March 9, 2009

• Grateful for a Nightmare

  It is that awkward time around here:  my sleep cycle, which is usually more-or-less attuned to a natural one (up in daylight, sleeping at night) is coinciding with my son’s.  He apparently evolved on a planet with longer days than ours, so unless something intervenes (such as an appointment or emergency) he usually goes to sleep and gets up a few hours later every day than he did the day before.  When we are out of phase with each other, that makes it convenient for sharing the computer and game consoles, and for keeping the wood stove going.

  Last night, I was in bed reading when he loaded the stove for the night and went to sleep.  Soon after, I turned out my light and fell asleep.  Three hours and some minutes (more on that in a moment) later, I was enmeshed in a horrible nightmare.  I was in a gamelike scenario where each time I entered a room I could either go back the way I came or leave the room to the right or left.  At first, my options appeared to be clear-cut, a light/dark or right/wrong choice, and I went whichever way seemed appropriate.

  Soon, however, I was flustered, confused, frustrated and terrified.  No matter which way I went:  left, right, or back, I encountered George W. Bush, his clones, or buck-toothed drooling inbred dubya descendants.  It was horrible, and it was with a sense of relief that I woke up, put on my glasses and looked at the clock.  It said 3:46.  I would swear to that, truly.

  Noticing that the glass door on the woodstove was dark, I got up and touched the stove.  That cast iron monster was the coldest object in the room.  The wood that Doug put in there when he went to bed was unburned and barely warm.  Once again, my beamish boy had put the fire out with fuel.  Under it were only a few glowing coals, not nearly enough to restart the fire.

  I pulled the wood out, crumpled a lot of paper (Greyfox saves the packing material for us from his knife shipments, makes good fire starters.), placed a layer of thin wood chips I’d gleaned from Doug’s chopping block area (Byproducts of his wood splitting make good kindling.), and laid some of the warm wood on top of that.  After igniting the paper, I disconnected my nebulizer from its air compressor, uncoiled the long tubing, stuck a soda straw into the end of it, and blew on the fire to get it going.  Gone are the days when I have enough wind to blow on a fire myself, and I have never owned an old-style bellows.  The nebulizer compressor does just fine, and the soda straw attachment keeps me from melting the end of the tubing.  I do melt a few straws that way, however.

  When the fire looked as if it would persist on its own, I straightened up, coiled the tubing, reconnected it to my nebulizer, and looked at the clock again:  3:46 again.  I looked around, patted the furniture, slapped myself, and said aloud, “Am I dreaming?”  Doug stirred and grunted, “Huh?”  I don’t know if he was awake or not, but I explained about the time warp anyway.  I checked the thermometer:  20 outside, 50 inside, not too bad, no threat to the tropical houseplants or little kittens in their boxes (Two of P.K.’s died, leaving four, and there are three survivors out of the six that Bagel birthed over the weekend.), but I was glad that the nightmare woke me before it got much colder in here.

  Then, for the next three hours I kept babying that fire back to life, uncoiling the compressor tubing, inserting the straw, etc., etc., ad nauseam.  By the time it was burning well and I was free to crawl back under the covers, it was almost time for the 7:33 Iditarod report on KSKA.  It wasn’t even remotely close to “latest standings,” had a sound bite from Lance Mackey (misidentified by the reporter as “Rick Mackey,” his older brother) in Willow on Sunday, and reported the first few mushers into Yentna Checkpoint yesterday evening.  I’ll search out and compile the latest and blog it in a while.

  This is a day of physical chaos for me — spilled water while preparing to make coffee, and coffee afterward, for starters.  I’m stumbling and fumbling (sensorimotor deficits) a lot more than usual, which I suppose is to be expected after two near-sleepless nights in the wake of a trip to town.  While I was still trying to get the fire going, I fell onto the stove.  My exclamation roused Doug enough for another of those, “Huh?” grunts, and after saying I fell, I said I was glad the stove was cold.  Those welder’s gloves with the Kevlar® stitching have done a great job this winter of preventing the usual crop of burns on my hands and arms.  One burn on a wrist, I got when I forgot to put on the gloves before opening the stove.  Last week, I stumbled and caught myself with a hand on the hot stove.  I was glad for the pan of ice cold water on the floor under the roof leak… plunged my hand in immediately and the burn went away.

  One of the goodies that Greyfox acquired for us before this latest trip to town was a half gallon of heavy whipping cream — got one for us and one for himself, marked down to 99 cents each.  Doled out in small doses, whipped up with Splenda®, it’s one of the greatest ways to cheat on my diet that I have had in a long while.  I piled it on the sugarless gluten-free beans, corn and squash pie until that was all gone.  Now I am casting about for other less-than-lethal treats that can be improved by a dollop of less-than-harmless moo juice.  Among those avaliable foods already considered and rejected:  grapefruit and chicken salad.

  Okay, enough of such silliness.  Later, with an Iditarod update.
    

  • 6:38 pm
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