"Put My Dinner on Pat's Tab"

I woke in the middle of the night Tuesday morning (2:30am ish) feeling well slept and wide awake. I knew, however, that if I didn’t get back to sleep in a hurry that I’d likely feel under slept at my usual wake-up time. The body’s unusual like that. While I have been stressed about a number of things lately, I hadn’t been dwelling on any issue in particular the night prior, and I had been doing an admirable job of keeping them out of mind, but apparently they must have been lurking in my subconscious mind, at least enough to wake me. I couldn’t simply go back to sleep so I grabbed my book and read for a bout 45 minutes. That made me sleepy enough to fall back asleep. But just as I had predicted I would, I over slept. I didn’t wake until 6:05am. Shoot!! I went about my morning with a little more intent than usual because I didn’t want to be late for work. I had a team meeting scheduled for 9am, which I was in no danger of missing, but I just felt it important to arrive on time to leave plenty of time to prepare. That’s my nature. I was able to accomplish the minimal goal of arriving to work on time. My morning moved briskly due to numerous issues and the many meetings I had on my agenda. At 11am I met with my boss to review my performance from 2005. That went well, although the meeting went much longer than expected. I didn’t leave his office until almost 1:15pm. I am confident some lasting good will come of the extra time spent discussing various concerns and issues. Once back at my desk I put to bed a couple of minor issues that cropped up in my relatively short absence then left for my run. I didn’t get out the door until well after 1:45pm. I didn’t get back until almost 2:30pm, and by the time I was showered, back at my desk, and tearing into my lunch, the day was practically gone! Come 5:00pm I wrapped up leftover items and hit the door. I hadn’t left on time in a number of days in a row. Mindy and I had made arrangements for me to visit her home this evening immediately after work, which is a bit different than usual. Mindy even offered to stop by my home and walk my dog to help facilitate the change, but I felt it unnecessary. On my way, I returned the call of my neighbor and friend Pat Schultz who had left me a VM earlier in the day. He brought to my attention that the waitress at Abracci’s had somehow inadvertently switched our tabs after we’d given her our credit cards, so essentially, I had likely paid the correct tab but with Pat’s credit card and he likewise. Make sense? The net result was that neither of us knew how much would show up on our credit card statements. Because I was wearing the same jeans I wore Saturday night I pulled the receipt from my back pocket and he was correct. I didn’t write the tip amount on my copy of the receipt but remembered roughly how much. I never did ask how he spent. Hmmm? I could be in for a BIG surprise!!! I arrived at Mindy’s home around 5:30pm. She had dinner all but ready. We were having salad, brats, and green bean casserole. While she finalized things the kids and I entertained one another. Soon we sat and ate. Everything was as good as usual. After dinner was though ad the mess resolved the kids wanted to play some games so we all did. During our play, I was overcome with sleepiness as well as a mind was run amuck with stress. I wasn’t myself to be sure. Strange though … how can one not be them self? Better stated, I wasn’t my usual self! J After the games were done, I helped Mindy put the kids to bed. It took all the energy I could muster to ‘fly’ them upstairs to their rooms. Jacob must weigh 100lbs. or so it seems (really like 55lbs). When we were through I crawled into the corner of her couch to rest. I was really feeling tired and stressed. Not at all good. Mindy mentioned after taking a phone call that her ex would be stopping by briefly to pick something up and that I could finally meet him. For lots of reasons I wasn’t feeling up to it this night however so instead I opted to leave abruptly. I knew then and even more so now that this seemed awfully strange to Mindy, but I just wasn’t in the mood so I left immediately. I drove home and must have arrived somewhere around 8:30pm. My first call to action was walking Ykraps who had been patiently awaiting my arrival. After walking him I turned off my phone and went directly to bed albeit I didn’t immediately sleep. I tried finishing my book, The Field. I only had like 6-8 pages to go. I could make it through only about two before I was overcome once again with sleepiness, so I put the book down. But instead of going to sleep as usual, I turned on my bedroom television which doesn’t get much airtime these days. I probably don’t watch more than an hour of television each week. That’s really something given that two years ago my television was on 24X7, although watched only passively. I tuned to American Idol. This was the first time I’ve tuned in for the actual singing rounds. While awake I got to see about three or four singers. I was amazed at the amount of production they’re putting into each act these days. I don’t recall from years past it ever being such a spectacle. Plus all the acts were doing Stevie Wonder songs. A couple of the singers were very, very good. I fell asleep around 10pm, I think. Honestly, though, I have no idea what time it was.