Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Sleeping, sleeping, sleeping

I don't think I've had a cold for at least two years. I'm extremely diligent about washing my hands with soap constantly when I'm at work, but I guess the germs this year were stronger, or maybe my immune system is weaker. But for whatever reason, I finally got one. Cello asked me last week if I was okay, and I said I was getting a cold, and he said, "It's about time!" Everyone else has been sick on and off for months, I guess it was just a matter of time before I got it.

I went to the gym twice over the weekend and sat in the sauna, hoping that might help, and last night I went to bed at 8:30 and slept for ten hours, but I still feel pretty rotten.

Today for lunch I had chicken noodle soup, saltines, and jello, which is an indicator that I'm really sick--I can't stand chicken soup normally. But today it tasted pretty good.

Friday night Bob was looking through my old journal entries trying to find out when we got Pyewacket. He wanted to know how old she is (9, I think). He found the entry, and started reading forward, and I sat down in the recliner and he read snippets to me (or when he laughed, I said, "What?" and he'd read what had made him laugh). I got tired and went to bed after a couple of hours, but he stayed up and read a couple of years' worth of entries.

He said one thing that struck him was how often I mentioned sleeping. Taking naps, sleeping late, not being able to sleep, sleeping, sleeping, sleeping. I used to feel guilty about it; it used to make me feel weird when he mentioned it, because he doesn't need as much sleep as I do, and almost never naps.

But anymore, it doesn't bother me. I sleep as much as I can, and I take it as a gift, especially considering that I've just been through a period of time where I had trouble sleeping. (Bob would probably dispute that, but I certainly don't wake him up when I wake in the night and can't go back to sleep, so how would he know?)

And speaking of not being able to sleep, I woke up early on Sunday morning, and Bob wasn't in bed. I got up and went to the bathroom, then went out in the hall to see if he was in his bathroom, or in the office, and he wasn't. I stood, and listened, and the house was quiet. His dad's in the hospital--he fell and cracked a rib, and they've got him in the hospital for a couple of days of observation--so I thought maybe something had happened and he'd left and didn't wake me (or woke me and I didn't remember).

So I went downstairs--no Bob--and checked in the basement--and there he was, curled up in the bed in the basement. I called down to him and asked if he was okay, and he said that he hadn't been able to sleep because I'd been tossing and turning and snoring with my cold, so he'd gone to the basement. He invited me to come down and join him, but I said, no, that's okay, I just wanted to be sure you were all right, and I went back upstairs and got into bed and slept for four more hours, until 10:30! I can't remember the last time I slept that late.

It was lovely.

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