Sleepy heads

In hot weather we camp out in the living room near the air conditioner. The house has central air, but it doesn't work very well, so the bedroom is too hot. I sleep on the futon, Brenna uses the other couch and Marian occupies an air mattress on the living room floor.

Marian is a restless sleeper like me. She always wants to stay up, and there isn't much point in making her go to bed too early, because she'll just toss and turn. I usually get them to settle down with a book at 10 p.m. and let them read for 45 minutes. I close the door to the adjoining office and work at my computer for a while. By the time I reemerge for lights out, Brenna has often gone to sleep anyway. I normally go to bed after midnight, often as late as 2 a.m., but try to turn in earlier when the girls are here because they're up and ready to go by 7.

But last night we were all peculiarly tired. They just arrived from a few days at the cottage with my parents. They were all up late at a Mars observatory on Thursday, but I don't know what was the matter with me. At 10:30 I was sitting here trying to play Parcheesi on the computer, but I couldn't finish the game. I couldn't keep my eyes open and my head kept drooping to the side. Finally I decided to beg the girls for an early night.

I shut down the computer and opened the door. I wasn't surprised to find Brenna had closed her book and rolled over, but even Marian was sound asleep.

Okay, lights out!

As usual when I go to bed early, I was awake early. As a matter of fact, at 5 a.m. we were all tossing and stretching. Once, Marian's head bobbed up to see if I was awake. I waited 45 minutes then couldn't stand it any longer, I had to get up. I felt a little guilty, with both girls restless, nabbing the computer for myself. I closed the office door again and hoped they would stay settled for a little while.

The next time I looked at the clock I was startled to see two hours had passed. it was 8:00, and the living room was strangely quiet. Now I felt selfish. I stood up, ready to start the day, and opened the door.

They were both sound asleep. They're still sleeping. So here I am posting to my journal. Darned if I'm going to wake them up.

What have my parents been doing with them, partying 'til all hours? No, wait a minute, we're talking about my father who goes to bed at 9 and my mother who sleeps at least 10 hours a day. Whatever happened at the cottage this week, my kids are tuckered.

Buzz

Old Man Willow

This morning Brenna wanted to return to the same black willow we climbed yesterday, so here is a view from the ground. I asked her to pick from three images to post here, and she chose this over one that was funnier, and one that was artier. After a few weeks of hanging around with a manic photographer this summer she has evolved from silly to photogenic. She loves showing off for an audience. Sound familiar to anyone?



This big ugly tree always makes me think of Old Man Willow from The Fellowship of the Ring (the book). I keep going back, like one under an enchantment. It is my favourite tree along the Eramosa. I have spent hours sitting on a branch about 4 metres (13 feet) off the ground, reading Walden or writing poetry.

Although completely recovered from surgery in October and March, I still carried a flutter of caution about my body and have been afraid to climb Old Man Willow all summer. Yesterday I put an end to this final inhibition, took off my sandals, scrambled to that high and favourite branch, and took those pictures of the girls.

Online jigsaw

susandennis has added two of my photos to her puzzle page. Check out her work, if you haven't already. If you're an LJ photography fan, I'm sure you'll recognize some of the other characters whose work appears there. The only puzzle I have attempted so far was kyrielle's "Stone" image. It was diabolically hard, but I finished it, and the others look a little easier.

This afternoon we hiked downtown to the e-bar

More skylights

From the new mall