Monthly Archives: January 2009

Friday Flashback # 21 – Closer

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Oh, Nine Inch Nails. Every time I hear this song, I remember the hours (and hours and HOURS) that I spent at The Sphinx, a goth club in downtown Montreal. No matter what I was doing, no matter how tired I might have been at any given moment, if they played “Closer” there was no way for me to resist getting up and dancing. Occasionally on a speaker.

Now that I’ve listened to this I will inevitably spend the rest of my night listening to NIN songs. And truth be told, my favorite Nine Inch Nails song was actually always this one.

(Blame Andrea, she mentioned it on Twitter and it got stuck in my head!)

Better visuals

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Day 29: Eyesight

Much to my shock today, I walked out of my eye exam with my crappy glasses in my purse and brand new (one would hope) disposable contact lenses pressed firmly against my eyeballs. I was fully expecting to wait a week, what a surprise that they would have my insane prescription available right there in the office!

I ended up waiting almost ten minutes in the doctor’s office while he finished up with another person and I realized how I have changed. A long time ago I would have been annoyed at sitting around waiting. Today I just thought, “wow. I’m all alone and it’s quiet. This is frickin’ awesome!” And then I snapped a few pictures of the eye equipment. When you become a parent sometimes you’ll take your peace and quiet anywhere you can get it. If the exam didn’t cost $70 I’d book one every second day.

Anyway, we went through the exam and the questions, and he ended up giving me a trial pair of contact lenses that are meant to be tossed away after a month. I’m supposed to wear them for about a week and if there are no problems then I go back in to order a supply for either six months or a year. I can likely make each pair last longer than one month if I don’t use them every single day.

I’ve gotten new contacts several times since the first time when I was 17 but I always forget what it’s like to first put in a brand new pair. I’ve been looking through glasses that are so old the anti-reflect coating is wearing off (he said that and the overall age of the lenses are likely what was causing my dizziness and nausea and not the prescription itself since it didn’t change that much; he said my eyes were overworking themselves trying to see through deteriorated lenses), so when I stuck those lenses in my eyes, everything was so bright and so crisp. The doctor was amazed at how quickly I ran through his eye charts and how much better I could see immediately considering most people need a bit of time to adapt.

My very first eye doctor as a child (I was three when I got glasses) told my parents to try contacts for me when I got to be about 15 or so, and said that my vision would be even better because of a lack of space between my eyes and the correctional lens. I guess he was right!

All the way home I marveled at how well I could see the definition in the branches of the trees, how I had peripheral vision again, and when I looked at Breanna up close (she wanted to try to see my lenses in my eyes), I was amazed at how her eyelashes – they stood out so much now.

I’m not anticipating any trouble, I’ve never had an issue with any contacts before, so hopefully I’ll be placing an order before a month passes by and I won’t have to wear my glasses at all anymore other than first thing in the morning and shortly before bed. I’m wearing the glasses now because I’m going to sleep as soon as I post this, but I can already see the difference between typing here with the glasses and the contacts. My head is starting to hurt a bit – I don’t think I’ll be without contacts very often.

I am so happy I can see properly again!

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It's going to be a strange week

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I am so utterly confused by this week. I’ve been off since it started. Monday was a ped day so Hayley was home, making for a long weekend. That meant that Tuesday felt like the beginning of the week to me. Last night she couldn’t sleep because she didn’t feel well and she was feverish this morning so she stayed home today with some random ailment (much like the one Breanna had on Friday and Saturday) – this messed me up further.

I actually thought that today was Tuesday and nearly forgot to do a chunk of work that I normally do on Wednesdays. Oops.

Tomorrow may wreak further havoc on my grasp of the weekly calendar since it started snowing sometime between walking the dog at 6:30 am and getting back up at 8:30. It’s been coming down like crazy and they’re figuring on anywhere between 20 to 30 cm by the time it stops tomorrow. If it keeps coming down as heavy as it has been, there may be a snow day. The local news said it will be the biggest snow storm we’ve had in Montreal so far this winter, and we’ve already had a snow day once so it’s quite likely. I took the dog out at 9 pm and there were absolutely no sidewalks thanks to the plows and the street was slippery.

I intend to listen to the radio on my iPod in bed tomorrow morning when the alarm goes off at 6:15 to hear if there are any cancellations. I don’t want to wake everyone up only to find out the school’s closed after I’ve already served breakfast. I wish school boards could look at the 10 pm conditions and the overnight forecast and make a decision by the 11 o’clock news so I could just turn my alarm off altogether. Alas.

