Mornings Are Still The Worst!

I can't believe I EVER tried to do this with a hangover!

It's not even the pressure of what has to be done that makes mornings a hassle, it's just…  Mornings.  I am of the age where the following statement is true: if you wake up in the morning, and nothing hurts, it's a sign that you died in the night.  Actually, that's been true for a while.  I can recall making the observation, back in the day when I was still gainfully employed as a school counselor, that now it took me longer to take my morning medications than it used to take to get dressed.  That's only a slight exaggeration, by the way: blood pressure pills, blood sugar pills, prescribed vitamins, fish oil, a combined anti-pain, anti-depressant, ADD medicine, and something to combat hiatal hernia; the only thing that's not prescribed that I take is a vitamin C when I think I might be in danger of getting a cold.

And lately, it seems that every morning I have to take 1/2 pain pill, to supplement the patch I wear, almost every day.  Getting old ain't for sissies…

I don't even notice it most mornings, because most mornings are school days for the kids, as well as office days for my gift-from-God, happily-ever-after, trophy wife Vanessa, the elegant, foxy, praying black grandmother of Woodstock, Georgia.  The morning routine takes over, and we get everything done without anybody getting bent out of shape (most mornings; Kenneth lost his shoes last Monday, so Vanessa bent HIM out of shape).  But this morning, Saturday morning, for a brief moment, I thought I was going to die, and I was afraid I wasn't.

When you have elementary school age children, there is no such thing as sleeping in late on the weekends.  Somebody is certain to have something to do, and for the past several months, Alicia has had dance practice every Saturday morning.  All the girls in the house, except for the cat, use this as an opportunity to go somewhere, and do something, with some other girls, some of whom we are related to.  (I don't ask questions, and try not to look too closely.) That's a good thing, as it leaves the boys in the house to do whatever we want to do.  Or it would be, if Vanessa weren't so cheerful and energetic as she is making preparations for the women to walk out the door.

First, she has to fuss at the cat.  Sugar Belly, our fat black Manx cat, loves Vanessa with an unholy glee, and celebrates life by walking on Vanessa before she gets out of bed, licking her arm, pushing her books off the bedside table, talking to her continuously, and following her into the bathroom.  And while Sugar Belly is doing that, Vanessa is instructing her.  It isn't just "stop that!  Be quiet!  Can't you give me some privacy?", although those phrases do figure greatly in the morning noise level.  In addition to that bit of interaction, though, Vanessa instructs Sugar Belly that when she returns, she expects the mess around the cat food bowl to be cleaned up.  And that Sugar Belly had better learn to start obeying her, or they are going to take a trip to the pet donation center.

And all the time that Vanessa is talking, Sugar Belly is following her around, and talking back.  It's quite amusing.

Meanwhile, I'm still lying in bed, waiting for the meds to kick in, when I hear the dreaded words: "When I get back home, I'm going to clean this house from top to bottom!" And that's the point when I start to get just a teensy bit nervous.

You see, the only cleaning that I have planned for the day, is cleaning out my E mail inbox.  And you may not think so, but that can take a lot of Time.  I have to read things, I have to respond to things, and most of it requires more than just hitting the delete button.

The e-mail is just the smallest task I have, though.  I have books I have to review, which means I have to read them first; I have this blog to write; and today I had a self-imposed wikipedia assignment I really needed to finish.

This sounds too much like whining.  I'm not whining; I love what I do.  That's why I do it.  It's rather the perfect way for me to make a contribution, and to keep from becoming stagnant.  I just need a certain amount of quiet while I'm writing, because I'm not really writing at all; I'm dictating.  I use speech recognition to compose everything I do now, because the keyboard and I don't always get along.

So when Vanessa told me of her plans to clean the house from top to bottom, I knew right then that I was going to have to finish any writing before she got home.  I wasn't sure I could do it.

That was 4 hours ago, though, when I was still in bed with an unfocused brain and painful joints.  I wish to announce that the medicine kicked in at some point while I was still sifting through my E mail, and I've finished that, researched and submitted the article for wikipedia, and now written today's blog post.  The women of the household are still out doing their thing; Sugar Belly is contentedly sitting on me, taking a bath; and I am ready to start reading my next book.

Morning is officially over.

I can't believe I ever tried to do this with a hangover.