What’s going on here?

I woke up at 3:08 a.m. today, and I didn’t panic. Usually, it’s oh crap stop thinking stop thinking turn off your BRAAAAIN ah, nuts and I’m up for the day. But instead this morning, after pulling the blanket over my head, I woke up a minute later to find it was 4:59 — time to start the day!

Like I said on Facebook last night when PK asked about it — the melatonin thing is either a miracle or an excellent placebo. Either way, I’m getting the desired effect, and that’s all that matters. I think if you suffer from restlessness upon waking in the middle of the night, you should at least give it a try. I paid $11 for a bottle of 10mg tablets at the local Wally. I take one just before going to bed.

Of course, there’s always the “other side” of the debate. If I take this hormone artificially, will my system stop producing it on its own? I’ve done some cursory checking, and I really need to separate the peer-reviewed evidence from the “folk wisdom.” More on that another day, unless one of you philomaths want to check it out and separate wheat from chaff.

But for this week, we take the pill and drink the Kool-Aid. Whatever gets you through audition night.

Bring it!

Let’s do it. Shortened week, and hopefully productive on the school front. I’m psyched for auditions tomorrow night, and excited about a bunch of other stuff coming down the pike. The next three weeks will make me feel like I’m waiting to be shot out of a cannon, but I am determined to enjoy the thrill.

Factoid: After trying to explain my condition to the Thriller and not finding the right description, I searched my symptoms and found the word rugae, as it applies to my sore mouth after biting into an extremely ouchy-hot slice of pizza the other night. Who says you don’t learn anything at RtB?

And there we have it. A good week ahead — gofrit, fiends.

FO

I want to say them, but I won’t. But I want to. But I can’t. So I won’t. But I want to.

1.
Maybe you dont think about it at the time because youre thinking in a stream of consciousness but assuming we all know where you want to end a sentence is absurd i mean who does that it makes you sound ridiculous its also the height of laziness to never use an apostrophe or a capital letter seriously how hard is it and dont give me that crap about its only facebook you still look like a ninny so knock it off do you want your kids talking that way

2.

3.
Defiantly Definatly Deffinitly Deffly DEFINITELY, CRIPES PEOPLE

4.
Please, before you click “Share” to all your friends about how the makers of Dr. Pepper deliberately left out “under God” when they listed the Pledge of Allegiance on some promotional cans, or how President Obama wants to euthanize old people, or how Mitt Romney doesn’t know what a scrub brush is…check it out with Snopes.

Hmm. Does all this sound a bit snarkish? I guess it does. But it’s all in fun, really, and to prove it, you are free to go to my Facebook page and pick it apart, for I can take it as well as dish it out. Too many pictures of my grandchildren? Guilty. Too much complaining about the Browns and Indians? Dead-to-rights. There are probably more goodies to mine over there. Gofrit.

Hey, it’s Sumday and we get the Js tonight, yay! But first, there is much working to be done. Más tarde, fanáticos.

At least I’m getting stuff done, right? In these last two hours, I have:

1. bought Jake’s birthday presents
2. booked my hotel for when I attend my uncle’s memorial service in Illinois next weekend
3. paid bills (yay for payday)
4. touched up the gray roots in my hair
5. packed a bag for the overnighter we’re taking tonight

Speaking of Jake: it’s a rite of passage, I guess, but he has officially requested as a birthday gift “money to spend at the county fair” — the first time he’s asked for something other than toys. He’s a big boy now, going to be all of five years old and attending preschool school every day, taking swimming and gymnastics lessons, going boating with the family and working on cars in the shop with his dad. And the years fly by…

So, pony up your plans for the holiday weekend — what’s shakin’? Anything fun? We get back from Detroit tomorrow, then off to BFF Kay’s for dinner, then the Js, then Dinner Theatre work at school all day on Monday. It is Labor Day, after all. I shall toil at the mines.

Happy weekend to all — love dem Finkdays.

Strange indeed.

I’ve accomplished quite a bit since I got up at 2:45 a.m. I think I’m going to eventually give in to the advice from my cousin, who takes Ambien, and see if it might work for me without making me feel like I’ve been hit by a truck in the mornings. She swears by it.

I did some research on my particular problem (I can fall asleep but not remain asleep), and found this. What say you? Apparently, there are prescriptions that pack less of a punch than Ambien, but I think I’m not willing to combine them with anti-depressants and muscle relaxers and other various flavors of overmedication.

I think I will try the melatonin route (least invasive) first. I’ve read mixed reviews on its efficacy for keeping you asleep, but it’s a natural remedy, and therefore worth a shot. Failing that, I will call the doc. Anyone out there had any experience with melatonin? I know RD has, and he has had good luck with it.

But that’s not the point of this post. Strange news is the point, and I will now get to it.

Question: how can you throw away a kidney? I can’t imagine the horror of this poor nurse, who apparently chucked the organ before it was scheduled to be transplanted into the donor’s sister’s body. Oh my.

It’s bizarre by any stretch. In the movies and on TV, you always see medical staff handling a transplant organ as if it’s the Holy Grail. It gets its own cooler, seat on the helicopter, bodyguards and escorts. It gets a special pillow in the operating room. It must have been a confluence of the most extraordinary circumstances possible that allowed this terrible thing to happen. I can’t imagine the pall of dread hanging over the doctor who had to go into the recovery room and tell the two patients — brother and sister — whose backsides were just carved open then sewn shut for no reason, “Well, I don’t know how to tell you this…” So, so tragic.

Especially sobering were the numbers at the end of the article: in 2011, 136 people in Ohio died waiting for a kidney — 4,711 nationally.

All right. Enough reading and coffee slurping. There’s work to be done, and young voices to be shaped, one wrong note at a time.

Hey, it’s almost the weekend — pshh! Jump on it!