Sleep as late as possible. Waking to let the dog out? Back to sleep. Waking again to let the dog in? Back to sleep. Cat pouncing on your chest? Back to sleep. Curse animals, then go unconscious.
When back to sleep isn’t an option, start a very hot bath, and make yourself a smoothie out of everything with high Vitamin C in the house, including a bunch of spinach (can’t taste it in the smoothie), a dose of enchinacea, and one of those Emergen-C packets of fizzy whatever. Drink it while in the hot bath.
Consider breakfast. Too much trouble. Go back to sleep for 10 more minutes.
Wake and aim yourself toward your over-the-counter stash. I like a little cold medicine (but not the kind you need an ID to buy — that stuff makes me want to leap out of my skin), a Mucinex tablet the size of a kitten, Excredrin, and a little coffee.
Look around kitchen. Consider cleaning something. Decide not to.
Because a check must be deposited today or bad things will happen, get in the car, and play very loud music, which will trick your body into thinking it’s at a party (or having a nightmare).
After the check is in the bank, head toward Target where the aisles are wide, and you can wander among kitchen gadgets for a long time, amazed at the many ways there are to crush, squeeze, chop or dice vegetables. Remember to buy all ingredients for chicken noodle soup, and don’t forget the bananas. At the check-out line, pick up a truly trashy magazine with far more pictures than text.
Back home, make yourself a sandwich. Any kind will do at the moment, and eat it quickly, in between taking photos with your phone of your animals nuzzling each other.
Notice what a mess even the living room is. Decide not to do anything about it.
Go back to bed with the animal parade. Dream of traveling in the Amazon with your dog while looking for a lost email and craving herring.
Wake, drink water, and read. For me today, it’s Ann Pachett’s marvelous book State of Wonder (thus the dream about the Amazon).
Spend an inordinate amount of time on Facebook looking up people you barely know. Reconnect with at least one person from high school. Check up on kids and relatives. Laugh out loud (a Facebook-y thing to do) when reading how your daughter will “weep for humanity” because of Taylor Swift’s new album coming out.
Time to drive in, pick up teenage son, get update on his first day in school, and deposit him at Wheatfields. Go home while listening to Joe Biden give a speech on the radio. Then turn to the loud music again.
Sit in chair in bedroom for over two hours searching for the perfect discount futon cover made of indestructible material and on serious sale. Open many tabs. Oh, and remember to start the chicken noodle soup. Be awestruck by how there are now futon covers with sport team logos. Stare at the one with the KU Jayhawks and consider, for a moment, getting it. Regain sanity and close tab.
After you find the absolute (you’re sure, at least at the moment) perfect futon cover (with many layers of green leaves, like in the Amazon), season the chicken noodle soup, and sit on the couch with two big dogs and a tiny cat while writing a blog post about how to have a summer cold.
Stand up, shut the computer, go to the soup, and plan an evening that includes at least one Hepburn-Tracy movie. Then call it a day.
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