Whether the school is shut down or not, I’m hoping the roads will be relatively passable by 11 am because I have an eye appointment. I figure it’s about time it’s only been, uh, nine years since my last one. Cripes. Also, it’s not just a regular eye appointment, I’m being fitted for contacts again and I can’t tell you how badly I want those again. I have missed them and seriously despise wearing glasses. I needed to do something anyway since I find myself getting randomly light-headed and nauseous (and no, I am not pregnant). I think my vision may have changed and also that my glasses have gotten old and bent out of shape too many times and it’s affecting me in that way. I have more headaches than usual as well, so this was a really good idea.

I’m trying not to be too hopeful about it, but I’m still crossing my fingers that they’ll be able to give me my trial pair of contacts right away when we’re done tomorrow. It’s not all that likely because in all the years that I wore contacts, no one has ever had my stupidly awful prescription strength in stock; they’ve always had to order them in. It shouldn’t take long, less than a week, but I would really like to have them immediately. I’d like to stick my glasses into a case and walk out with little plastic discs pressed firmly against my eyeballs please and thank you.

I told George that I guess I’m just not ready to give up on vanity yet. I thought that maybe I could deal with wearing glasses but I can’t. I realize that this is an issue that dates back many years, back to early high school, probably even elementary school – and it’s just towards myself. I think that glasses look fabulous on the vast majority of people who wear them but on me? I can’t stand them.

Plus there are other perks to contacts. I can put makeup on more easily since I can see what I’m doing. When your prescription is as bad as mine is, taking your glasses off to put on eye makeup is a challenge. I will have peripheral vision again. Of course I can see shapes and whatnot out of the corner of my eyes now but it’s all very blurry and abstract. With contacts I see perfectly in all directions at all times. And considering winter will probably continue for another six months or something, it will be nice to walk back inside after being out in the cold and not have my lenses fog up on me. (I wondered about that when I was 17 and got my first contacts – would they fog up? But no, they do not. And thank God because wouldn’t that look really weird and zombie-like?)

So here’s hoping that I will be glasses-free tomorrow. And if not, well it shouldn’t be more than this time next week. Please let the roads be clear enough to drive!

*******

Speaking of winter and snow and cold – is anyone else finding that January is The Month That Will Not Die? Usually March does that to me. March is the month where I am officially fed up of winter to the point that I have to restrain myself from climbing into a bell tower with a high powered assault rifle. It teases just enough that spring is on the way and then it dumps a metric ton of snow on your head. It goes on forever.

But this year I’m finding that it’s been January for a bloody eternity. October, November, and December combined passed more quickly than this month. Thank god it’s almost over now because it’s starting to feel like some sort of weird occult phenomenon and January just isn’t going to end. Ever.

And with the storm blasting outside right now, that would be a very bad thing.

Friday Flashback # 20 – She's In Love With the Boy

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I mentioned this in an older entry, but to recap, when I was 16 years old my parents and sister had gone to Vermont for a week-long vacation as we did every summer. The difference was that I had stayed because I “had a job” except really I just didn’t want to be away from my boyfriend for a whole week. I mean, gasp! A week! Seven days! I would have died!

So I stayed. They left. The very first day that they were gone? He dumped me over the phone. So that was, you know, a lot of fun.

When I called my parents, 2.5 hours away, and cried, my dad hopped in his car and drove all the way back home, spent the night and then drove me to Vermont so I wouldn’t be alone. I was utterly miserable, convinced no one would ever date me again and that at 16 years of age I was destined to be a spinster who would die surrounded by my 15 cats. I didn’t know if I could manage a smile, so it was something of a shock that a song made me laugh.

Whenever we got within about a half hour of our vacation spot (a recreational trailer park in Alburg right on Lake Champlain), we’d be able to pick up a local country music station. My parents loved country music. At the time I was a closet country fan (now I shout it from the rooftops). Two songs in, they played a new song from a mostly-unknown at that time singer – Trisha Yearwood. The song was “She’s In Love With the Boy”.

You’d think a broken-hearted girl would rather hear songs about people who have “been done wrong” and mope with a bottle of whiskey with their hound dogs or something, anything other than a song about how much a boy and girl love each other.

However, when the chorus hit the line “her Daddy says that he ain’t worth a lick, when it came to brains he got the short end of the stick” I just started giggling and couldn’t stop.

I was sad most of that vacation but at least I wasn’t alone at home. And that station played that song at least twice per day so I heard it a lot and it never once failed to make me laugh.

