Shall I explain?

Well, see, the thing of it is, I did something not completely bright yesterday evening. For those that do not know, I have a stimulant sensitivity and since over Christmas break it got even more sensitive I’ve had no significant amount of caffiene since December. Yes, it sucks, and it makes my coffee order awfully complicated, but such is life.

So, last night, I go to Knit Night at Borders and stop by the cafe first for an iced coffee. I remembered to order the soy milk (because yes, I’m lactose intolerant too!) but somehow got sidetracked and only ordered the Medium Hazlenut Latte Iced, Soy… and not decaf.

Two and a half hours later and I head home I notice that I’m feeling kind of shaky and I first thought it was because I only picked at dinner before leaving the apartment. Then I passed it off as coming down from that natural, contact high that being around 20 or so high-energy females can cause. Until, that is, I reached for my coffee (which was still, blessedly, half full) and realized that much to my dismay I was merely over-caffienated.

It was then that I truly understood georgie_bird’s anectdote from Sunday about being absolutely wired because of a brainless moment and not being able to do a dog-gone thing about it.

Except that I thought, perhaps, there was something I could do about it. First, I made sure to eat dinner when I got home, even though it was late, because I figured I didn’t need a low blood-sugar attack on top of everything else. Second, I made myself a cup of chamomile tea, which has calming properties, to hopefully counteract the caffiene coursing through my once sedate veins.

I did actually sleep. Though it took quite a while to get there and I don’t think I slept soundly at any point. The very air seemed to reflect my addled state, heat lightening flickering through my windows as I tried to calm my mind and my nerves as I lay in bed.

It was towards morning when I had the strangest dream…

I, georgie_bird, and a third person totally unknown to myself were sitting at a small table, obviously at an event as we were in garb, and the stranger was berrating georgie_bird (genially) for something or another and georgie_bird said in her way, as she removed her glasses, ‘I know, I know.’ But this is not the strange part.

She was wearing, for lack of a better description, an Elizabethan gown of some sort, a light olive green in color (I remember looking very closely at it and being reminded of the olive CTMH cardstock I like so very much) with slashed sleeves, etc. It was the sleeves that were particulary interesting for while they were slashed, the chemise had not been pulled and puffed through. Come to think of it, this was what the stranger was harping upon, and then she proceded to pull the chemise through the slashes of georgie_bird’s left arm as I, on her right, was encouraged to do the same.

I believe I demurred manhandling georgie_bird in such a way, but this was when I looked very closely at the garment itself, noted the particular green color of the over dress, and the pattern of the chemise: red apples, in groups and singles, on an ecru background, with red and dark green plaid bands run through, shot with metallic gold thread, at random intervals.

Not that I’ve ever seen georgie_bird in anything resembling Elizabethan garb, nor anything apple-patterned, but it’s certainly an interesting concept…

Sigh… for the first time in I don’t know how long I have a floral arrangement that I’m just not totally happy with.

Let me back up a bit.

One thing I really like, a simple thing that makes me happy, is having fresh flowers in the house. One thing past boyfriends/husbands have had in common is some strange anathema to that concept. Some were just dense and didn’t get the memo that girls like flowers, some considered the giving of flowers to be a symbol of truly deep feelings which they may not actually feel for me (no? then why have we been dating a year?) and others even took the approach that to cut them was to kill them and thus end their beauty. Not to mention that flowers growing wild were for everyone’s enjoyment whereas flowers in the house were selfish.

Um. Yeah.

Sue me for being selfish (so not a new thing…) and I have a black thumb so house plants don’t stand a chance with me (I’m still amazed that the dish garden from Valentine’s Day is still alive because I remember to water it maybe once every couple of weeks… but at least its in the kitchen where I see it often). And I’m not even greedy! While I really adore roses, I’m happy to have anything that blooms in the house as long as its pretty and I can put it in a vase.

Anyway, backstory aside, one of the things I started doing when I moved into the apartment last June was buy myself flowers every week or so. I’d buy a big bunch of something and then divide them between vases throughout the apartment. Some would last longer than others, and when I change them out I snip off the dried buds and save them in a crystal bowl on the bookcase (I have plans for them).

Something I’ve always been able to do, however, was create a pleasing arrangement of whatever I brought home. I’m not taking arty floral sculpture necessarily, but more than just dropping a bunch of same-length stems in a vase… I put effort into it and its generally rewarding. Last night? not so much.

For some reason I just could not get the mixture of white daisies and mums to cooperate. I went through a couple of version before redoing the frog and centering them in the square vase. Though I usually don’t ad pebbles or ribbons and such, I think I may have to in order to be pleased with it.

Now, I’m sure some of my more honest friends will read this and want to say to me, ‘if this is the only thing you have to complain about and you’re being this whiny about it, you need a reality check’ and part of me agrees. The other part of me realizes that this simple bit of disharmony is indicative of the larger picture of things spinning around right now with very little control or conscience. My focus is a bit off, and I desparately want a new distraction for a while to clear my head, but I know that what I really need to be doing is cutting down the number of distraction I’ve already set before me.

My first attempt with the flowers last night was to spread them out among to compartments I’d created via the frog. I like things compartmentalized, identified, categorized, manageable. But the flowers kept slipping on the base of the vase, tangling their stems. Some things defy categorization, people are many times unmanageable, glass floors make for unstable foundations. So I pulled everything out and started over, the new frog narrowed the opening of the vase and I clustered everything inside a central opening, arranged for height. In frustration everything I do gets tossed into one central pile, neatly stacked and seemingly organized, but really chaos reigns until I separate them once again.

Tonight maybe I will try again. Try a different vase. I’ll try and sort and reorganize again. The flowers, too.

Well, okay, so I’m not Catholic, nor am I sneezing all that much, its more the coughing and such that is the real pain.

Oh, the coughing…

See, some things were meant to be shared, and others weren’t, and I was unwittingly (and totally unintentionally) a party to the second variety… berylq’s cold. Only it’s not a cold, it’s a monster cold, it’s not even a monster cold, it’s freaking broncchitis or something.

With me, these things always turn into brocchitis.

I was a good girl, though, I went to the doctor Thursday morning and even though there was nothing at the moment to suggest it was more than a cold (I said flu but apparently it can’t be since it’s not flu season even though all my symptoms matched the ones on the flu medicine box) I explained that I was going out of town over the long weekend and was afraid it would get worse. I walked out with an Rx for a z-pack. I love my doctor.

Friday morning things officially progressed to ‘worse’ even after a day of rest and juice and soup. It was like a bad 70s living room set up camp in my lungs (if you catch my drift). Ugh. I made it almost 2 hours at work before going back to my perch on the couch with soup, juice and back to back episodes of Friends (’cause daytime tv? sucks…). Mom was my hero because she brought me popsicles on her way home.

Today I did manage to sleep in a little (both because I slept pretty much sitting up and got up at 4am for more meds) but, wow, I needed to do a load of laundry this morning and it totally wiped me out. Plus? I’m running out of my heaven-sent cough syrup, the only one that has ever worked, and the doctor’s office is closed until Wednesday. So off I trip my coughy, no-voiced self (I had to email Mom the request for popsicles because voice? gone….) to the pharmacy to plead my case and ask for a recommendation on what will work as good. I’m not totally convinced that the sub is the best thing in the world, but it should hopefully get me through the rest of this weekend.

Because tomorrow? I get to spend six hours in the car trying not to infect Mom, then however many hours at the viewing trying not to choke and I will undoubtably be crying, then Monday the services and then another six hours in the car home. Just a quick trip there and back, me, Mom, and my cooler of Gatorade and meds.

See y’all on Tuesday.