Valentine's Day

 I'm tired today.  Emotionally, yes, but today a lot of it is physical.  I love my little wobbly cat Stumbles.  But you know how some cats twitch their paws when they're dreaming?  Stumbles has full on spaz attacks.  I get odd looks from house sitters when I tell them "don't worry if it looks like she's having a seizure; it's just something she does."  And it's easy to stop - just reach over and scratch her to wake her up a little.  But I lost track of how many times she woke me up last night (I push her to the bottom of the bed, or even go move her to the next room, but she sneaks up to snuggle up to me, which is sweet until the next seizure comes.  

So not much sleep last night.  And although Bob and I didn't make a big deal out of Valentine's Day it still kind of hits.  I've just sort of plowed on (limiting myself to one cup of coffee).  I cleaned out the chicken coop, and then headed down to the stream with my book from the library book club ("Our Missing Hearts).  Not the best choice; it's well written, but hits too close to the current political climate.  Basic premise is that PACT (Preservation of American Culture and Tradition) punishes people for "anti-American thoughts" by taking away and rehoming their children.  But I was close to the end last night so I thought I'd finish it. 

 Then I just sat there for awhile, listening to the water and remembering a time in the hospital.  I was talking Bob through a panic attack (something I had to do more and more often as his time there went on).  It's a common tactic to center someone on the present:  Tell me four things that you see.  Close your eyes and tell me three things that you hear.  Tell me two things that you feel.  One thing that you smell (I usually skipped that one because it was hospital smells).  This time, when it came to "tell me what you feel" he said softly "I feel the love."

At that point I decided that rather sitting there and crying I should press on, so I got my brush cutter and cleaned up some of the overgrowth in the front yard.  I can't remember when I did a major cleanup there, after the brush had gotten over knee-high and it took days with the heavy gas brush cutter and hauling off the debris.  But that's the nice thing about yard work - unlike housecleaning, once you clear something, it pretty much stays cleared.  It was starting to overgrown some, but I got most of it done before the battery gave out.  I'll finish it tomorrow.

But for now - early dinner.  I made sweet rolls for breakfast, but forgot to eat lunch.  I'm making one of Bob's favorite meals, one that we only had once or twice a year because it's such a cholesterol bomb.  I based it on a memory of something I got in a small restaurant by the airport when I lived in the Azores: a bed of onions and peppers, a thin-cut steak (like  sandwich steak), and a piece of ham, topped with a fried egg.  It's likely been six years since I made it, but I suddenly had the urge.  We'll see if I survive it.