Category Archives: sleepless in Vancouver

My early days of gardening with my Mom.

I’ve woken up at 3am for 27 consecutive days. Is there an award or medal for that? Is it a medical condition? Can I work it into some sort of super power? I was thinking of setting my alarm for 3am to trick myself into not waking up at that time. But then I was afraid I’d wake up at 1am. (Which I also did last night.)

A corner of Bob’s office.

Yesterday morning I had to catch an early flight that meant I had to get up before 5am. I have a psychological barrier for waking before 5am. 5am is fine but 4:45a sounds horrific.

I set my regular bedside alarm plus I set my cellphone alarm. Then when I got in bed I wondered why I worry so much about missing an alarm.

I don’t think I’ve ever slept through an alarm in my life.

I’ve never missed a plane or been seriously late to school or work because of oversleeping.

I’ve had a couple of incidents where I set the alarm incorrectly or power went off or something like that but I usually wake up myself with enough time to get wherever I have to be.

I suspect my paranoia about oversleeping keeps me from sleeping at all. I don’t think I put together 3 hours of sleep on Sunday night. I made to the airport just fine. (Goodness there are a lot of people running around at 5:30a.)

I spent the rest of the day in meetings trying to stay awake. My method was to be fidgety. I thought there were some voodoo tricks like pinching your earlobes or biting your pinky but those didn’t help. I’m not a caffeine person but at lunch I ordered the smallest possible Coke they would offer me. The server stared at me, then looked at her pad then looked back at me. “You threw me off for a second,” she said.

Because NO ONE in America orders the smallest Coke. I was afraid if I drank too much caffeine I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night and I didn’t want one of those gallon tumblers where most would be thrown away.

The Coke didn’t help much but since I never drink it, it was a delicious treat.

Shut out the light at 8:45p and slept like the dead. Woke up at 5:00 without an alarm.

Last night we had takeout Mexican food. I woke up in the middle of the night with the worst indigestion I’ve had in years. I got up once and thought I was okay but Bob started flopping around and I hissed, “Stop breathing on me!”

I had to get up again and got an Alka Seltzer and wandered around the house. I still couldn’t settle down so I thought maybe I could find a movie or something on TV.

You know what’s on TV in the middle of the night?

Infomercials. 500 channels of infomercials.

Infomercials fascinate me because they are so phony. It’s a particular flavor of phony that they all share like they’re made at the same factory from actors who are trained to act the same way. And there is so much talking with so little information provided.

The first one I saw started with a man carrying about 12 folding outdoor chairs which he couldn’t hold on to. Voiceover: Has this happened to you?

Like the only choice was to carry all those chairs at the same time.

The solution? The pocket chair. It’s a tiny little chair that you can fold up and keep in your pocket. How handy!

Except, I’m not a large person and I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be comfortable sitting in this tiny chair. I bet kids would like it.

The other one I watched had to do with Free Money. Did you know there is tons of free money out there that THEY don’t want you to know about? The government has tons and tons of free money. You can just fill out a form and get your free money. What are you waiting for? The guy who wrote the book is interviewed by an attractive blonde woman who is practically foaming at the mouth because she’s so amazed about all this free money that’s available to anyone, even you and me. The man tells us he doesn’t make any money off the book, he just wrote it as a public service. Well, the mean old FTC doesn’t think his work is a public service.

The book is usually $30 but it was on sale for $20 last night plus s&h which many dissatisfied people on the Internet said added up to about 14 additional bucks. Plus I guess they subscribe you to a newsletter or something and keep charging you. But what about all the free money? Another funny thing is he pushes it like this is a compact book which streamlines the free money getting process. It’s not like all those telephone book sized tomes that show you where to get free money and waste your time with so much information.

I didn’t buy anything but I also didn’t get back to sleep for a couple of hours. Someone should do an infomercial about insomnia.

My first Moon Pie. I got it at A little bit of smoke BBQ a couple weeks ago.

Do you remember when you were a little kid and school let out for xmas vacation on Friday but xmas wasn’t until Tuesday or Wednesday and you were trembling you were so beside yourself on how you would make it to xmas morning?

That’s how I’ve been the past week about our first home game as an MLS team in our freshly renovated stadium. I’m levitating right now just thinking about it.

Thursday night. 8pm.

