Because I cannot sleep in Trichotomy

The suburbs that never sleeps

Lately I have been having more days when I just can’t sleep. Ever since I moved to the suburbs, I have to up at a normal hour, 7 or 8 in th morning, having had 5 or 6 hours the previous night, and then proceed to spend the day in a daze, half asleep, until it comes to the time when I am suppose to go to bed. Then I’m all awake. Some days I would not be able to fall asleep at all.

So I had taken to keeping my work laptop at home, so when I have insomnia, at least I can work. But I left my laptop at home today, so I figured, I might as well write.

I miss living somewhere that I can afford to wake up at 9 and still get to work on time. I think living in the suburbs has messed up my cicadian rhythm.

Luckily my company has sleep areas where you can actually literally go sleep on the job, so that’s sweet, but I have been avoiding using them as much as possible for fear it would mess with my body’s adapting to the new suburb rhythm. But it’s been 2 years and I still haven’t adapted, so I figure they can’t hurt.

At least I get to sleep.

• D

December is a busy month

The in-laws were here for Thanksgiving week. Since they are now both retired, they have a lot more time to visit. I always enjoy having them around, but it feels a little odd this time round. It’s the 4th Thanksgiving I spent with them now, and the cooking of the meal feels like just going through the motions.

I am glad my in-laws are so excited about the river cruise in northern france next year; I had tried to get them be more active after retirement so I’m pleasantly surprised they are so into it. My mother-in-law has been picking up projects that keeps her busy since her retirement. At first it was our wedding, then it was planning for the France trip, then it was a family reunion of sorts of her siblings, but the latest project was weird… it was to decide on their affairs after they pass away. Apparently she had put a lot of thoughts into it, from the drawing of the will down to the type of coffins that they should use. I just hope she has other projects to focus on now.

Speaking of mortality, our pet rat Henrietta has a tumor. I started noticing it getting fat last month, but two weeks ago I noticed that it was only fat on one side. Turns out that was a mammallian tumor, which is very common in rats. Luckily we got an appointment with the vet immediately and we took it into the clinic for a surgery today. It went well and we got it spayed too (that should reduce the risk of further tumors). In rat age it is already older than us, and it is highly unlikely that it will last another year, but it has led a happy, productive life (it has a publication, thought technically it wasn’t the author, it was the subject), which, in the end, is all that we could ask for, no?

• N

Butterfly in Winter

We went to our sister-in-law’s parents to visit last Saturday. They also visited during Thanksgiving break too, which is nice. And then Sunday, we went to Little Boo-boo’s music school’s semester recital, at the at Skirball center. It was very impressive that the little school actually uses the big stage for its recital. Little boo-boo now belongs to an orchestra; it now only has strings in it, and they all play in unison (a pianist basically accompanies them), but it was still impressive. There are 3 more successively more advanced orchestral groups, all the way up to semi-professional-level.

On Friday, La Professeure’s college friend had a surprise birthday party thrown for him by his wife and best friend. It was a surprise because his birthday isn’t till next month. They invited a lot of people, and had this elaborate plan on how to get him to go to his friend’s home to babysit the kid. The attention to detail was very impressive; down to the running of water for background noise when the friend supposedly was calling him while bathing his kid. But once the party started we were quite bored, since we don’t know many people there, and we didn’t have much in common with the guests. The host’s wife was very nice and engaged us in conversation, but I wished we had left the party sooner.

The weekend before thanksgiving I was busy as well. The Treasurer was invisted to give a volunteer concert at a posh nursing home on the Upper East Side, and recruited some people from the amateur musician group to perform. I accompanied one of the sopranos, and played Ave Maria and The Man I Love by myself. It was fun and the people who performed were very nice… there’s a guy who plays jazz, a standards singer, the Japanese pianist, and the ENT doctor pianist. After the nursing home gig, we went to the dress rehearsal for the amateur group’s carnegie hall concert. I wasn’t planning to go, but since I had time, I figured why not stay in the city for a couple more hours.

We have the carnegie hall concert this weekend, and then next week is my company’s holiday party, and then it’ll be christmas and new years.

It feels like when the end of the year rolls in, the time passes faster.

• S