Summer Day 2

This morning was bumpy. Not just bumpy. Bicycling over gravel and fall off and skin your knee and get gravel in your skinned knee bumpy.

At 5am the dog woke me up. He wanted to sleep on the bed. He, for the last eight years, has a standing invitation and knows he is welcome up any time. This morning he whined until he received a special invitation.

Unable to get back to sleep, I thought I would read and write until the house stirred, which is usually around 6:30.

Baby 3 woke up about three minutes after I’ d put coffee on and screamed for me from a bad dream. She apparently thought reading was a fantastic idea and cried for me to read to her. So I did. Who is going to say no to a child who wants to read?

I am already sleep deprived from the last almost seven years. A couple of good nights’ sleep does me little good other than to remind me that somewhere down the road, I will feel human again. We so underestimate and sniff at the monster that is sleep deprivation. I am its prisoner.

Which is all to say that this morning I was floating around somewhere between unappreciated and under appreciated. Definitely undercaffeinated.

I was snapping and snarling at the world this morning, my little family receiving the brunt of it, poor bubs. The routines of the day, the Get the Breakfast, the Monitor the Doing of Chores, the Breaking Up of Giggling Skirmishes Too Close to the Stairs, the Wiping of Everything…it felt less a framework for a great day than drudgery. It’s all drudgery when I’m tired.

Have I mentioned I’m always tired? I’m tired in my eyes and my belly and my fingers and toes.

I then get tired of things. The tasks, the sameness, the changes, the laundry. All of it.

It’s not that i want every day to be special. That is by definition impossible. I do want special moments. I’m trying to find them, but on days of drudgery and exhaustion that’s my challenge. I’m snapping. I snarl that I want more date nights, all the while listening to myself and wondering who would want to spend quality time with Ms. Grumpy McMuttersUnderHerBreath.

The answer to that is, of course, no one.

I stumbled upon this reminder that humanity is not done for. What a good use of his time here on Earth.

I read it an exhaled. Then inhaled. Then I dropped my very heavy phone on my very delicate foot, managing to match up the pointy painful corner of the phone with a fleshy nervy part of my foot between bones. There are bruises. I won’t post pictures of that — it’s not Christmas, you know.

******************************************************************************************************
The draw of this house was it’s relative isolation in a busy area. My backyard is a haven and there is ample sunlight, plenty of wildlife (due to our being located on a river) and lots of space. We have one neighbor who is a few hundred feet from our house, and several others much farther away.

Today my one close-by neighbor landscapers come for some very loud hedge trimming lasting almost two hours. She gets landscapers in three or four times a week. Landscapers are not ninjas. They are not stealth. They use power tools and things with motors and power blades. The noise was audible from blocks away. I heard it on my approach from dropping children to various destinations and a speed shop at the grocery. I’d rushed through it so I’d have at least an hour to write and calm myself. It wasn’t steady enough noise to tune out…if it were an ongoing drone I might be able to. It stopped and started and was enough to burst my eardrums. It’s inescapable. I don’t like this loss of control. I know I’m supposed to surrender, but I always thought that meant to things other than my neighbor’s shrubbery maintenance.

“Noise cancelling” headphones, I have found, reduce noise from outside when noise is being played into the ears. I need white noise headphones.

But that, too, passed, and my children all had enjoyable times at their various camps, which is all I can ask for. We made our summer bucket list, which is diverse and mostly inexpensive. There will be much ice cream and mess-making.

In the meantime, this is the bliss that is my backyard. We live in a natural flood plain. This is what is supposed to happen when it rains hard. We call it Lake Gobits, based on a nonsense word the boys used to say when they were little. It will go down in a day or two, leaving us with a naturally lush lawn. It’s the view from my writing space. Pretty cool, huh?