Meanwhile, my camera has pooped out. I can’t blame it since I’ve dropped it about 50 times but also I feel bad because I spent good money on it and it’s barely 2 years old. I might have to run out and donate a kidney tomorrow so I can buy a new one. Plus save the leftover money for some other things since it is “watch money fly out of your pocket at the speed of light” month at our house. Not on purpose.

My Spring insomnia is kicking into high gear. I wake up at 4:30 or 3:30 except for last night I woke up at 2:30. I’m painfully sleepy right now so I’m going to hope for a good night tonight.

My desktop computer took a dump this morning because hey! I have nothing better to do than frick around with a computer. I don’t think it’s serious but I don’t have time to deal with it because I’m going to an appointment in 3 minutes. Before that I was rushing around trying to get my dinner in the CrockPot so I could relax this afternoon.

Check out this gadget I saw an ad for last night when I was reading a magazine at 2am while I couldn’t sleep. (Yeah, body way to go, teasing me with a couple of good nights and then betraying again. Thanks.)

The thing is called Zeo. It’s your personal sleep coach.

Quote from the ad: “Why is it important? Knowing your ZQ allows you to make the adjustments necessary to sleep your best every night and feel your best every day.”

WTF?

I’d love to rant longer but I’m running out the door.

The big news is I slept through the night two nights in a row. I’m back among the living. Now if I can just get my email inbox under control and muster up some interest in Christmas shopping, life will be back on track.

I’ve had another favorite lyric sitting on my desk and I keep forgetting to write about it.

It’s from Yngwie Malmsteen. I remember this particular song because Yngwie never had a very great band but Joe Lynn Turner sung on this album. I realize that, at the most, one person reading this right now has any idea what I’m talking about but stick with me because here comes the lyric and it’s awesome. It’s from the song: Riot in the Dungeons.

Oh, I feel something coming
Looks like a riot in the dungeon
You stand and die or start your running
‘Cause there’s a riot in the dungeon.

I know. Read it out loud a few times. It’s a classic.

Coincidentally, I was reading an ancient notebook this morning looking for story ideas and I found this note:

Yngwie Malmsteen songs are like those Anne Rice talking head books. You keep waiting for something to happen.

Well, after one hour the night before, four hours last night was positively refreshing.

Just kidding. It’s going to be awesome productive at the office today.

Early morning view of the Kootenai River from my hotel room.

I survived my super busy week. The business trip went fantastic.

I got home in time for a late dinner on Tuesday night and my dear cousin was in town for the Tribal Archives, Libraries and Museums Conference so I got to visit with her.

After work on Wednesday my cousin and I drove across town to meet with a 96-year old Karuk elder who grew up speaking Karuk. He didn’t learn to speak English until he started school. We interviewed him for a tribal program. He was a complete charmer. He had tons of great stories about his life like how he grew up and different jobs he’s had and several times he’d start a story and seem to gloss over the most interesting part. One of the interview questions was whether he’d ever had to translate between English and Karuk.

“Oh, just once,” he said. “It was a homicide investigation.”

I’m hoping to set something up so I can meet with him on a regular basis and get his stories and more of his knowledge of the language. We’ll see how it all works out.

Just turned 96. He showed us a photo of the gate he put up this summer at his property in Etna, CA

Thursday I left work a little bit early. The commute home was a breeze and I had one errand which went quickly and I was at home by 4:30pm. “I’m one good nights sleep away from world domination!” I thought as I lounged on the couch catching up on my shows between loads of laundry.

Of course I woke up at 3am. At 4:30am I turned on the light and read for awhile. By 6am I was sleepy again and I went back to sleep until 8:30am. Better than a sharp stick in the eye but I felt fuzzy headed all day.

Today I’ve been cooking and catching up on stuff around the house. That was one thing about this week. For about 5 days straight I barely ate anything that didn’t come from a restaurant. My favorite food is stuff I make myself. It was nice to eat in my own kitchen for a change.

I am now one good nights sleep away from world domination.

In the middle of the day Bob called from the other room, “Honey, come here. You have to see this.”

It was this sandwich.

I thought I should share the moment.

Like every weekend, I didn’t accomplish as much as I wanted. I think next weekend my goal is going to be one thing. Like, empty the dishwasher. Then I can marvel about all the things I do that I didn’t have on my list.

Last night I woke up at 1am and couldn’t fall back asleep. Bob was downstairs watching movies and heard me bumping around and came upstairs. Then I got the giggles and it took another couple hours before I fell back asleep. But I was glad that we were grown-ups and there was no one yelling at us from the other room to knock it off and go to sleep.