Waiting for the Sandman

My close personal friend Insomnia has decided to visit, so I thought it would only be right to introduce y'all to her. Or him. Or it.

Y'all, Insomnia. Insomnia, y'all.

Honest to pete, I should be out like a light by now. I should be acting similar to someone who's been hit over the head with a club, only, you know, ALIVE and all. But no, here I sit after wrestling around with the pillows, the heating pad, the sheet and the quilt for the past hour and a half. Oh, let's not forget the MP3 player with the relaxing voices of relaxation people trying to lull me to sleep with relaxing relaxation. Unfortunately, the relaxation became more boredom than anything else.

"Take a deep breath and let it out slowly. Feel yourself melt into the support beneath you."

That phrase is always a little scary for me, being of the philum "rotund" and all. I always picture my many globules of yellow, ugly fat becoming liquid and leaking out all over the mattress in a huge, oily, slick, greasy mess.

This is not the thing of which dreams are made.

So while my friend Insomnia butts into my sleeping time and I wait for my other friend Ambien to take over, I thought I tell you about today.

Today we went over to mother-in-law's house for a potluck dinner to celebrate her 94th birthday. Immediately after the dinner was over I took the kids shopping again. This time we hit a big mall with all the stores they love. While we didn't come away with too awful much, we did make headway in the back-to-school shopping. We're almost to the underwear and socks stage, and that's saying a lot.

The mall was as crowded as if it was the week before Christmas. I was amazed at how many people were there, especially given the fact that the malls around here have basically gone into ruin. Two different malls in our area are all but empty now, yet twenty minutes away they seem to be thriving. Go figure.

By the time we got home everyone was exhausted. Hubster had just arisen from a nap so he was OK, but the rest of us were down for the count. The Girl plopped down on the couch and instantly fell asleep. The Boy took over our bed. I just wandered around in a daze until bedtime, when I found sleep to be ever elusive.

Eventually the kids got up and became human again. However, I'm still in the daze.

Looks like I'll be trying to sleep on the couch tonight.