adventures in sleeping and swimming

Last you heard, we were shuffling stuff around to get ready for the painter. Once upon a time when we were visiting our wonderful financial adviser, she asked us if we knew anyone that needed a desk. Her father had recently passed away and she was trying to deal with a very long lifetime of stuff. This is a very nice oak desk, not too big, not too small.

Linda didn't know anyone that did. I did. We picked it up the next day, Linda wondering why she needed a desk. Within a day, ONE DAY!!! it was buried in her papers.  I know better than to touch them. Which is why I knew she needed a desk.

So when the painter enters the scene she decides it's time to clean off and organize the desk, once she was forcibly repressed from a third round of swabbing. (There's a story there.) She's been meaning to for a while, and now was as good a time as any.

I went to bed, and was mostly asleep pretty quickly. She was shuffling paper. Periodically the paper shredder would do it's thing. Then I could hear it working harder. And harder. Then it stalled, and there was much muttering. I came out and played with it a bit, but she had tripped the thermal fuse. It was ok in the morning. A bit of pulling with a pair of pliers and putting it in reverse and all was well.

This was one of my interesting sleep states. At the time I was somewhat aware of what was going on, but I was also aware that I was mostly asleep. Sometimes I can decide what I'm going to start dreaming about. It's a state very familiar to me, and familiar to anyone that has done shift work for any length of time. There are times I'm sure I spent most of my shift asleep, wandering around, checking equipment and taking numbers out of sheer habit. I've had some interesting dreams about that plant over the years. Maybe I'll queue them up for the next Nanowrimo contest, and try to do something with the murder mystery romance novel I've had stalled for some time.

I also had an interesting state of mind while swimming this morning. It's odd, but going into the pool I knew I was going to have a good swim. There was a 50 m lane open, all to myself. There must have been a memo or something because most of the other people were swimming with fins, goggles, and a snorkel. During the easy 1K (19:30) I was having a great time. Most of the time my swim felt smooth and easy. For once my kick felt strong. 45 minutes.

I cruised along not thinking of much, and trying not to think of the guy swimming next to me. He had a crappy stroke, and with fins kicking and splashing and thrashing he barely swam faster than me. After a short rest I did some 100 m intervals, comfortably passing him several times. That's always nice.

It was like the swim was washing some stress and tension out of my body. My legs and back felt better after the swim, and a bit of hot tub time didn't hurt either. I'm not sure why it was so quiet but I'm not complaining. At work I'm still on the killer xl, but I'm trying to be more careful of my posture and muscle tension.

House painting is going well. Mostly surface prep, and doing the ceiling today. He was very entertained by the cat chorus in the basement, but once they figured out he wasn't going to either rescue them or sell them into cat slavery, they were quiet. As will I be in a few minutes.