Sleep, glorious sleep

Michael is definitely feeling better, progressing very well, despite as he puts it, "feeling run over by a large truck". Yes, apparently it's possible to feel "better" and yet also "hit-by-truckish" at the same time. Me .... not so much so.That truck may have sideswiped me on the way past.  More in a minute.

As mentioned earlier in his and my posts, the patient desperately wants out of the house and to not be a "bump on a log" (not to be confused with "ants on a log" - a term & creation Michael was unaware of until last night when I explained). Sooooo .... shopping, malls, errands, and driving hither and yon it is. I may have erred in my county count in that earlier post -- I thought a few places where in different counties and Michael has corrected me (damn Yahoo Maps). But no worries, we'll probably hit all those counties soon anyway as he looks for more different places to go to walk and be "out". We've already gone to the Promenade in Saucon Valley on a near daily basis, hit the Lehigh Valley Mall twice (which is two more times than in the last 5 years combined), the mall at King of Prussia, and now also the Montgomery Mall. Plus Target, BJ's, Giant, Wegman's, Fresh Market  -- all on regular basis. We're running out of grocery stores to try out.

And while we've been out, we've been trying to do a favor for my best buddy who lives in Ohio, and whose cute little 6-year old stepson has apparently become a Villanova Wildcat basketball fan. They have no connection to Nova, no idea how this started, but every time he hears or sees them on ESPN he goes nuts. So, since we live in Wildcat (of that blue persuasion -- not to be confused with my beloved purple Wildcats or the dreaded other blue Wildcats I grew up hating) country, we've been looking for some promised Nova gear in youth sizes. This has been a bit surprisingly more of a challenge than I thought -- but probably because our first forays were up closer to the Lehigh Valley and out of the core fan area for Nova. At the very least I figured, hey, I know where Nova's campus is and it's not that far, I can always go to the darn bookstore!
But we had great success yesterday so all is good. 

But that was part of a series of errands that started with M getting me up early so we could go show community support and eat a $5 pancake breakfast at the local high school for the football team (not bad -- I've had much worse pancakes that cost more), then we drove to the Montgomeryville area (to our south), hit the mall, did his walking, did the shopping, and were on our way back home before noon. He also wanted to see a movie, have lunch and maybe dinner out, back up at Saucon (to our north). And at this point I hit the wall. Said movie would have to be later because I needed a  nap --- NOW.

I've been feeling run down and a bit ragged lately. Been doing the dreaded java. Also advil and hot tea to try to knock out my sore throat. And Friday night I just didn't sleep well at all. More like a baby -- you know, up every two hours and cried. HA! Seriously though, up every 2 hours, and always thinking it had to have been 6 hours later instead. Very turned upside down-ish.  So I took a nap of epic proportions -- would best that of any of my 2 1/2 year-old nephew. Felt a little more human. And we went to the movies (our 2nd of the week) and had a very nice early-ish dinner at Italian-inspired restaurant up at Saucon. Came home and was nodding off checking email at 9pm, so I went and crashed at what must be a record-early time for me and apparently hours before Michael. [ok, so I didn't fall asleep until 10:30 -- but that's still a record!]  We have some things backward here in the patient-caretaker roles at the moment!

 But I feel a bit more human this morning .. up early again to tackle the long list of activities for the day and driving all over the county. I really should get one of those black chauffeur hats to go with my black coat and our dark vehicles with the tinted windows in which I schlep -- I mean "drive" -- my dear beloved charge! 


Peace
J

New time 'zone'

I've been slacking here now that we've returned to 'normal' life ... or our new 'normal'.  I have also been trying, and often failing, to adjust to living in our new time zone. I am now trying to be on MST.
"Michael Standard Time".
[other alternate names considered: GMT (goshdarnearly Michael time), WMT (why-am-i-up Michael time), or any other variation on the same]

See, as I think I've mentioned before, I'm a night owl. I was born at night, my first waking hours were at night, I've always been good and alert at night, and grad school just returned me to this natural circadian rhythm my body has wanted for years -- to be a bat. So I do late nights, and late mornings and I have never ever been an early riser, or particularly good in the mornings. What can I say, working in the corporate world was hell for this reason alone. 

Nevertheless, this is not a state I can live in during caretaking time, nor could I really manage it during the holidays, our travels, the time in Cleveland, etc. Too darn many of those 4:00-hour a.m. wake-up calls, early flights, early hospital appointments, etc. So I've been trying to adapt. Hence (probably) my fall from grace and wooing over to the dark side as my friends Jay & Sean have called it (quite maniacally gleefully I might add. hmmmm).   I've been trying to be up early, get up when the alarm actually goes off, when Michael is up, and pretend to be a normal person. This was jump-started on the weekend of all godforsaken times when M had me up before 8am I believe on both days. The weekend is no longer sacred!!  Ugh.  I have regressed earlier this week, sleeping in past 9 and through my alarm unfortunately, and even missing a wanted aqua class. Darn. And this has resulted in sequential days of Starbucks visits for nonfat caramel lattes. [Darth Vader music & rasps ... "Luke, I AM your father/caffeine"   Me: "Noooooooo!"]

Stay tuned to see if this results in a more permanent re-setting of my circadian rhythms or if I regress to my dark hours, and how well can I keep up with the patient and his preferred hours.