever right! About how late I'd get home, that is. I'm still glad that I chose not to wear the pj's to work tonight.

She says she doesn't hear anything much after her door is shut. And I do know how this house muffles things, but I wonder how much she really can hear. Am I waking her up by opening the pantry door (the closest door to her bedroom)? It clicks so loudly in the stillness of the house as it opens and shuts. I'm craving something starchy. Chips and salsa fit the bill. I stealthily open the pantry door. Click of the handle. I grab the bag of chips. Crinkle. Crinkle. I shut the door. CLICK. At least the refrigerator door is quieter as I get out the salsa, but there's still the small thud+suction sound the door makes (would that sound be called "thuction"?). A cuboard opening for the bowl to put my snack in. thung! Clickch! Another cupboard opening for a pitcher to put some milk into. thung! Clickch! Refrigerator door again. thuction? Jar lids being opened, sounds of pouring--ahhh! much quieter. Now to open the bag of chips. There is nothing stealthy about a bag of chips. There is not chip bag material known to man that allows for stealth. I'm convinced there was one once: I think that it was banished after complaints from parents who couldn't tell that their kids were sneaking unlawful snacks before dinner. They lobbied for chip bags to be made out of crinchy material rather than quiet and supple material. Now as for the reason that said chip bags cannot keep chips from getting stale as well as Ziploc bags can? That's another story. But these chips are stale. I knew they would be. But they're starchy. And Great-Uncle Carl's salsa can cover staleness quite handily! Besides . . . stale chips are quieter =) But the chips bag was not: crinch. crinch-crinch. crinkle-crinkle-crinkle. Cronch. strunch. Scronch-Scronch-Scronch. crinch-crinch-crinch. crinch. I poured out the rest into Ziploc for the sake of getting rid of the bag. So now I'm keeping stale chips fresh? Yeah, something like that.

What is it about night that makes all sounds clearer? As though the sounds are distilled and separated and displayed one-by-one in a shop window? I've always found that aspect of night fascinating. And amusing tonight. Especially when I re-open the door to put away the rest of the chips.

Did I say rest? I think it's time to get some rest myself =)

Funny

1. When I searched for a poem today that I had published in an earlier blog but couldn't go to at the moment on my own blog, one of the first sites that came up with the poem was my own blog!!! So wierd =) and cool.

2. I had my taxes done professionally this year. I had a coupon but thought that it was only for easy tax situations (mine is not "easy"--two states to file in, plus filing for my own business does not qualify as "easy"). So I hoped that it would at least get me a percentage off of my charges. It did--the whole coupon applied for me! I paid just what the coupon said!!! and only that =)

3. The weather decided it wanted to be nice today. I drove part of the way home with my window down listening to the frogs croaking along the River.

4. Grandma locked me out of the house. She thought I was home when she got home from church because my car was in the drive, so she locked the deadbolt when she got in. Then she saw my note telling her that I was at a house down the street. But she forgot to unlock the deadbolt. I couldn't figure out what was wrong when my key in the door failed to turn the handle. She had to come rescue me. =)

Tired

It hits you in between the eyes in the middle of the day. Or it suddenly throws your mouth wide open before you can stop the urge to show the people around you a glimpse of the Grand Canyon for free. It makes you do dumb things like leaving the ends off of your words or forgetting what you came into the room to do in the first place.

It's called "being tired."

And it usually hits you when you can't stop. If your bed were handy, you could fall right into it and go to sleep, but it's not and you can't.

Silly thing is that it makes going to bed at night harder. Here I sit, knowing I ought to be in bed. But my body is moving slowly, and my brain keeps losing its train of thought. Bother! And then I start checking e-mails and catching up with friends and forget that I was supposed to be checking my bank account online! Bother!

I couldn't help but laugh when, as I re-read a C. S. Lewis book recently (The Silver Chair), I saw myself in one of the main characters:

"It is a very funny thing that the sleepier you are, the longer you take about getting to bed; especially if you are lucky enough to have a fire in your room. Jill felt she couldn't even start undressing unless she sat down in front of the fire for a bit first. And once she had sat down, she didn't want to get up again. She had already said to herself about five times, 'I must go to bed,' when she was startled by a tap on the window."

