Send Me an Angel...

I usually get out of bed at 5 a.m. and I am bright-eyed and bushy-tailed; in other words, about 10 seconds after my feet hit the floor, I am fully powered up and ready to go. I've always been a "morning person." I don't need a cup of high-octane coffee -- although it certainly tastes good -- to get the engine revved up and going.

Usually.

But not yesterday morning.

I was really tired Thursday night, so at about 9:30, I kissed Richard goodnight and went to bed in the spare bedroom.

I did not sleep very well. Here in the center of southern Missouri, we are not quite through that transition stage between the heat and humidity of the summer, where one tends to want to lay naked on the top of the sheet with no cover at all, and the dead of winter, where it is really cold outside, and serious pajamas, socks, and two or three blankets and a sleeping bag (unzipped and laid flat) to cap it all off provide a nice warm nest to snuggle down into.

It felt really cold Thursday night though (indeed, it was 15-degrees when I went out yesterday morning to liberate the cat from kitty prison). So I got all garbed out in the jammy bottoms, a knee-length flannel nightgown for the top, and socks, and got the blankets situated, and got into bed. The bed was icy cold and it gradually warmed up and felt good. And then it kept on warming up, and suddenly it was way too hot. So, off came the socks, and the pajama bottoms, and one blanket was thrown to the side.

Then I felt like I was getting a UTI. No! No! No!. Not now.... Please... So I got up and drank a cup of water with baking soda, and swallowed 4 cranberry caplets, and drank some more water to get them down, and got back to bed. And then about 30 minutes later I had to pee. And then I got back in bed. The UTI feeling started to go away, thank the Lord for that.

And eventually I fell asleep, only to wake up again at about 3 a.m. I had to pee again. My butt was cold, I was tangled up in the sheet; the blankets were in a horrible twisted mess, one of them was just about on the floor. And I now had trouble falling asleep.

And at 4 AM, through the window by the bed, I could see through the bare tree branches that the sky was crystal clear and filled with stars. Three prominent ones were framed in the window, sort of in a triangle shape. Later I looked at my star chart and think these were probably part of Canis Major. No matter...

And I found this poem by Ogden Nash...

Complaint to Four Angels

Every night at sleepy-time
Into bed I gladly climb.
Every night anew I hope
That with the covers I can cope.

Adjust the blanket fore and aft,
Swallow next a soothing draught;
Then a page of Scott or Cooper
May induce a healthful stupor.

O the soft luxurious darkness,
Fit for Morgan, or for Harkness!
Traffic dies along the street.
The light is out. So are your feet.

Adjust the blanket aft and fore,
Sigh, and settle down once more.
Behold, a breeze! The curtains puff.
One blanket isn't quite enough.

Yawn and rise and seek your slippers,
Which, by now, are cold as kippers.
Yawn, and stretch, and prod yourself,
And fetch a blanket from the shelf.

And so to bed again, again,
Cozy under blankets twain.
Welcome warmth and sweet nirvana
Till eight o'clock or so manana.

You sleep as deep as Keats or Bacon;
Then you dream and toss and waken.
Where is the breeze? There isn't any.
Two blankets, boy, are one too many.

O stilly night, why are you not
Consistent in your cold and hot?
O slumber's chains, unlocked so oft
With blankets being donned or doffed!

The angels who should guard my bed
I fear are slumbering instead.
O angels, please resume your hovering;
I'll sleep, and you adjust the covering.

This is the mood I was in yesterday (in case the embedded video hasn't embedded)..



Part of the problem Thursday was that I was upset about our son. Most of the time with our son, we both feel like we are in one of those log-rolling competitions where the lumberjack types try to keep their footing on this spinning log in the water. We can't figure out what goes through his mind when he does the stuff he does. It drives us nuts. We maintain our cool most of the time, but occasionally, well, we just fall off. That happened Thursday. It was something dumb and we stewed about it all day long, and we had a discussion with him when he came home from work.



And yesterday we felt an overwhelming need for comfort food. And we picked ourselves up and got back on the log...