Unpictured

Karen, in the state for a few days, came up to visit us on Friday night. We folded her into the usual Friday evening with Braz and Adin -- went out to dinner, then went back to their place and got the kids tucked into bed and settled in to drink and play Cards Against Humanity. There was much drinking and hilarity and a good time was had by all. Yay!

Saturday afternoon, I took Penny to the most awkward birthday party ever (we got there a few minutes late, and there was no one there but us, the birthday girl's mom, and the little brother. The birthday girl -- and most of the other guests -- didn't arrive until more than a half-hour after when we'd been told the party would start.) and then we spent the rest of the evening hanging out with Jenn and Brian. More eating out, a round of Pirate Fluxx, and another game of Cards Against Humanity, which is rapidly becoming one of my favorite games.

Sunday, I roasted the pumpkin we'd got from our CSA and Penny and I made muffins with it, and then after Alex's nap (and a snack of pumpkin muffins) we all went up to Pumpkinville to pick out our Hallowe'en pumpkins. (I was mildly disappointed in the selection this year, though, especially with the pie pumpkins, and they've added additional "fun" things like a bounce house -- that you have to pay extra for, of course, causing the kids to whine and complain when we say 'no' -- so we may go elsewhere for our pumpkins next year.) I took pictures, but haven't gotten around to getting them off the camera yet.

We got home right at dinner time, so we had tacos for dinner, and then Penny and I started the next Little House book. (On the Shores of Silver Lake -- I'd forgotten what a downer it is, with the illness and blindness and lack of money and then the dog dies... yike.) After the kids were in bed, I wrote a little bit, then read a lot more. I'm not 100% positive, but I think I may have fallen asleep reading.

It wasn't my best sleep ever, though, I have to say. Between Alex getting me up to deal with a wet spot on his bed (his pullup wasn't even all that wet; I guess he was just laying on it wrong and it leaked) and the sinister and disturbing dreams that chased me all night (don't worry, no details) I'm still pretty logy this morning.

I need to figure out when I'm taking my part-time time off this week, and put it on my calendar so people don't schedule me for things. And I need to prep for a sort of mini-audit early next week. And the guy who usually takes notes at the Monday meeting isn't here, which means it'll be my job, yay.

This weekend is Penny's school's fall festival; Matt and I need to decide if the whole family is going or just one of us with her, so we can pre-order our tickets and dinner packages. And the neighborhood fall festival is this weekend, as well.

So apparently, we've entered the fall/holiday busy season without my having time to brace for impact.

A Little Off The Top

I've got a long-overdue haircut on the schedule today, for me and for Penny. It's smack in the middle of the day (the end-of-day and Saturday appointments were all booked straight into August) so I'll be leaving work around lunchtime to go pick Penny up, and if we're done before 4, she'll just come back to work with me.

So this morning, while I was doing my Wii Fit workout, I was contemplating both the correct time to leave to pick Penny up and considering how to adjust my workout at the YMCA (because I've got a pull or something making my back hurt). Which... if I'm getting my hair cut over lunch, I'm not going to the gym.

Sigh. I cannot brain today. I have the dumb.

Or maybe I can blame it on the dream I had around 2am, involving swirling purple-black clouds in the sky and a tornado that reached down out of the sky and slammed into the hood of the car Penny and I were in with the devastating impact of a cartoon superhero's fists. I sat bolt upright, and for a good ten minutes afterward my heart was pounding so hard I thought it would wake Matt up.

(I wish they'd go ahead and announce the layoffs so the worst can be over.)

Talking In My Sleep

I spent half the night last night dreaming that I was trying to figure out how to set my dad up with a Weight Watcher's style program without actually having him join Weight Watchers. My big stumbling block was trying to figure out how many points he should start out with -- I know how many I have, but I'm pretty sure men have an additional complement of points just because they are men, and I couldn't figure out what that was or how to calculate it. And for some reason, in the dream, I couldn't find the information online or ask KT and Kevin.

Seriously. Half the damn night, I spent on this.

The night before last, I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to do some other fairly minor task that, in the dream, simply wouldn't happen.

I think I'm trying to tell myself something, here. I'm making mountains out of molehills, perhaps. Or making simple things complicated. Or focusing too much on tiny mundane tasks and failing to provide any real challenges.

Which is hardly news. But I guess it's time to do something about it, eh?

Press-On Smile

Not having the best day.