See? Not all country music is about sad things!

Sometimes people are unbelievable

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You would think, having worked in technical support/customer service for several years once upon a lifetime that I wouldn’t be surprised by idiocy anymore. And yet, sometimes I still find myself stunned by people who are giant asshats.

George and the girls are “camping” in the living room again tonight so I said I would take Pearl out for her last pee of the night before putting her in her crate so that George wouldn’t have to do it. When I take her out in those cases, I usually go out the front door, let her pee down by the sidewalk, and then walk around to the other door.

When I got to that door, I saw a woman standing inside in the stairwell with a little Bichon Frise on a leash. I had seen a car in the parking lot, with the engine running to warm it up, so I figured she was waiting while her husband got the car ready. She spotted me coming and pushed the door open for me. Then she noticed Pearl trotting along at my heels.

The woman looked at her own dog, then started to pull the door closed while shaking her head. Stunned, I reached out and grabbed the handle to keep it open. She said, “No, no, you have to go around!” I held my keys up to her and said, “no, I live here, I can come in either door.”

Then she actually got ANGRY with me, still trying to close the door on me – a visitor to the building trying to close the door on a tenant! – and insisted, “No! Go around! You can’t come in this way!” She glared at Pearl to make her point.

By then I was fed up because it’s cold outside and I wanted to get into my warm apartment and put my dog to bed so I could go relax with a hot cup of green tea before bed. Pissed off, I yanked the door wide open and said, “My dog and I both live here! This is my fucking home, and if I want to come in through this door I bloody well can, now move out of my way!”

She hissed a nervous, “no, no, no!” at Pearl as we walked in, as though she was worried her dog might suffer the horror of being sniffed by a Beagle. She needn’t have worried; Pearl was mildly curious but also very tired and had no real interest in getting to know this new animal.

I just tossed a look of disgust over my shoulder as I headed up the stairs, and called it a night.

Maybe she’s had some sort of bad experience with a dog jumping hers, but:

a. I have a medium sized Beagle. I wasn’t walking a giant Rottweiler – even though Rottweilers are one of my favorite dogs, and can be quite gentle, at least I could understand being nervous of a large dog with a head bigger than your own entire dog.

b. If she has a dog she should understand dog language. Pearl’s ears weren’t flat, she wasn’t growling, and she wasn’t crouching. There was nothing to hint at aggression. She was, however, wagging her tail so hard her butt was shaking, and her tongue was hanging out of her mouth in happiness.

c. MY HOME! If she had been a tenant and didn’t recognize me, I could understand a little, but she was a visitor in MY apartment building. There was no way I was going to tolerate being shut out of my own damn apartment building.

I love people. This is why I want a cabin deep in the woods somewhere. Fewer morons that way.

Friday Flashback # 20 – You're the One That I Want

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Every once in awhile a song I haven’t thought about in ages will suddenly just pop into my head, usually when I’m doing the dishes. I hate dishes because I don’t have a dishwasher, so I pass the time by listening to my iPod or by just singing random songs.

The other night, I suddenly found myself singing “There Are Worse Things I Could Do” from Grease. When I was still taking acting classes and wishing I was brave enough to just GO somewhere like Toronto or New York or L.A., I auditioned for the theater program at one of our local colleges. When I tried out I knew that I couldn’t actually go; I wasn’t living at home anymore and had rent and bills to pay. The theater program is so intensive that you can’t work. I could have applied for financial aid but since the school itself is free, it only would have covered enough to pay for textbooks and student fees. It was utterly impossible. Still, I applied to the program and got an audition date just because I wanted to see if I could get in.

We had to prepare two monologues. One had to be classic (in other words, Shakespeare) and one had to be modern. I hired my acting teacher for a couple of private lessons in order to prepare. For Shakespeare, I pieced together a monologue from Julius Caesar, playing Portia* and for the modern monologue I created one from “I Am A Camera” which was the play that inspired “Cabaret”. I did Sally Bowles, the character later played by Liza Minelli.

We also had to sing a short song (I forget the suggested length now), and I froze in a panic because sing? What, in front of PEOPLE?! I love to sing. I sing a lot. But not in front of PEOPLE. As much as I love a good musical I wouldn’t likely be in one, unfortunately. Unless I could drink a lot of wine before going on stage.

Anyway, it wasn’t because they wanted great singers, apparently it’s a way of seeing how well you can project to the back of the theater. Nervous, I chose “There Are Worse Things I Could Do” from “Grease”. Sandy may be the big part in “Grease” but I always wanted to play Rizzo because she’s more fun.

