it all falls down

It is raining outside like it thinks it's Seattle.

Insomnia caught up to me with a vengeance on last Thursday; the lack of sleep (I presume) made me extra susceptible to whatever bug has been crawling around my office, and I was out for most of the day -- literally out, in most senses of the word: out of office, out of mind, out of commission, out like a light ... which isn't to say that I actually slept.

It's been over a 3 weeks now, but insomnia and I have figured out a kind of armed truce. I get to sleep between the hours of 8 pm and 3 am, if I choose to take advantage of it ... and only if I fall asleep before 10 pm. From 3 AM to 9 AM, insomnia keeps me up, unless I wander around the house several times and crawl onto the sofa in the living room. There, I may (if I am lucky) fall asleep for an hour or so at a time.

It's all very wearing. Armed truce is maybe not the word. Conditional surrender might be more accurate.

The end result is that I'm a little more short-tempered than usual, and the commute home is sort of memorable in the way that it's really not: not memorable, I mean, because I'm in serious danger of dozing off during the drive. There have been more than a few occasions when I've had to swerve back into my own lane because my eyes have fallen shut. Do not, however, mistake the urgent desire to sleep with the actual ability to sleep. Exhaustion is all well and good, but it has yet to translate into really consistent sleep cycles. From time to time, insomnia gives me a free pass, but then it comes swooping back again the next night just to remind me who's boss. It's making me cranky, to be honest.

I called Mom on Monday, realizing that I had not spoken to her in a while. She informed me that she had fallen down the stairs on Friday night. She reassured me that she had not actually broken anything, and that she had also been (mostly) able to walk as of Sunday -- MOSTLY. Fantastic. -- when she'd finally decided to go to a clinic and get checked out.

"They put a thing," she said sadly. "What is the word? It is around my legs."

I tried to explain the word 'brace,' but she seemed to be getting it confused with her actual braces -- the metal ones on her teeth -- and the conversation went downhill from there. In between recriminations about why she didn't immediately seek medical help, and generalized swearing, it all got a bit excited.

"Why didn't you call me?"

"It was only a little fall. And it was late."

"But still."

"You are in California. It would not help."

"BUT STILL. You took two days to go to the doctor?"

"It was weekend."

"You couldn't walk!"

"Well."

Apparently, the only reason she did go to the doctor at all was that one of her students informed her that his brother had broken his foot and hadn't realized it until the doctor X-rayed it several days later. Under the persistent and very vocal badgering from her Saturday students, not to mention their offers to cancel their lessons so they could actually drive her in to get medical attention, she finally gave in and went the next day.

As of yesterday, she claims that she is all better. "Except swell," she said, which means 'swelling,' which she assures me does not hurt at all. Of course, one has to remember that pain is all relative, in her lexicon; she measures it against standards that I have never really understood. Does it hurt compared to smashing her thumb with a hammer? Does it hurt compared to being impaled with a 2x4? Does it hurt compared to actual death?

She was quite cheerful, which I suspect means that it did hurt, but just enough that she could be a martyr to the pain and enjoy being strong.

"I wonder if they gave your Mom Ibuprofen?" the Guy asked.

I eyed him.

"--which she wouldn't take anyway?" he tacked on, thoughtfully.

Sako is headed home next week to finish some of her last pre-qual courses for nursing school. I called her on Tuesday morning to tell her about Mom taking a header. Mom tells me that Sako promptly called her in turn.

"Did she yell at you?" I asked.

"No. She said, 'Mooooooooom,'" she said, with that note in her voice that was a perfect mimicry of how either Sako or I sound when we want to reach through the phone and shake this particularly frustrating parent.

I said, "Good," and, "It served you right."

Cranky, I'm telling you.