I've been having minor shoulder pain for the last month or so, trying to ignore it in the hopes that it would heal on its own, but it doesn't seem to be working. Plus I attempted some squats during my Wii Fit workout Monday night (as an alternative to the exercise that makes my shoulder hurt the worst) and learned that I was completely, 100% right about my knee not being able to handle them yet, and despite only doing four of the damn things, made my knee much worse, just as it had been starting to improve a little. Now it hurts even when I'm not moving.

Penny starts daycare/summer camp today, but I forgot to put together menus and a worksheet for her yesterday at work, so I had to throw today's stuff together last night in a hurry, feeling like an idiot.

Then I realized that I'd forgotten to get the tortillas with which to make tonight's dinner of quesadillas, so now I'm not just an idiot, I'm a partial idiot. (i.e., not a complete idiot -- some parts are missing.)

I slept like crap. I've been having all kinds of fucked up dreams lately. Last night, I decided I had to fly back to San Antonio now, and I made Matt drive me to the airport and I was calling the airline on the way to the airport to try to find tickets that would get me there tonight and bring me back tomorrow at a reasonable hour and realizing that I had no clothes or food or money, and that though Penny was in the car, we'd left Alex sleeping in his crib, alone in the house... At least it wasn't the dream from the night before last, in which I was building a monument of some sort with people that I had to scoop their eye sockets out or saw holes in their heads. (I couldn't recall, when I woke up, whether these were real people, or merely statues -- but the fact that I had to wonder about it was disturbing enough.)

The scratchy throat I had all day yesterday is lingering today. I suspect it's not allergies after all, but a cold of the "too minor to justify staying home from work" variety.

Didn't lose any weight this past week, and I can't even point to any cheating or indulgence or laziness as the reason for it.

I had to set up a meeting for today to drag answers out of various people for a task that really shouldn't be mine to begin with (using the tool I didn't want), and I came in this morning to an email from the PM saying, "Give me a call this morning before the meeting, I would like you to lead the meeting and wanted to provide you my expectations." That's verbatim, and in toto. Awesome. Because I need a control freak manager to tell me how to run my own meeting and do the task that by all rights ought to be his.

So. My to-do list for before I leave work today includes two and a half hours' worth of meetings, my allergy shots, a software delivery, building Penny's worksheet and menus (has to be done at work so I can print it), and in my copious extra time, a stack of administrivia as high as my head. Before I go to bed, I also need to go to the grocery store, make dinner, take a shower, and do a Wii Fit workout. The only thing on that list that's optional is some of the administrivia, and even that can only be put off for so long.

Which is to say, I've used up all the spare time I have for grumpy hissyfits. Time to put on my Lee Press-On Smile and just get on with it.

Don't Go To SLeep To Dream

I managed to get to bed slightly earlier last night, but then the effect was spoiled by spending half the night dreaming that Matt was interviewing me and the kids to decide if he was going to keep us, and he kept doing things that infuriated me and I wanted to kick him and say, "Look, if you don't want us, just say so, but quit being a dick about it!"

I've no idea at all what that was about.

But I'm beginning to think that coffee might not be the worst thing that ever happened to me, this morning.

---

Penny's school had "Field Day" yesterday. I remember Field Day from when I was a kid. I hated it, every year. Could not stand it. It was a chance for the kids who were athletic and coordinated to show off their abilities and for those of us who were not to be chosen last for every activity, mocked, and humiliated. And by the time I was in middle school, I had learned to hate being hot and sweaty, so even the prospect of getting to miss classes and spend time outside wasn't a lure.

But I was enthusiastic for Penny's sake. She enjoys athletics (P.E. is her favorite "resource" class) and she likes being outside, and we have enough trouble with her weight as it is, so I don't want to discourage her.

So she had fun. Came home slightly sunburned (just lightly, on the very tops of her cheeks) and tired. And with a ragingly high blood sugar -- seems that one of the activities involved bubblegum (not sugarless), and there were popcicles at the end. Also not sugarless. And her teacher did send her to the nurse for a blood sugar check after it was all over, but the nurse didn't give her any insulin, despite her blood sugar being high. I don't know what she was thinking, honestly. That all the activity and sun might make Penny drop again soon? That it was so close to the end of the day that she might as well save Penny the extra shot and let her get a correction with her afternoon snack? No idea.