God, this is turning into the longest flashback ever. So I did my two monologues and then I took a deep breath and belted out my song. A month later I got something in the mail. I totally made it. And then I wondered why I had done that to myself because you have no idea how hard it was to pick up the phone and call them to say that I was very grateful but my “circumstances had changed” and I would not be able to take the course since I needed to work. Heartbreaking. I still wonder what would have happened if I had told my ex I was moving back home with my parents so I could study theater. Ah well.

I chose to sing that song because it wasn’t out of my range and was a solo. But my favorite song from “Grease” is definitely “You’re the One That I Want” by Sandy and Danny.

God. I love “Grease”. I got to play Cha-Cha DeGregario in my high school drama class but I always wanted to be in the full thing. I guess I’ll settle for singing the songs while I wash my dishes.

*I did the whole monologue, on the suggestion of my teacher, in a British accent. I do it quite well, especially when I’ve been practicing. I delivered a very killer “Dwell I but in the suburbs of your good pleasure? If it be no more, Portia is Brutus’ harlot, not his wife.” One of the women holding the audition told me my accent was AWESOME. Blimey.

The upside of an Arctic cold snap

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Lately most of Canada has been brutally beaten senseless by an Arctic cold snap. BC isn’t suffering quite so much, but they deserve the break since they had to deal with flooding and mudslides lately after getting more snow than usual and then heavy rains. From Alberta Eastward though, the cold Arctic air has been creeping down and freezing us all into a bunch of ice zombies.

Yesterday as I was outside walking in what came to -34C with the wind (-29F), I actually found myself laughing. I couldn’t help it, crying would have been counter-productive since my eyelids would have frozen shut within seconds. But really, I laughed because it just seemed so utterly ridiculous that it could actually be THAT cold. And hell, I had it good out there in my -34 weather. People in Winnipeg, Manitoba were probably cursing their decision to live in the prairies because out there the wind was making it feel – no kidding – like it was -49C or -56F. Now that? That is insane.

I’m Canadian, and if there’s one thing Canadians stereotypically enjoy doing, it’s talking about the winter. I perpetuate this stereotype because I love weather. I watch weather shows like some people watch the stock market, I’m a member of a fairly hardcore weather forum, I check both Forecastfox and The Weather Network for discrepancies, I’m all over the weather. I also complain about it regularly. In the winter I groan about the snow and ice and frigid winds. In the summer I moan about how it’s too humid to live.

So instead of complaining about the fact that it’s the third subarctic day in a row and I’m still waiting for my ears to warm up, half an hour after getting back in from walking the dog, I’ll keep laughing about how ridiculous these temperatures are and give you some positive things about all of this.

Positive things about Arctic cold snaps:

1. Getting to experiment with creative layering. On the first day, my jeans were no match for the wind and I came inside with frozen thighs that burned as they thawed. Realizing I was turning into my mother, yesterday I searched from some tights that I could wear under my jeans. I couldn’t find any so I did the next best thing – I wore two pairs pants. Seriously. I wore some skinny pants and then topped them with my jeans. Warm thighs are worth how weird that feels. Today I wore those same pants, a pair of jeans, two pairs of socks, thermal-lined boots, a long-sleeved pajama shirt, a polar fleece hoodie, a button-down cardigan, thick gloves, my winter coat, my Harry Potter scarf wrapped around my face, a toque, and my hood pulled up over it. Sexy? Not even close. But I was warm enough.

2. A glimpse into the future. I wish it wasn’t too cold to be fiddling with a camera outside because then I could show you what I might look like in a a few decades or so. After about two minutes outside, it’s difficult to breathe through my nose, what with it freezing shut. That means I breathe through my mouth, but with my scarf wrapped up just under my nose, breathing causes a lot of condensation. Any hair that is sticking out from under my hat gets wet. Because it’s -34C, the wet hair freezes almost instantly. My hair turns completely white. Not white the way it gets when snow is falling, I mean completely opaque white. I’m not keen on going grey, but if my hair goes totally white like my grandmother’s did, I’ll be okay with that. From what I could see, it looks pretty good!

3. Experimental vision. The reason my scarf is wrapped up just under my nose is because, with glasses, covering up your nose with a scarf means instantly fogged lenses. When my nose does get really cold, I pull the scarf up for a minute, and then I spend that time peering uselessly over my glasses. Looking through them means the world is covered in a thick white film, looking over them means the world is a fuzzy blur. Exciting!

