How To Wake Up On Sunday Morning

Late into the night my sewing machine was tapping out it's non-encoded* rhythms as we worked together to cover some cushions for a neighbor in a very cool bark cloth that, being mostly white, I could destroy in less than two minutes. In fact, when I stopped to eat some dinner at 11:30pm I had to put all the white fabric in a haz-mat container while I ate to prevent any marinara sauce from leaping from my fork onto the project as it is wont to do around here.

I've never covered cushions before and I am dying to show you the results. I'm quite proud of the zipper work. Even though I have the clearance to share this project with you, my technical team hasn't yet cracked the necessary procedures to allow me to upload pictures from my camera to my laptop.

When you watch too much Alias you can't help but start talking like a fake CIA agent.

I didn't finish the cushions until 2:30am. I kind of wish I hadn't stayed up so late. But only because of how I feel this morning. I got on a roll with them and didn't want to lose steam only to discover I still haven't finished them come next Thursday.

At 7am Max came into my bedroom with a gusher. And a mild panic about the gusher. Normally I can handle bloody noses almost any time of night or day, because I've had to. What's amazing is that until now I've never woken up to one of his extravagant nose bleeds. At first it was fine and I was awake in exactly one second, putting pressure on his nose with tissue, trying to induce calm in him. However, the bleed didn't ease up and Max was making it harder by freaking out when some blood got on his lip, then his hand. Suddenly I felt kind of sick.

Sick like I was going to throw up. Or pass out. Or throw up right before passing out. Or pass out and then throw up and choke on my own vomit and die unexpectedly leaving Philip to deal with all bloody noses in the future which would be so ironic because he's the one with vasovagal visual response to stimuli. I shoved the tissues at Philip and ran to the spare bedroom recently vacated by my mom and tried to ride out the waves of nausea.

This isn't how I prefer to start my day. A day that feels like it may turn out to be a tactical nightmare**. We need to pick up the freezer I bought at Lowe's (for $70 less than I had intended to spend-I'm so proud of that!), but to do that we have to borrow a friend's truck that has to be jump started and kept running which means we all have to go on this errand. So I suppose I also need to clear out the space intended for the freezer. We're going to Portland to see my mom, though I don't really know when or what the plan is because I'm a total lame-ass and haven't figured any of that out ahead of time. I'm not sure what we'll do with the dog, I don't want to leave her for that long alone at the house, but I'm not sure it's a good idea to bring her either. Somewhere in there I need to drop off the cushions too.

On a day like this, one should wake from a long restful sleep, refreshed, with a Stepford style calm child whose nose doesn't bleed copiously all the time, and one should have everything all planned out.

To look for the good in everything is an annoyingly noble goal. Here's some good:

• Max isn't a hemophiliac, which is a comfort. If he was he'd probably already be dead or I'd be institutionalized from the trauma of dealing with potentially deadly bloody noses all the time.

• Freezers don't have legs. This is good for many reasons, one of which is that the freezer I bought can't walk out of Lowe's without us so there's no reason to get all panicky because we have to arrange to pick it up. Us anxious types will panic about anything. We've got no discerning taste whatsoever.

• I didn't throw up. I hate throwing up and fear it. Seriously fear it. I will not tell you the lengths I will go to to avoid hurling. You could almost say I have a phobia of vomiting. Which isn't surprising since I have a highly sensitive gag reflex.

• Because I finished the two projects hanging over my head I can be free to enjoy myself and my new freezer without the guilt I would experience if I knew I should be sewing instead of chopping the last peaches of the season to freeze. Which I'm praying I'll get to do. Peaches are almost completely gone.

• Plus, I'll get paid for the projects I finished which will help to offset the cost of the freezer which, if it had legs, would be tapping it's toes in impatience right now in the loading dock. And also freaking out all the Lowe's employees who aren't getting paid enough to deal with mutant angry appliances.
  

I'm really trying to focus on the good but Max is being a complete stinker and I see what the real tactical nightmare is going to be today: dealing with Max. Max isn't going to cooperate with anything we've got to do. He's going to drag his feet and that mouth of his is going to let out the longest string of complaints that any child has ever been able to sustain. He's very skilled at this. He could win awards for his ability to maintain a constant string of negativity. Sometimes I get so weary of his bad attitude that I kind of wish I was deaf.

I guess I better go untangle the day's objectives. I could really use some good disguises too but I'm afraid that if I were to wear disguises I wouldn't look cool like Sydney Bristow, I would look like Divine. I think I should avoid that for all of our sakes.

Copy that.




*I've been watching A LOT of Alias. Everything in my head is theatrical agent talk.
**I love this expression and am constantly looking for an excuse to say it.