Very Long Day

It's a very long day when it begins at 4 a.m. I found myself wide awake and so caught up on one or two programs on my DVR before I finally drifted off to sleep again. It was the first time in I can't remember how long that the alarm clock (actually the alarm on my cell phone) actually woke me up. I had an 8 a.m. dentist appointment and knew that I might be in danger of sleeping too late so thank goodness I had the foresight to set it the night before..

By 8 a.m., I was flat on my back, doing my best Lamaze breathing to relax myself, letting my thoughts float where they may and almost drifting off to sleep while my teeth were being scraped. Now that's a good dental appointment! I came home and wrote "look ma, no cavities--sorta" as my Facebook status. Someone asked if that was "like being sorta pregnant" and I guess it is. When the hygienist had finished with the cleaning, Cindy did a quick once-over, poked one spot and said "I don't think I need to do anything about this now" and was gone again. I took that as a cavity-in-the-making, but too small to worry about right now.

I came home and made the rum raisin ice cream I'd planned to make (and lemme tell you, it's good!). It was pretty blatantly clear by noon that if I was going to review a show tonight, I was going to have to take a nap.

So, after I had some lunch, I settled into the recliner with a quilt and 2 dogs and drifted almost immediately off to sleep.

As so frequently happens, I had forgotten to do anything about the telephone and I had just gotten into a deep sleep when it rang. I just don't understand how I can go an entire WEEK without the phone ringing, but the very second I take a nap that I really need to take or be in trouble that night, the phone rings. And since it's so complicated to get out from under two dogs and a quilt, I'm wide awake by the time I've made it to the telephone.

The worst part was that it was a call that was coming two days too soon. It was my fellow critic, who wanted to know if I would like to carpool to Saturday night's show in Sacramento. By the time I'd made arrangements with him, I had slept too long to go back to sleep and hadn't slept NEARLY long enough to qualify as a nap.

I got some more stuff done around the house and then decided that I really HAD to get some sleep. Things are a bit fuzzy when I think about this. I know that I fell asleep, but I have the feeling that again I only slept for a matter of minutes before some sound (not the phone this time--and I don't know what sound it was--it might have been a loud commercial on TV) woke me up.

I gave up on sleep and hoped for the best. I also hoped that maybe I'd slept for enough time that I wouldn't have problems staying awake tonight.

Walt was out at a meeting until nearly 7:00 and I threw some leftovers in his general direction when he came home because we had to leave in about half an hour. I had eaten a bit earlier.

When time came, we got all the dogs "treated" and went up to the University.

Tonight was the night of the annual theatre festival (actually I supposed it happens twice a year, once in each semester) where young playwrights and young directors (and young actors) get to put on original plays, under the "artistic curatorship" of one of the professors in the Drama Department.

There are three plays each time and what I have usually found is that there is usually one real gem and two that are so-so. But there are also usually performances that stand out even in so-so productions.

Walt liked all three plays this time, I didn't find the "gem" I was looking for, but I did get the answer to my question: Did I get enough sleep during my two naps? NO! At the end of the second play when the cast came out to take its bow and I saw a character I don't remember seeing in the play at all, I knew that I had missed a chunk of it! Fortunately, I have a play synopsis and the playwright's notes about it, so armed with those and what I did see, I should be able to piece together a decent review.

As I write this it is 11:30 and the review must be at the paper first thing in the morning, so I have miles to go before I sleep again. But of course, I had to procrastinate a bit and write this journal entry first.