4. Remembering the 80s. When it’s windy, that wind is so cold and biting that tears stream from my eyes. Or well, stream is too strong a word. It’s too cold for streaming. Tears POOL is more like it, and I end up with frozen eyelashes that clump together so much that I am reminded of my first attempts at makeup, when I would glop mascara willy-nilly all over my eyelashes, only to have them clump together and then smoosh up against my glasses. It’s good to reminisce. (Yes, I was totally stunning as a young teenager. STUNNING.)

5. Extra credit Geography. I love Geography. If I could go back in time without changing the present, I would have told my freshly-graduated-from-high-school self to major in Geography because I would have really enjoyed it. However, while you can learn a lot in a classroom or from a book (or the Internet!), there’s nothing like being out in the field for that extra credit and a real chance to learn. Sometimes in the summer, when I’m lying listless on the couch and wondering why humidity has to exist at all, I’ll watch the weather (see? I wasn’t kidding!) and fantasize about living way up north in this vast country. They’ll show the temperatures for the capitals up in the Northern Territories – Whitehorse, Yellowknife, Iqaluit – and they’re all really low, wonderful looking temperatures. I’ll start thinking, “you know, the Tundra is beautiful in that stark way. I’d love to live there.” Then I find myself online looking at the jobs and homes available way up there, north of 60 (now I’m in the mood to watch the show!). Well, having the temperatures as cold as they are and knowing it’s even COLDER up there now, I realize that you know, maybe I’ll just stick with bitching about the humidity and hovering under my air conditioner in the summer and stay in the southern part of the country, thanks anyway.

I think that’s about all I can muster for this cold, crazy weather. It’s supposed to warm up this weekend, though “warm” is pretty well all relative at this point. Right now Forecastfox is showing me a high of -20C (-4F) and -15C (5F) for Saturday and Sunday, plus the windchill. But it’s warmer than today, so I’m looking forward to it.

Who knows? Maybe I’ll only wear one pair of pants!

House of Aches and Pains

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Waiting

Yesterday morning I woke up and felt fine, if a little tired. At lunch time I took the dog for a walk and realized I had a bit of a headache. That’s not much of an observation for me. I have a headache pretty much every day, I just ignore them because they aren’t all that bad. I think it’s hereditary because my grandmother on my dad’s side was the same way.

It was a beautiful day with clear blue skies in that shade of blue that you only see in winter, and the temperatures weren’t awful. When I came back, the girls and George were just finishing lunch so I told them that I would give Breanna a nap and then we would go outside to play in the snow.

It never happened. By the time Breanna went to sleep my head hurt so badly that I felt like the back of my skull was going to shoot straight off my head. I tried to sleep with her but I could only close my eyes – there was actually too much pain for sleeping. After she got up, I went back to bed until I finally picked up the phone and used the intercom to call George in the living room – because I couldn’t even will myself out of bed – to ask him if he could please go get some Advil at the store since I had taken the last two a few days earlier (for carpal tunnel syndrome symptoms – getting older totally rocks).

He did and I took two of them, then passed out for a couple of hours. Miraculously, the pain had dwindled down and thank GOD for that because I honestly started to wonder if there was something wrong what with the amount of pain. Have you ever had a headache that is so bad that you start to wonder what it might be like if it just never goes away, and how long you could last before you’d throw yourself in front of a bus? That was me on Saturday afternoon.

I took another dose every four hours until bedtime and managed to feel much better by evening. I took the dog out after supper and was shocked by the brilliant full moon in a cloudless sky. I actually felt well enough that I ran back upstairs to grab my camera, the monster lens (70-300mm), and my tripod. I’m pretty thrilled with the results.

Day 10: Let me moon you

Since I was already outside anyway, I walked down to the corner and played with long exposures to capture light trails.

Happy trails to you

And I had some fun with the traffic light, making it an impossible light altogether.

Should I stay or should I go?

After the kids went to bed, I managed to stay up to watch “Ghost Town” with George. I had never even heard of it before but what a great feel-good movie! I highly recommend it.

*******

Tonight I am grateful to not have a headache because in between writing this up, I’m also watching the Golden Globe Awards, which is cool because I really enjoy awards shows but it’s also for work so I can feel like I have a good reason to be watching celebrities.

Having to stay up though to watch this and manipulate images to put up on PittWatch with a headache like yesterday would have been impossible.

*******

Last Monday, the last day we had before Hayley went back to school, I made a joke with George about how we had all been healthy for two weeks, but once she went back to “that petri dish of germs” someone would be sick within a week.

