Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

Two unrelated things went wrong today:

1) I slept very poorly last night, waking up multiple times with painful leg cramps. The first couple of times I used an epsom salts rub, and massaged the painful muscles, long enough that they felt better if not good. The third time, I went into the kitchen and drank a couple of glasses of orange juice, for potassium.

I got another three hours of sleep after that, but have been feeling worn out and a little off balance. I called the dentist after lunch, to make a follow-up appointment. They offered an appointment tomorrow, which I declined, because I want to be awake and reasonably focused when I'm making decisions about what I want the dentist to do next, with options including a "partial" bridge, dental implants, or possibly some third thing. So, I will be seeing the dentist again on June 19th.

I asked cattitude to accompany me for a walk this afternoon, because it was a nice day and I wanted to play outside, but was feeling both distracted and slightly off balance, and didn't want to go alone. It was a nice walk, and nothing went wrong, but I was glad of the company for practical reasons as well as because I like walking with him.


2) As soon as we got back from that pleasant walk, I saw a text message about a possible fraudulent charge on my credit card. I didn't recognize the charge or the company it was from, so I texted back "FRAUD" (the other options being "VALID" and "HELP"). A couple of minutes later, I called the credit card company and spent about twenty minuteson the phone sorting out that yes, that charge was fraudulent, although the two charges before that (one of which was from mid-May) were legit. So they cancelled that card and will be sending me a new one. The customer service person said that, because it was after 3:00 eastern time, if I had them send the new card by FedEx, it would arrive on Wednesday or Thursday. We're going to Montreal this weekend, and I didn't want to risk the card arriving after we left for the airport and lying around in the building lobby, or even the inside hallway behind a locked door. Instead, they will be mailing me a new card, which I was told will arrive in 7-10 business days, with the regular mail.

Since I have another credit card, this is an annoyance rather than a Problem, but really.

Another collection of comments. ( resolutions, sexual orientation and relationships, clothing and perceived gender, names and use-names, awareness of race, sleep and waking )

I've been waking up early: three mornings in a row now, in two different beds. The first I blame on my usual pre-travel jitters. (Knowing the route well doesn't help much, alas.) The second, perhaps, on forgetting to take my valerian capsule. Today, neither of those; being in a different place than usual, and possibly that I went to sleep earlier than usual?

I don't know if I'm short on sleep or not; nor do I know whether going to bed at 10 and waking around 6-6:30 would work well for me, but I suspect it would not make cattitude happy to try doing it himself, and I like being in sync with him.

This one is just annoying: somewhere in the middle of last night, I thought "Wait, I forgot to set the alarm!" did so sleepily, and then realized it was Saturday night and I didn't need to, and turned it off: I thought. I either missed then, or turned it back on in my sleep. So, at 7 this morning it went 'beep beep beep." I told cattitude to go back to sleep, and he did, but I didn't manage it; I went from lying there sort of awake to brooding about stuff. If that happens at the beginning of the night, I can usually push myself away from that and eventually into sleep; after 6 or 7 hours' sleep, my techniques weren't working (neither deliberately thinking about pleasant things, or repeating numbers in the hopes of boring myself into sleep: this works sometimes, though some sequences work better than others, and 40 minutes ago I didn't remember that. [Counting backwards, slowly, can be effective; forward by threes, apparently not.]

I have stroked the cat, and made a cup of tea; the cat had some cream, and has gone back to sleep out here. I envy that facility.

This past night, I kept sleeping in about one-hour chunks. At least three times, I woke up with my left hand feeling both in pain and not wanting to move properly. A minute of flexing things anyway fixed it, but this is weird as well as annoying. I had been sleeping with a stuffed animal tucked under that arm, as I often do; after the second time I woke up that way, I moved it aside. No good, an hour later the same thing, except sans panda. So I grabbed the panda again, because having her does help me sleep.

This last time, my back was also uncomfortable. So I've gotten up for a bit, and will either go back to sleep soon or have some tea, depending in part on whether cattitude wakes up. Seven isn't an unreasonable hour for someone who went to bed at 11:00 to get up. But it doesn't feel like enough sleep, with all those interruptions and my not being well yet.

And yes, I was careful about the caffeine yesterday, and I took my pre-bed valerian.

I didn't sleep at all well. The sort of night where I spend a lot of time lying there, eyes closed, but awake. I wondered, a time or two, about getting up and reading, but didn't; were I otherwise well I might have.

Unsurprisingly, I woke up this morning with pain at the incisions. The previous couple of days, that had been there only quite late in the day.

ETA: I went out when cattitude did, to get a bit of a walk in before the rain got heavy. I'd meant to go as far as the little cluster of birch trees just past the Indian Road playground (which would have made about 4 blocks, round-trip), but turned back near the playground entrance because I was walking slowly, shorter on breath than yesterday. *sigh* I shall definitely try to nap today.

On the positive side, somewhere in the last few days the bloating has gone away, and I can wear my normal pants (instead of the very loose gym pants I've been borrowing from cattitude). However, the belt is still not a good idea, because it puts pressure on an incision. So, no PDA yet.

I've been awake since about 6:30, up since about 7:30. On a day when I have no specific schedule, no alarm clock went off, and I had expected to sleep in and catch up somewhat on sleep. (I didn't sleep late yesterday, but it wasn't this early either, and it usually takes me a couple of days without an alarm before I can sleep late.)

I've been grumbling at julian_tiger that he should be more helpful, or teach master classes in sleeping, or some such. If I get out reasonably soon, I might manage gym and shoestore and back in time for a plausible afternoon nap. I'm also going to make an effort toward an early dinner tonight--which means nothing remotely experimental with regard to the cookery, since a small change in recipe last night stretched cattitude's quick dinner into a lengthy and thus later one. Tasty, though.

I got to bed a little late last night, but I think it would have been okay if not for the rainstorm. Loud, sudden rain at about 6:30, which woke me, cattitude, julian_tiger, and at least two car alarms. One of the latter went off twice. I didn't get back to sleep, which leaves me almost an hour short of where I should have been. It's not just that it usually takes a while to get back to sleep: I have trouble doing so when I know the alarm will be going off fairly soon.

I do not like the way that having trouble getting back to sleep can darken the entire day. One of these years, I'll be able to figure out when it's time to get up and have tea before I bark my shin on the bed frame, knock the tea ball out of my mug, and then brush against the tea kettle in retrieving it. Fortunately, I had only just turned the gas on, so no harm done with the tea part of that.

Nonetheless, in a little while I am going to chance dropping heavy pieces of metal, because weight-lifting is good for my mood, and it's my birthday and a Saturday, and I can do what I want.

Another less-than-full night's sleep, but I'm feeling much more cheerful at the moment, because I didn't lie awake long: woke a couple of times and got back to sleep quickly, and then when I woke around 6:40 and didn't get back to sleep soon, got up and showered. (The alarm is for 7:15 on workdays.) Yesterday afternoon's nap also helped a lot.