January Thaw & Sleep Deprevation

It's Friday. I skipped Thursday I didn't mean to; I worked on the post, but things just got away from me yesterday. We're still in the January thaw, with temps well above average and no hint of snow - none anyway, and it's too warm.
The picture I've used today is a NASA photo of the whole of Great Britain covered with snow. A very cool pic!
No snow here! Bah and Phooey!!
I was going along, minding my own business living my life, such as it is, when I heard about the truly awful ruling by our conservative-driven Supreme Court (courtesy of George W Bush - great job there, George!!) which, with a stroke of a pen, discarded 103 years of
The United States of America being somewhat protected from special interests. The way things will be that began this morning, is that special interests, huge corporations and such will now have no holds on how much they can contribute to politicians. In other words, the more money that banks, insurance companies, corporations of any size care to throw at the people in the Government or anything or anyone they want to influence, they can.
No one will be able to police them. Any safeguards against obscene amounts of money being used to buy whatever are gone. The country I lived in yesterday has been drastically changed. Somehow that will affect every one of us one o' these days.
On the sleep subject, I was awake for about 36 hour straight and finally I fell asleep at about 2 am on Friday morning. I slept until 11 am, woke up and tried to eat breakfast.
I couldn't eat (not necessarily a bad thing for me!) so I went back to sleep at about 1 pm and slept until 2:30. I really hate when I sleep for hours during the day. I feel very strongly that I've wasted precious time. I might have to resort to taking a damn sleeping pill one of these evenings so I can actually sleep overnight. Unfortunately, it's over night when my brain jumps from subject to subject, indiscriminately.  Well okay - no, my brain does that all the time. I just feel like my brain is more awake. More alive.
I know it's because I am so fucking inactive during the day, but I need to explain that.
Yesterday, I went downstairs to spend some active (as active as is possible for me) with Duffy. I had gotten a package in the mail with stuff for Duffy, so I brought them down to him. I did take one of my canes, my cellphone, reading glasses and the four items for The Duffster. It was a little awkward climbing onto the chairlift that's installed on our staircase. Steps are hard for me. My right knee doesn't bend easily. (The last bone guy I saw in May 2009 told me that my right knee was "totally destroyed" after he looked at my knees and the x-rays and MRI of the bad one. I already knew that, so I wondered if I had to pay him. He didn't even offer me any new meds!  At least I could have used those!)
So, I rode the lift downstairs, tossed the stuff onto my overstuffed comfy chair, climbed off the lift, and using the cane for support plus the newel post, carefully clambered down the two steps to the living room. I sat on my OSC chair and gave Duffy his new toys. I used the cane to get around and took Duffy to the back door - he didn't want to go outside, so I went back to my OSC chair. I got up and down several times and went into the kitchen to look for ingredients for dinner. I want to help him much more than I do - I feel so damn guilty that he does everything in this house.
The main reason it's so messy is that he just can't do everything himself. I worry about him all the time. I could certainly help him with the cooking, but this is exactly why it's so hard. Yesterday I found the canned gravy and the leftover London broil.
We'd planned to have hot roast beef sandwiches, so I wanted to make the gravy.
I tweaked it by adding about 1/2 a cup of Chardonnay, some onion powder, garlic powder, dried parsley and freshly ground black pepper and brought the whole thing to a simmer. This all took about 15 minutes. Just the bending to ding the frying pan, standing to open the fridge, and standing to stir the sauce exhausted me. Sweat was pouring off me, down my neck and my hair was soaking wet. I sat in the OSC chair and called Bill to tell him that I was going to have to go back upstairs and lie down again.
I really want to cook dinner every night, but I need the kitchen and living room set up again so I can reach everything easily and I need my power chair back. It's been in the shed since before Christmas. It's hard for me to explain to Bill how important the Hoveround is to me. Just being able to sit when I need to is wonderful. I can steer over to the stove and stand to do the actual cooking, while sitting to rest. The Hoveround doesn't get all the way to the back door, but I'm able to stand and walk to let Duffy out and walk back, with the aid of the cane, as long as I can sit right back down and drive back into the living room. The Hoveround gets up close to the fridge, so I don't have to stand to look for things. Walking is hard for me, but standing in one place is infinitely harder. So here went another day with me sleeping during the daytime. I didn't read any of the books I'm in the middle of today and didn't get online until after 5 this afternoon. I didn't watch very much TV today, either. Bill and I watched a David Attenborough wildlife special this morning - I adore David Attenborough. Then I was asleep for most of the day. I watched the new Burn Notice from last night. Very good.
So I wasted today - didn't get to help Bill in any way. I didn't take my daytime meds; I just took the nighttime ones. I'm watching the Australian Open. Roger Federer is winning his match easily. Serena Williams went 5 - 0 with no problems whatsoever in 15 minutes and it took her longer than that to clinch the set. Her service game at 5 - 0 was excruciating. I don't know how many deuces it went to, but it was a lot. Serena prevailed, anyway, and is in the 2nd set.
Tomorrow, we're going to a party in celebration of my nephew Jake's 15th birthday, which will actually be on Monday. Jake is my brother Chris's older child. His daughter, Tara, is 12.
The Mother (my Mother) and most of my family should be at Chris's house tomorrow.
In a break from having a party at the usual Ferejohn time of 2 or 3, tomorrow's shindig will be a four pm, so I will just relax all day.
Bill is bringing me a cuppa tea before he settles down with a book or a movie. I am going to try to go to sleep soon.
I'm just sayin'

