Tulips and a Cold Shoulder

Tulips: Botanical Gardens (Feb /04)

After uttering certain complaints about the weather yesterday, it seems like a good idea to post this photo to help remind myself that spring is on its way.

I am a little bleary-eyed this morning. Last night was one of those unpleasant nights that I have too often these days: nights in which I don't particularly revel. Lately, I have taken to waking up for an hour in the middle of the night in order to toss and turn. I am beginning to look upon it as a duty. After all, if I don't do it, who will? It's not that I particularly look forward to performing this duty for humankind or that I plan it in any way, shape, or form, but it happens.

At times, however, and I have mentioned this before, I not only become wakeful, but I also become most uncomfortable. Sometimes, my internal thermostat goes haywire, and I become the toast of the bed — so to speak. That's bad enough, but when my shoulder decides to simultaneously feel as though an ice cube were being applied to it, I become positively miserable. Let me tell you, it's tough being hot and cold at the same time. In fact, it's downright provoking. I mean to say, who wants ice as a condiment on their toast? My only consolation is that I am not lukewarm and may consequently avoid being spewed out of the Divine's mouth.

So it was that I awoke at about two-thirty last night, gave up the attempt to go back to sleep at approximately three-thirty (give or take ten seconds, but who's watching the clock?), and got up to putter on the puter. I tried going back to bed several times in the next few hours and finally managed to grab about two hours of rather fitful sleep from approximately 7:32 to 9:36 (but who's counting?). So it is that I sit here bleary-eyed wondering why I am bothering to bother you with the minutia of my life. I suppose that I would appreciate your sympathy: preferably in the form of large donations to my favourite charity. Just send the cheque, made out to me, and I'll make sure that it gets to the right place.

On days like this, I sometimes wonder what to do. My eyes don't really feel up to reading. I'm not much of a TV person (my wife says that I'm not much of a person), so that's not a viable option. I'm not sure I could accomplish much useful here at the keyboard (as this post proves ever so well). I'm not much of a napper either, so I'll probably be up until ten or eleven o'clock tonight. Chances are good, however, that I'll get a decent sleep tonight. That's generally my consolation for enduring with mirthful disposition a very bad night — that the next sleep is generally better than my rather pitiful average.

Well, that's not really too bad is it: missing a few hours of sleep periodically? There may be several billion people in the world who would wish (note the alliteration) that to be their biggest problem. I have all of the comforts. Plus, I don't have to wait for somebody to give me the cold shoulder because I already have my own.