Thursday, February 25, 2016

Kabira's icy birthday


The worst of the ice storm seemed to centre on us for much of the late afternoon and evening, the temperature finally easing up above zero near midnight. Rain came down and washed the icicles out… By the time I got up this morning the trees were almost free of their icy armour and clunks of ice were melting off the house and trailer. We had no power outage - the un-needed buckets of water distributed around the house were dumped at noon with a sigh of relief.

Being on a well, we need electricity to run our water pump, unlike city dwellers who usually still have water when the power goes out. It’s only when you’ve been without water do you realize how useful it is! Just a simple thing like flushing the toilet is a luxury when you only have one spare bucket.


It started yesterday, a frizzing of my nerves as if they were being sparked by electricity. Images from violent movies and shows ran through my head causing my nerves to jangle even more. They were sparking on a razor's edge. I couldn't get to sleep. When I eventually did, I woke up a few hours later and laid there for hours, till it finally dawned on me that I needed some chemical help. That tiny brown pill helped me to go to sleep, but now, 12 hours later, I'm back in the same boat, skirting the edges of hypomania; not the good kind where I zoom around getting all sorts of things done, it’s the bad kind where I’m irritable and angry and can’t settle down, but don’t get anything productive done.

Why? Could it be the several nights of restless sleep I've had due to this darn cough? Or too many things on the go? Or not enough on the go?

What to do? I can't settle down for a nap. I tried reading. I picked up Jon Katz 'Dancing Dogs', thinking that a book of dogish short stories would be calming and fun - the first story was about a woman going through the death of her dog. Oh good. That did NOT help! I think I'll try E.B. White's 'Charlotte's Web', although I don't think it has a happy ending… maybe a herbal tea will soothe my frazzled nerves. (if only it were that easy)

I almost forgot that it was today, but here it is, Kabira's 10th birthday!

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