Predictive Insomnia
Last night I just thought I was having a bad night. They happen. Ugh. And when I shot awake–again–with that sense that someone has just shouted in one’s ear, the Visigoths are at the gate! Flee!, the way one does when one is Having a Bad Night, and it was about twenty minutes before the kitchen timer*/alarm clock was due to go off I staggered out of bed and began wrestling my wardrobe into submission.** And it was one of those days that the wardrobe seemed to be winning***, which meant I was still rumpled and snarky when Atlas turned up.
Meanwhile I had finally rung Computer Man Central yesterday and whined since I Have a Little List† plus I’ve bought a new toy†† which was supposed to be delivered††† last week. Computer Man was contrite, and offered to come this afternoon. So hellhounds and I capered out brisk and frolicsome‡ . . . and I promptly decided to take a slightly different way because . . . I don’t know, because . . . and we found ourselves running about ten minutes late, which was not an enormous concern, but then the trail we were about to turn down revealed itself as infested with off-lead Labradors and I just didn’t feel like dealing with this scene so we didn’t turn down it.‡‡ Whereupon we got back to the car nearly twenty-five minutes later than planned. Never mind, I said nonchalantly to my companions, Computer Men are always late. So we went back to the cottage and I made my pot‡‡‡ of tea§, put my salad together and began the complex ritual known as Feeding Hellhounds, and . . . the phone rang. Computer Man is arriving thirty five minutes early.
The RaspBerry is of course utterly strange and inexplicable so within about ten minutes of Computer Man’s arrival I was hyperventilating and trying to see through the flickering pixelated mist before my eyes. Which is when the phone rang again. And it’s my builder who needs a decision about radiators right now. The plumber’s there, you see. Now. Today. This minute. Okay, where’s the leak in the system? Why didn’t someone look at someone’s schedule and say to someone, hey, let’s go tear out some more walls at Third House tomorrow, and the someone someone said it to can say, great, I’ll tell the victim, I mean the mark, I mean the gudgeon, I mean . . . what do you call the person that writes the cheques? Never mind, I’ll ring her that we’re going to prey on her again tomorrow.
I feel that someone could have given me, oh, you know, an overnight’s warning that a final decision was going to need to be made. They did this to me about a week ago about the location of the new electric meter box, but there really was only one logical place for it§§ . . . there’s a whole 200 page catalogue of radiators§§§, and even having thrown out three quarters of them with utterances of, you mean someone would spend money on that?, that still leaves about eight hundred and twelve to eliminate individually. Gah.
So the builder gave me ten minutes to look frantically at the catalogue while Computer Man got on with the Little List¤ and then the builder came round and took instructions, I went back to the RaspBerry, the builder rang again in about fifteen minutes and said could I possibly pop round to Third House that afternoon before 4:30 when the plumber leaves?–have I mentioned that I haven’t had lunch yet? Hellhounds, who like to be confusing, did eat theirs. . . .
I finally got up to Third House at about 4:10. The builder had left. The plumber had left. The plasterers were there and a Builder’s Minion was there. I’m getting rather fond of this Builder’s Minion; he’s the one who’s always there. He’s also the one who grabbed me bodily before I pitched over the top of the ladder the other week–I’m not quite as dumb as I look, but I daresay one twittering heights-shy middle-aged cheque-writer is very like another and builders and their minions prefer not to take chances. So today the minion explained the situation to me, I said I would attempt to Hold Myself in Readiness for Further Bulletins Tomorrow, and he then, almost wistfully, I thought, took me on a tour of the Story Thus Far. The attic is almost beginning to look as if it might be a room some day. Might be. It’s all become so mind-reeling I’m almost losing track of the weight-bearing floor. Except for the fact that there’s still no floor downstairs so the view of all those cement blocks newly holding up the walls is rather eye-catching.¤¤ There’s also a brand-new enormous hole in the outside wall where they took the old boiler out, and if I find a family of badgers under the sofa next week I am not going to be happy.
* * *
* I’ve told you I don’t seem to have a functioning alarm clock.^ But I’ve got so accustomed to using a kitchen timer that the alarm clock concept is coming to feel alien and perverse.
^ More to the point, if I do, I don’t know how to use it. All your electronic calendar devices have alarm clocks, I think. Fancy being awoken by your computer. Ewwwww. It’s not enough that your computer has a charter to pester and torment the rest of your day+ , you can invite it to be the one to shout in your ear that the Visigoths are coming, and it hopes you got those pressure bandages into your knapsack because you don’t have time to hunt for them now.
+ And in some cases your night
** I don’t think I’ve ever got round to a Wrestling with My Wardrobe blog entry, probably because the chief wrestling goes on in the morning and by the time I’m eating supper, trying to feed hellhounds, and writing an entry, success or failure was hours ago, shouldered aside or buried by the exigencies of the pursuant day. But I’m one of these sad people who minds about clothing–as opposed to, say, Peter, who dresses off the clothes line or whatever is on top in the drawer. ^ I dress for me–and for the fact that I will be spending two hours striding about the landscape and possibly if I’m lucky two more mucking about in the garden–but I’m a fairly demanding clientele. No, no, no, you can’t wear that neckline with that! And that is completely the wrong green!
^ Note: arrrrrrgh.
*** A daring sortie a little later however left me in possession of the field. And the right green.
† Outlook, Outlook, Outlook, Outlook, Outlook, printer, software and frelling log in on the blog.
†† A non-BlackBerry life minder. One might say . . . a RaspBerry. But my old PDA, which dates back to before BlackBerries or the BlackBerry tradition took over the planet, is fading.^
^ See? I know when something is on its way out. Wolfgang is not.
† Silver platter, parsley, and a Computer Man in a penguin suit.
‡ Some of us were brisker and more frolicsome than others.
‡‡ To the hellhounds’ sorrow, of course. However, we’d earlier had an encounter with a Jack Russell puppy which had been so eager both to meet us and simultaneously to indicate its lowly status in reference to godlike hellhounds that having come pelting toward us it did a kind of corkscrew thing in the air so that it arrived at the hellhounds’ feet belly up. The interesting thing is that Chaos, who is not known for either maturity or restraint, especially in relation to other dogs, let it be the puppy.
‡‡‡ large
§ strong
§§ unless something has gone terribly, horribly wrong. Shhhhh.
§§§ Including the £1,000,000,000 cast iron one with twiddly bits which I realio trulio cannot afford, especially because if I decided to spring for just one, which I thought about, just one in a conspicuous spot in the sitting room, it would just . . . sit there, conspicuously showing up all the other ones. And probably giving them an Ugly and Boring Complex, whereupon they would become too miserable to work and produce heat.
¤ I also managed to find a couple of immediate problems with the RaspBerry. I can’t help it. I was born this way.
¤¤ And a good thing too, speaking of pitching over edges.
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