a wednesday in a warm january

This is the winter view from my kitchen window. Actually, the view probably hasn't changed in years, but the window has. This window has been here since March of 1993, when our contractor, Greg, was finishing up rebuilding our half of a duplex after the inside was partially gutted by a fire. The attic and my bedroom - the front bedroom were spared, with my bedroom getting mostly water damage. The stuff that was stored in the attic, including our Christmas ornaments and such, smelled like a house fire for quite a long time. In the front bedroom, I have a rocking chair that my husband, Bill and my friend Margee gave me as a baby shower gift in anticipation of the birth of our first child. It sustained a lot of water and smoke damage in the fire. Bill looked online and found out exactly how to restore it. He did a really good job and the rocking chair is still in my bedroom waiting for the time when I may be blessed with the opportunity to rock a grandchild of my own to sleep in the same rocking chair I rocked my own sons. I hope and pray that day come.
My first inclination was to add the words, "before I die" or "while I'm still alive."
Both are from the Redundant Department of Redundancy, of course, since either I'll be here to see them and write about it, or I'll be dead.
Even though I think about death a lot, I would never ever take my own life. I find it to be the height of callousness. It is, in my own opinion, a cowardly act and a vicious one, even if the person who commits suicide doesn't think of it as vicious. Many times, I would think, the person who commits suicide thinks they'll be doing the people who care for them a favor.
Not so. Not so. Those who love us, love us despite our shortcomings, our foibles and our failures. As much as we might piss them of or regardless of how unlike we seem to be, our loved ones, especially our family members, love us and pretty much accept us for who we are, warts and all. Even if we have alienated our family, they would still mourn us.
I love my family, in various stages, yes - but I love them all. I would never burden my Mother with such a thing, nor my dear husband or precious sons. And I don't want to die.
Ever! Heh. Although, for each and every one of us, death is inevitable. We are all gonna die, sooner or later. I'd like my death to be later. Would I want to know when?
That is such a tough question. If I were dying, I would want to know - I would not want Bill or the boys to keep that from me. And I think I would deserve to know that about my husband, God forbid! Or my Mother. She tells me things she doesn't tell anyone else. For instance, she told me that she is going to have some small repair surgery done down by her lower lips.
It's to repair a prolapse and it shouldn't be much, except for the fact that she will be 84.
I have to ask her when she is supposed to schedule it and make sure she gets to it in a timely fashion. Certainly, I will stay with her when she goes in for it. Because of her age, I would want her doctors to keep her in the hospital overnight, just to make sure she has the finest care.
I will take on helping her at home like I did when she broke her shoulder several years ago.
I am in better shape than I was then, so it should be fine.
When I go and stay with her next week, I will make sure that I come inside for breakfast with her every morning. She waits on me way too much of the time when I'm there. I don't want her to be doing that anymore. Or Bill either. 
Actually, tomorrow, I will ask Bill to bring my Hoveround back inside the house and plug it in so I can use it again. Then I will try to cook dinner every day.
Tomorrow I will take a shower at 7 am and dress and go downstairs for breakfast with the "Little Black Bag" with me. Then the two of us will stop at the Shoprite or Stop N Shop and The Wine Library. I will make dinner tomorrow night. Hot roast beef sandwiches with a salad of romaine lettuce and little teeny tiny tomatoes with a home made Caesar dressing and a cake that baked myself without his help.
It'll be a big first step, since I should be making dinner every night. The poor guy has to come home after a hard half day's work and then cook dinner. I can at least do that every night. Once I'm in the habit of doing it every night, we'll clean out the kitchen of stuff that's in the way on the counters.
Also, I want the canned goods off the curved shelves in the kitchen so we can put things we need to have nearby, but out the way. I sure had enough rambling to do tonight!
I'm just sayin'