Alarm or alarm not. There is no snooze.

With apologies to Yoda. Beloved is mighty fond of the snooze button. I am mighty fond of Beloved, even when he hits the snooze button. For me, the point of an alarm clock is to wake me up. To ensure that this happens, I used to keep mine across the room.

By the time I clawed my way up out of sleep, staggered out of bed, and lurched over to beat the alarm into mute submission, I was well and truly awake. At which time my bladder would realize that we were vertical and start yodeling.

Now that I am married, my alarm clock is taking a sabbatical. It traveled to Houston with us earlier this week, and it got us out of bed on Wednesday morning. Bleat, squelch, mission accomplished, after which I unplugged it and put it back into my suitcase.

Beloved’s alarm clock lives on the corner of his desk, next to where his glasses spend the night. If I am not already up by the time the alarm goes off, I leap out of bed and aim myself toward the guest bathroom. He hits the snooze button. Seven minutes later, he hits it again. It is like the poem I learned from the children’s father (recited in a fake-Swedish accent):

My name is Yim Yonson,
I live in Visconsin
I vork in de lumbermill dere.
And ven people pass by
And say vere are you from,
Well, dis is vat I alvays say:
My name is Yim Yonson...

When I went to bed last night, knowing that we had no early morning appointments today, I whined pleaded with him, “Please tell me that we can go to bed without setting the alarm tonight.” No such luck. He had important gardening stuff that needed to get done as soon as it was light, i.e., well before it got too hot outside. Fair enough. I won’t deny that I like the goodies he brings in from our garden. That is worth a modicum of sleep-wrecking in this woman’s book.

So he set the alarm, and we went to bed somewhat earlier than usual, and I woke up around 3:00 feeling wonderfully refreshed. Out to the living room I went, where I spent the better part of three hours communing with my sweater sleeve. After enough time lapsed that my light breakfast had had a chance to settle, I went back to bed. The alarm went off. He did not get up. It was raining outside. I tried to catch a nap. No dice. Every seven minutes, just as I was drifting away, the infernal alarm clock did its job. Finally he shut it down, I caught a catnap, he dozed a little, and then we got up and emptied most of the contents of ten or twelve boxes of books into the hall bookcase. There are four boxes now ready for other family members to sort through: two of church books and manuals that are duplicates of what he or I already had, and two of secular books. His mother was highly intelligent, eminently sensible (two qualities which do not always pop up in the same individual, you must admit), and read voraciously. We are pulling out one treasure after another from these boxes. And we haven’t even gotten to the cookbooks yet.

So it’s been a mostly-productive day. We went to Mel’s dad’s birthday party at lunchtime but left early because Beloved’s nausea kicked in. I brought him home, grabbed my nail polish, and headed back out for my manicure (yay!) and to pick up a honey-and-ginger herbal tea that Squishy recommended.

Beloved got a nice long nap this afternoon. He is up and about, and I probably ought to go see if I can help with anything. In another hour I can go to sleep with a clear conscience (I’m 60; if I want to go to bed with the chickens, it’s my prerogative. I’ll be up before them, that’s for sure.)

Did I mention that the bloodwork done in Houston showed his cancer cell count down by 130 from its spike to 400 of the previous week? Parkland did send the old films on CD to MD Anderson, and the oncologist there is already speaking with our oncologist here. I’ll keep you posted when we know anything.