They're having a "Beach Day" on Thursday. (Penny confused us for weeks by telling us that her class was going to the beach, when we knew they'd already had their two field trips for the year. Turns out that "Beach Day" is an at-school activity -- they bring in bags of sand and wading pools and have games and such.) I reiterated for both the teachers and the nurse this morning that we really do want her to participate in these things, and that it's fine if she has gum and popcicles with the other kids, but she really, really does need to have her carbs covered. It's a choice she's made time and time again: she's perfectly happy to get a shot if it means she gets to have treats. They don't bother her all that much.

(And I'm staring down the barrel of several months of Summer Camp/Daycare which involves at least two field trips a week, most of which are likely to involve food of some sort or other. Yay.)

---

Wow, I'm all over the map today. Tell ya what; I'll leave you with a cute picture of Alex doing The Lip (yes, it's out of focus; blame Braz) and go get some coffee.

Tuesday Morning Post, Caffiene-Deprived Edition

I did actually get to bed early last night. Or at least, earlier than I've been going to bed, which is to say around 10. I conked out quickly and slept soundly, right up until 4:30, when Penny came in to tell me she'd had a bad dream.

She tried to climb into bed with us, and I steered her back toward her room. I laid down with her, but she did not fall back asleep. She fidgeted and twitched and kept me awake for half an hour, until I gave up and kissed her good night and promised to leave the door open so she could see the night-light in the hall, and went back to bed.

Losing half an hour of sleep in the early morning is actually worse than getting up half an hour earlier than usual. It's also worse than going to bed half an hour late, or even losing half an hour in the middle of the night, because the hour of sleep I got from 5 to 6 wasn't enough to sink me down into the really restful sleep.

Not Penny's fault, of course, and she really did seem agitated and upset last night (unlike sometimes when she claims a bad dream, but is so calm and cool that I suspect she just woke up and wanted company). She's almost as irritated by it as I am, in fact. "The bad dreams didn't get stuck in the triangles," she mumbled last night, referring to the dreamcatcher we'd given her. "They went into the circle!" And this morning, she demanded, "Why am I having so many bad dreams?!"

She'll outgrow them in a few years, at least. Just in time for Alex to start.

(This is the point at which I consider rearranging the bedroom and turning the bed so Matt is closer to the door.)

Dream Discussions and Warren Ellis

I had a dream this morning. I was with a whole bunch of friends, sitting around someone's living room and talking. The first thing I noticed is that they were all real-life people, which I don't see much of in my dreams. The next thing I noticed is that these were all friends who I especially admire for their intellect, people who make me feel, at best, haphazardly and inadequately educated. People that I love to hang out with, when I get the chance, because even their random conversation is informative and fascinating.

And we were really talking -- not just telling stories and bullshitting, but earnestly and seriously discussing things and dissecting their meanings and searching for the pearls of truth scattered amongst the swine of belief and interpretation. We didn't all agree on every point, but it was exactly the kind of passionate but respectful discussion that I love to be part of, even peripherally.

Just before I woke up, I was making a point about how nearly every culture in the world has some variant on the Golden Rule. And what did it mean -- what truths could be extracted from that fact? Was there, in fact, a universal morality?

And now I'm wondering: why am I dreaming about intellectual discussions of morality? Am I starving for intellectual stimulation? Missing those pre-child days when deep discussions might indeed erupt at any gathering? Do I long to expand my education? Am I working toward an inward examination of morality and spirituality?

It's a conundrum, but it does seem, oddly, to have stimulated my thought processes. As I was driving to work after dropping the kids off to school this morning, I actually started composing a discussion of Warren Ellis as an author and a philosopher, trying to get at the theme that runs straight through his work that I've enjoyed the most -- Transmetropolitan and Preacher and The Authority and FreakAngels -- and that a mind capable of holding onto that theme is almost certainly not really as cynical as the angry and acerbic front he projects. Or at least, that it it capable of that cynicism, but it is also equally capable of a matching and balancing optimism.

That's about as far as I got with it -- it's a short drive from Penny's school to my office -- but I really wanted to put it down, because it's not often that I consider these kinds of things anymore, and I miss it. But I couldn't just suddenly throw it out there without telling you about the dream, because I think it's relevant.

Unrestful

3 AM: Alex wakes up and has a long and, apparently, invigorating conversation with the toys in his crib. I glance at the clock, groan, and put my pillow over my head. Eventually, Alex settles whatever discussion is taking place, and goes back to sleep.