So, here I sit in a cold basement, finding things to do before going to bed. I'd REALLY be in trouble if I were "lucky enough to have a fire" in my room! Actually, with all the papers lying around waiting to be dealt with, I wouldn't dare light it!

I think it's time to go to bed =)

I found this poem the other day when I was going through literature class with one of my students. I makes me smile . . . a lot. Especially since we used to have a cat =) By the way, what's the dictionary abbreviation for the title of this poem? ;-)

"Catalogue"

by Rosalie Moore

Cats sleep fat and walk thin.
Cats, when they sleep, slump;
When they wake, pull in-
And where the plump's been
There's skin.

Cats walk thin.
Cats wait in a lump,
Jump in a streak.
Cats, when they jump, are sleek
As a grape slipping its skin-
They have technique.
Oh, cats don't creak.
They sneak.

Cats sleep fat.
They spread comfort beneath them
Like a good mat,
As if they picked the place
And then sat.
You walk around one
As if he were City Hall
After that.

If male,
A cat is apt to sing upon a major scale:
This concert is for everybody, this
Is wholesale.
For a baton, he wields a tail.
(He is also found,
When happy, to resound
With an enclosed and private sound.)

A cat condenses.
He pulls in his tail to go under bridges,
And himself to go under fences.
Cats fit
In any box or kit;
And if a large pumpkin grew under one,
He could arch over it.

When everyone else is just ready to go out,
The cat is just ready to come in,
He's not where he's been.
Cats sleep fat and walk thin.

copied from http://www.bookcrossing.com/forum/6/2102786

Goose Wing River (or being geographically challenged)

One of my students is doing a project on the Cornelia Meigs book SWIFT RIVERS (I highly recommend it to those who have not read it. Yes, it is a children's book. No, it's not for children only--though having a healthy inner child might help you enjoy it more).

The author gives pretty specific information about the setting--including the President at the time and locations on the river that can still be found on maps of the Mississippi today. All but the Goose Wing River. We have been unable to find it on maps anywhere. I've even looked it up on several websites that have maps of the area. Nothing matches the other geographical clues.

Now, I realize (both of us know, actually) that we can still complete the project very beautifully without knowing the location of the river. But I am curious--intrigued. Meigs's books are so detailed and realistic that I can't help feeling that there MUST be a place out there called the Goose Wing River. It's almost a disappointment to think that perhaps she just made the place up as she did the characters. Perhaps it no longer exists. Perhaps it was swallowed up by metropolitan Minneapolis. Perhaps is it too small to be recognized as a nameable river anymore. Perhaps it dried up long ago. Perhaps I'll be keeping my ears open for any news of such a place for the rest of my life. =)

Here's to the little intriguing details that inexplicably pique our interests! May yours bring you as much fun as ours has!

craziness

so.
One of my bosses resigned.
I'm sad she's gone, but I totally understand why she left.
I understand even better than I did before she left: I'm "filling in" for her.
Until they get someone else.
Soon?
There's so much to do!
And I'm enjoying all I'm learning, but I'm not enjoying all the time I don't have to do other things . . . like living and working and getting things done . . . and sleeping.
Ok, scratch that last one: I don't really sleep anyway. =) (just kidding)
so.
that's my life at the moment.
pretty simple.

Cramped

At least I'm not typing blind this time around =)

My cousin worked on my grandma's computer at Thanksgiving, and from Thanksgiving to Christmas, I enjoyed the freedom of actually being able to use the internet and being able to access my sites that I typically access. It felt a little like being able to stretch after being cramped for a while. Well, a couple days ago, the computer, in the middle of something I was doing, decided it wanted to hibernate or revert to its original state of things. So it did. It's back to its former cramped position. A few things are different from last time. I'll have to learn the new rules.

At least I'm not typing blind this time around.