A Long Day and a Midsummer Night

 Friday night Tallahassee decided to take a break from the drought, big time (I'm not complaining because we really need the rain).  Bad enough that the power went out.  I went to bed but I couldn't sleep because I was being hyper vigilant. The bedroom has a flat roof, which is a stupid design.  Rather than shingles there is a heavy vinyl sheeting.  If, for example, a branch falls on it and tear it, well, it leaks.  So I was lying there listening for the telltale sound of water dripping inside the bedroom.  It wasn't happening, but I still couldn't relax so I moved out to the couch.

That was fine for a few hours (honestly, I rather like sleeping on the couch) until the power came back on in the wee small hours and the lights that I thought I had turned off when the power was out turned out to be on.  That snapped me awake. But I finally was able to get to sleep again.  Until . . .

Remember this picture of RedBug up on his shelf?  Notice that it's over the couch - and I usually sleep with my head at this end.  At some point after I got back to sleep, I was awakened again by the sound of a cat being very noisily sick.  Groggily I tried to pinpoint the sound and then wondered how it seemed to be coming from directly overhead . . . .  I was inspired to move very quickly.  Fortunately he managed to barf and keep it all on the shelf, but I still had to clean it up, and by then I realized that the alarm was going to go off in a half hour so sleep was a lost cause.

Normally I don't have to go anywhere on Saturday.  But of course this day I did.  The weaver's guild meeting was in the morning, and I was taking that wheel I got a few months ago to another member, and also off loading some of that alpaca.  So there I was, groggy, with a headache, driving in the rain to a meeting I didn't really want to attend (they tend to spend a lot of time on tangents that don't interest me).  At least it was at the library, which is next door to that excellent French pastry shop, so the morning wasn't a total loss.

Normally I never go anywhere on a Saturday night, but . . . .  I had a ticket to an outdoor production of a Midsummer Night's Dream out at the museum.  It was brilliant.  The scenes were set in different places along the trail, and the audience walked to them.  So when the rustics were meeting to rehearse their play "by the old oak tree in the woods" you walked to go see them.  When the young lovers were chasing each other through the woods, it was done literally.  Titania's bower up in the tree - was up in a tree.  Fairies in light-up costumes were overhead (using the Tree to Tree ropes course).  There were extra effects - like the nightbirds calling, the eagle being annoyed and screaming at the actors, and the turkey keeping up a steady comment.

I don't think I could ever really enjoy this play on a stage again.

Other adventures.  As I didn't get much sleep Friday night and had a very long day Saturday (I didn't get home from the play until after 10:00 p.m.) I was a bit of a zombie on Sunday and looking forward to bed.  But after the power outage on Friday the air pump on my fish tank became *very* loud (I'll go buy a new one tomorrow).  Annoying enough that I returned to the couch.  In the wee small hours the cats went bonkers, running all over and knocking stuff down and just having shenanigans.  That finally settled down.  I was able to get some sleep, but I can see the kitchen from the couch and at 6:00 the very bright light from my herb garden came on.  When that woke me, I noticed that the cats were still on high alert - and then I saw the mouse making a dash for the bedroom.  I jumped up and threw the cats out of the bedroom.  Now I had a mouse under my secretary to deal with.

I came up with A Clever Plan.  I got a shopping bag and put a towel in it to make it seem like a cozy safe place and laid it on one side of the secretary.  Then I got down with a flashlight and a ruler to poke under the secretary to chivy the mouse towards the bag.

Darned if it didn't work!  Mouse got moved outside.  At this point sleep was out of the question (the AC people were coming the clean the unit in a couple of hours).  So I did my morning ablutions, fed the cats, went to go let the chickens out of the coop and feed them, then finally made my tea and poured my cereal.  As I sat down, there was a tiny knock at the sliding glass door as a squirrel reminded me I had not put out their sunflower seeds and peanuts.

I doubt if I'll get much done today.