4 AM: I am robbing a vault. Looks kind of like a bank vault, but it's not a bank. I'm with a team of other thieves. They're waiting -- patiently, but tensely -- for me to finish opening the smaller safe that's inside the vault. I cut and splice some wires, check the readout... Should be good. "Here goes nothing." I touch a pad... and an alarm sounds.

"Crap. Crap! Fuck! Shit!" We look around wildly, and I check the map in my head: We have most of a minute before the guards will arrive, so we can- the door is closing automatically. "Out! Out! Out!" My compatriots run, slip through -- but then the closing crack is too narrow for me. I'm locked in the vault. "Well... shit. What now?"

The guards are coming. I start working on a plan.

5 AM: Alex sounds a barbaric YAWP. He doesn't sound upset. It's not crying. Just a single, long loud noise, a declaration of existence. And wakefulness. I wait a few moments in the dark, listening, but apparently the noise summed up everything he wanted to communicate, because he's quiet, again.

5:30 AM: The vault door opens. Two guards are pointing guns at me. I squeak, and then sag with feigned relief. "Oh, thank god!" I breathe, and launch myself on wobbly legs toward them. "I was working late, and I just walked by and he grabbed me and shoved me in here and-" I'm carrying my purse. Why did I bring my huge clunker of a purse on a robbery? No idea, but it lends verisimilitude to my story. Anger at my failure to finish the job rushes over me, and I let it summon tears. "I was so scared!" I gasp.

It isn't quite a lie. I wasn't scared before, but I am now. The guards aren't stupid. They'll keep me around while they investigate. If the other thieves didn't lay enough of a trail as they left for the guards to find -- or if they left too much of a trail -- then I'm cooked.

6 AM: A metallic scream or squeal -- a screal? It stretches on and on. "What the hell-?" Matt gets out of bed and turns off his radio alarm. Apparently, it was a commercial sound effect. At least, I hope it was a commercial sound effect, because if it was meant to be music, it failed.

I'm not feeling very well-rested this morning.

Messages

It wasn't the most restful of nights last night.

For a change, Penny didn't wake up to complain of bad dreams or being unable to sleep, but Alex started making noise around 3:30, and since he's had a diaper rash for the last couple of days, I got up to change his diaper so he'd stay clean and dry. Luckily, he went back to sleep after only a few token protests.

Added to that were the dreams.

In the first, I was someone else, a poverty-stricken man with a wife and kids, being accosted by a gangster to whom I owed money and was unable to pay. It was bad enough when I thought he was going to double the already exorbitant interest rate, but then he indicated that he'd given up on my being able to pay and he was simply going to make an example of me... I woke up in a cold sweat.

The hell was that about? We're pretty stable financially right now; money is always a concern (especially with the latest economic shenanigans) but it's not a major issue for us. (Heck, the financial burden just eased, what with Penny leaving daycare for public school.)

Maybe it's not money at all. Maybe it's about time, and the way that I don't, that I can't have enough time for all the things I want to do. Still, it was a pretty severe dream, especially since I'd just gotten around to thinking I might have made a certain peace with my schedule. So maybe that's not it, either. What debts or deficits do I have that are approaching danger levels? I don't know.

And then there was the dream, close to morning, that -- for no reason I could tell -- Matt bonked me on the head with a... I'm not sure what it was, except that it was filthy, and it left a smear of shit in my hair. No, I don't mean "shit" as in "random stuff," I mean "shit" as in "poop."

The smell was palpable, even in the dream, and I was somewhere that I couldn't just go wash it out, I had to carry on with my day and pretend that I didn't have a glop of excrement on my head.

I don't know what my subconscious was trying to tell me about there, either. Do I feel like Matt is dumping too much on me? Not that I'm aware of. (Okay, I admit to a touch of resentment if he fires up WoW while I'm cooking and cleaning and making lunches, but he doesn't do that very often -- he's usually chasing Alex around, keeping him from eating used kleenex and catfood while I'm doing the evening chores.)

Maybe it wasn't really Matt in the dream, but that he was a stand-in symbol for the whole parenting gig. Maybe I'm resenting all the extra work that goes with that. Which wouldn't really surprise me. It's no secret that I don't deal as well with babies as with older kids. As much as I love Alex, I look forward to his walking, to feeding himself, to talking, to being out of diapers.

I don't know if that's ringing true, either, though.

Maybe they don't mean anything. Maybe I just got a bad chicken nugget.