It never ceases to amaze me how thematic life is, like a series of interlocking vignettes. A word will get stuck in your head, seemingly at random, but then you notice things around you that tie back to it, reinforcing its presence in your head, forcing you to explore all aspects of its meaning and purpose for being there until finally, sated, it makes way for another.
Once a month (at least), we computer geeks sacrifice a weekend to do server maintenance. It’s an evil midnight Microsoft ritual requiring large amounts of sugar and really bad television to stay focused in the wee hours of the night. Given enough preparation and lamb’s blood, it’s generally a manageable process. If, on the other hand, you should lose 25% of your maintenance time because of a third party network outage, 25% of a window that is already just barely large enough to get all the work done if Microsoft is feeling benevolent and only requires one or two prayers per server and maybe a small chicken, well then you end up staggering to bed five hours later with the job only half done, knowing you’ll have to sack another weekend in the near future to finish in time for next month’s regularly scheduled midnight mass. Not to mention the livestock.
Sleeping during the day is more difficult, even in such a state of numbness. Velvet curtains over the windows help, but the extra heat facilitates some weird dreams. I have a vague recollection of Mym heading off to the lab around 10am, then a phone call from Mom at noon to inform me that my grandparents have announced that they’re ready to die (they’re thinking sometime in June right after a cousin’s visit), so I’d better come out and see them now. Not, unfortunately, a dream. I had already decided to go out for a visit (in April or May) earlier that week, so it hasn’t changed my plans in the least, but still. Good morning, your grandparents want to die. Nice. I’d like to think I did what any good, sleep-deprived grandchild would do in such a situation. I went back to sleep.
The next phone call came at 3pm, from Dad. I was due at their place in about two hours for Passover dinner. Let’s see, shower, laundry, a 100 mile drive… yeah… not gonna make it. Instead, in between the laundry and other household chores, I finished up a shawl I’d been working on for the past 2 weeks, casting it off the needles with a very satisfied air until I discovered I’d accidentally knitted it for a small child, unraveled the whole thing – approximately 350 yards of yarn – back to 7 stitches and started over on needles three sizes larger. The laundry finished up around midnight.
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