Winter: Wah wah waaaah :(

Another late night where sleep eludes me. Hm, that seems too romantic. How about, 'Another damn night where I just can't sleep'. That seems more to the point. I've been having trouble lately with getting to sleep. A few days I've slept in, but there have been a lot of days where I get up early in hopes of forcing myself to bed earlier. To no avail. My brain just won't quit, and I can never seem to fall asleep.

When I do fall asleep, I usually have bad dreams. Not nightmares, but dreams in which everyday things go wrong. For instance, a favorite glass breaking into three distinct pieces, a fish eating the other fish in the aquarium, or scraping up my truck (silver in the dream) by misjudging a space. These have been going on for a few weeks now. It's like even my dreams have turned pessimistic! I can see where my subconscious is going over images and thoughts from my day, and then evolving them into tiny everyday horrors. I don't know what it is, but I'm going to blame it on winter.

A malaise seems to have settled on the apartment. On the up side, I just got to use the word 'malaise', which works perfectly here. Hatred of indoors, frustration from routine? Check and double check! But vocab smugness aside, there has been something terribly off these days. I catch myself just waiting for something to go wrong so I can snap at someone. And that's generally not my policy. I've been crabby, weepy, mopey- you name it! I'm afraid I've been hard to live with, but Cale's been putting up with me admirably.

Thank goodness that we're going to California next week. Haven't heard? I haven't mentioned it in order for the time to pass more quickly. I've avoided thinking about it in terms such as 'two weeks away' or even 'just one more month'. I allowed myself 'coming up next month' but I drew the line at that. But now that we're one week away, I think I can afford it. Being anxious for it for a week only makes it a little sweeter; it's without the bitterness of a long wait. Enough sleep deprived rambling, though. The itinerary includes dinner with Cale's relatives, biking over the Rockies and back several times (it would seem), going to the beach, deep sea fishing and watching part of the Tour of California.

Best yet, this would appear to be the cheapest trip in the history of leisure. Free plane tickets from taking a bump, a borrowed car, cheap entertainment and staying with relatives while we're out there. It will be so wonderfully guilt free.

Speaking of vacations, I talked to my dad tonight, who just got back from a mission trip in New Orleans. They were working on building houses damaged from Hurricane Katrina. Apparently for many years it's been gutting, and finally they're getting to do some construction! I was invited on this trip, and I sincerely wish I could have gone. Volunteering has dropped off severely in my life. I used to do quite a good bit in HS and even some in college, but it seems like I'm 'too busy' lately. It's hard to take a week off (esp. with the CA vacation, which was planned in advance to use up the free plane tickets) when it's effectively cutting off your income. Selfishly, I'm also thinking of all of the vacations and days off needed in the summer. There are far-flung bike races, mini-vacations with Cale, maybe Interbike again, possibly a family vacation to Cape Cod.... when am I supposed to get any work done! It just doesn't seem possible to fit it in. It's sad, because I think it would really feel good to go down and help out.

Mopey thoughts aside, Dad told me to check out a blog post from CoastRat. For those who don't want to read it all (It is rather long!) I'll sum it up here. In Feb of 2006, this blogging gentleman (Coast Rat) was coming back from a mission trip that Dad was also on. They were in a caravan headed home when they hit bad weather. There was an accident directly in front of them, and Coast Rat (with an EMT background) went to check it out. There were three vehicles- one was a sedan whose roof had been ripped off, giving the driver a serious head wound. Coast Rat grabbed his jump kit and called upon my dad and a volunteer firefighter in the group to help him. Dad put his old EMT skills to work and they worked to stabilize the driver until the ambulance arrived.

Believe it or not, that's the short version. There's much more to it. If you'd like the really short story: My dad is a stand-up guy and I'm really proud of him. Here's a quote (from Coast Rat's blog) that Dad said to him: "That’s why people like us go to the trouble to acquire EMT responder skills, so that when we inadvertently happen upon a serious accident like that in life, where people are critically injured, that we don’t just have to stand around there with our thumb up our ass, because we have no idea how to help.” Yep, that sounds like Dad. I'd describe that quote as being from a no-nonsense good Samaritan for life, and I think that'd be pretty accurate.