Ha. Ha ha ha.

Hayley spent most of today on the couch, lying down and moaning because her stomach hurt her terribly. A couple of times she even spiked a low fever. She ate a bagel for breakfast, but almost nothing after that until a bowl of applesauce before bedtime.

She was so worried about having to go to school sick tomorrow. I put her to bed and said not to even think about it. I will call the school before bed and leave a message to say she won’t be in because she’s sick and I’ll let her sleep in a bit so she can feel better. At least we got her homework completed today so she won’t have too much to catch up on.

Poor kid though. Seriously, what the hell do you have to do to keep your kids from getting sick at school all the time? It’s insane. We’ve all been sick since she started in September, one after the other, over and over with only the two-week holiday for a reprieve. I’m going to start sending her to school with a can of Lysol and instruct her to spray it around herself every five minutes.

And on that note, it’s time for me to make some tea and dig out the ridiculously delicious maple cookies we have in the cupboard – I hope your weekend didn’t involve headaches or tummy aches!

Friday Flashback # 19 – Keep Me Hanging On

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When Kim Wilde released “Keep Me Hanging On” in 1987 (it went to #1), I was a whopping 13 years old. I had never had a boyfriend, but I had endured endless unrequited crushes over my short life and when I heard this song I thought that surely there was nothing in the entire world that could be more incredibly tragic than having to tell some guy you loved to just “get up, get out of my life” because “you don’t really love me, you just keep me hanging on”.

TRAGIC!

Clearly I had not learned about frivolous things like world hunger, genocide, the blood diamond trade, and whatnot. Oh, to be an innocent boy-crazy 13-year-old self-absorbed girl again. Actually, remembering my distinct lack of fashion sense, inability to do anything remotely decent with my hair, telescope-thick glasses, and confusion over how to properly apply make-up (bright blue eyeliner and bubblegum pink lipstick, woo!), maybe I’d rather not be 13 again.

Also it should be noted that, speaking of hair, I wanted nothing more than to have my hair look like Kim’s did. Or, really to just look like her, period. Now I look at that hair and I laugh at my younger self. But oh, I still love the song.

A little struggle to wake up

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This morning was the first day back into the full-on routine. I stupidly stayed up until midnight, so when my alarm started blaring at 6:15 I was a little confused. I had just been dreaming that I was having lunch with Wil Wheaton and his wife Anne (clearly I am being influenced by Wil’s presence on Twitter) so I wasn’t even sure where I was, especially since 6:15 is still just a tiny bit lighter than pitch black outside.

I hit snooze and dozed for the next nine minutes (and never got back to my dream so I have no idea if the chicken I had ordered was any good or not), then turned the alarm off and dragged my ass out of bed. I debated going out in my pajamas and coat, but decided that flannel is warm but not quite thick enough so I managed to dress myself and get Pearl. Pearl, meanwhile, has also gotten used to late nights and late mornings. Having been walked sometime after midnight when George got home, she was not quite ready to get up and go outside at 6:30.

Then when we came back I found that Breanna was mildly hysterical because she had woken up and not found me in my normal place. She calmed down once I got in and she realized that I had not actually disappeared into thin air.

Hayley was not keen to get up either and it took a few minutes of prodding and also of interpreting the mumbles which were her breakfast request. She only wanted applesauce which isn’t very filling but I decided that for the first morning it would be easier to let that one go and give her what she wanted since it was at least healthy and they do have a fairly early morning snack at school.

Miraculously, the rest of the hour went smoothly and she was out the door on time and relatively cheerful if not ecstatic. She was tired when she got home but she wasn’t too cranky so I guess she survived the day fairly well – and as a bonus she fell asleep very easily and quickly tonight.

Other changes in the household were that Breanna finally had a nap again, and that was nice. It kept her crankiness to a minimum. I also worked differently, doing more in chunks as opposed to the “post here and there when I can get five seconds of peace” method I had used over the holidays.

As for Pearl, I got a glimpse into the future. I know now how she’ll be when she’s a little older and not in the crazy puppy phase anymore. Being thrown into a whole new schedule again put her out of whack and she spent most of the day lazing around. Even at supper time, she laid in the hall outside the kitchen and looked at me pitifully as though she were saying, “I’d be sniffing for crumbs but I just can’t get up.” In fact, right now she’s passed out on the couch and snoring.

Really, doesn’t her face sum up everyone’s first day back at school/work after getting to sleep in for two weeks?

I can haz nap now?

Let’s see if tomorrow is less sleepy for all of us.