I am awake in the middle of the night (knee pain kept waking me up until finally I gave up and got up), and it is okay because during the day I have nothing to do except for icing my knee and exercising it, and taking my medicines and eating nourishing food. But the cat, who had been cozily asleep on Paul for hours, followed me downstairs and is standing nearby watching me and looking exhausted. So pretty soon I will go try again to sleep, for the cat’s sake.
I just realized I’ve had two inadvertent Dry Januarys in a row: last year because I had what doctors thought was probably the flu, and this year because of the knee surgery. Normally I think January is grim enough without adding a deprivation challenge, THIS January in particular, but that is the way it shook out. I am looking at next January nervously.
Even the question-marking tail, as if to ask, when oh when can we return to bed?? Such a sleepy but faithful sentry—wishing you both better sleep soon with improvement in your knee pain!!
I hope you got some rest later in the night and sleep better tonight.
I was having similar thoughts about January, not about dry January, but how awful they’ve been lately.
2025: No need to explain
2024: Beth’s mom was having a health crisis that caused Beth to be gone most of the month
2023: Younger kid in psychiatric treatment
2022: Schools in session but in terrible disarray due to covid spike. Staff shortages were so bad kids were just sitting in class with no teachers in half their classes and buses weren’t running.
2021: Schools remote because of covid
2017-2020: You know. January 2017 was the most shocking since it was new, but we really haven’t had a normal January since 2016, I think. Is normal ever coming back?
Come to think of it, in 2016 we had a massive snowfalll that cancelled school for more than a week, so 2015?
We had snowmageddon in January 2015 in Massachusetts. Like 100” of snow. So not that one either probably.
I have had two dry Januarys in a row on purpose, and I always swore I wouldn’t because I had four pregnancies/little kids nursing/etc. and I felt I’d had enough dry months! I always like doing it now, I say the worst part of it is how good I feel ha ha boo hoo. Januarys are hard, and this one honestly feels impossible. I told my husband this morning, they can have whatever :: all this is:: but they can’t have our mental and physical health. But I don’t know how much I believe it.
(thank you for mentioning that we could call our representatives; I have been doing so [mine are deep red], and thus got the delight of, today, finding out that the people who answer phones are slightly panicked compared to their calm and list-of-questions responses to my calls last week. I was calling them about the Musk access to sensitive US citizen data via the federal reserve computer systems and I am hoping a lot of other people are as well…)
Oh what a sweet companion, ensuring you are okay and persuading you back to bed!
I love your cat. I have an affectionate orangey and I love the joke that all orange cats just share one brain cell that they pass around to each other. Sometimes it seems so true.
My sweet orange boy is surprisingly non-sweet at the vet, so he had three vet techs holding onto him for his appointment. They offered him some sort of cheese product on a popsicle stick, and I said “He won’t eat that”—and then he DID start eating it, and purring, and one of the vet techs crooned lovingly to him “You are such a smart boy! I think you have access to TWO brain cells!!”
Haaaaaaaaahahaha! That’s fantastic.
I hope your sleep has gotten better.
Americans: anyone can file an FTC report regarding people impersonating/falsely identifying as government officials.
Also: I saw on bluesky that it might not be a bad idea to call your colleges about your FAFSA data being compromised.
Some food for thought. Or activities if you’re awake and restless.
My birthday is in January, so for me it will never be dry. 😅 This year was my 40th and I took a long weekend trip with 16 of my besties. We had a great time, and it was nice to escape reality for a few days because wow….reality is depressing af.
16 besties?! I do not have 16 friends, much less close friends…..you are truly lucky!
The luckiest! My very best friend of 20 years went to law school with my husband, and that’s how I met him + several other close friends and their partners. We all make it a point to get together as often as possible, with and without all of our kids. Most of us live near the same city, but we still see the ones who don’t pretty regularly, too.
I do hope the cat has caught up on his sleep by now.