Random Musings and Nicknacks

I have a tendency to enter into battles of will with other species around me (some day I will write the pigeon chronicles). My latest battle has ended up being against Spirit.
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Something I have noticed over the last year is that when one of us is gond for a while, the rest of us appear to expand into something new. And it is almost always driven by Tim.

Last year when Ling left for China, Tim and I ended up getting addicted to Doctor Who.

Then last fall, when I went to Tennessee I came back to find Ling and Tim watching Avatar: The Last Airbender which ended up entertaining us for weeks after.

This time around, with Ling out of town, Tim has hooked us on Arrested Development. It is horrible, wicked, and absolutely hilarious.

Well, and show who’s regular guest stars include Henry Winkler, Liza Minnelli, and is narrated by Ron Howard has to be interesting, right?

I’m sitting in the guest/reading room in the armchair. Tim and his friends are in the office, talking about things that I am doing my best to pretend I don’t hear. Spirit is curled up quietly on the bed. Punky seems a bit lost.

He came in earlier, looked around, then went to his crate out in the hallway. A few minutes ago, he came in, looked at the bed with Spirit on it, put one paw up, then backed off. I told him not to be scared of her, and got up to guide him on. As soon as I stood up, he crawled into the armchair.

I had been had. He wasn’t uncertain, he needed me to move.

I told him that was a good try, pulled him off, guided him onto the bed, and sat back down in *my* chair. He looked at me, then walked off the bed and went back to the crate.

The problem isn’t Spirit. The problem is me.

This has been a very strange week for me.

Monday morning I woke up with plans in mind. I was in a good mood, and ready to go for the day, I knew what to do. Then I read an email I didn’t like, and it threw me into a funk, which was odd – it was from a source I expected that kind of email, and I even had a solution. But it bugged me, and it made me really, really upset. Then I got upset at everything in my life, and went from a high to an extreme low.

So low that I couldn’t concentrate on anything. I couldn’t think about work. It was so sudden it was shocking – I know how my highs and lows work. They come over a period of days, they don’t happen over minutes. I can watch for them, feel them coming, take steps to mitigate them. Yet here I was, I had flipped from high to low like a switch, and all of a sudden I felt like everything was wrong. Almost like it wasn’t worth doing anything, and I couldn’t think about anything. I felt absolutely exhausted, like I hadn’t slept for days (when in reality I had just come off of 2 x 10 hour sleeps, and an afternoon nap!)

I knew the feeling was wrong, that it was in my head. I found a quiet place to retreat to to think, and tried to pray – nothing worked. I felt worse. I couldn’t concentrate, I couldn’t do anything. I tried again, during lunch I even rode my bike out to the church, thinking I could gain some strength off of that. It didn’t help.

I got back to work, and had a few people ask me questions. I answered, I helped, but I felt like I didn’t want to talk. I went downstairs to a quiet area again, and started to think and to pray, and things came into focus some. I was thinking about Ling’s dad, alone in the hospital, and almost felt like I wanted to cry. I thought about how she told me that they wanted to bring him home so he could be with the family, and I realized that if he did she wouldn’t be able to come home this week – that she would need to stay there and take care of him, and that was absolutely what needed to be done.

As I thought about this, it felt like my head was heating up. Almost like I had a fever. I don’t know why, I just felt like that, but I figured it was all in my head because I didn’t feel sick.

I went back upstairs, walked into the office and immediately had two co-workers ask if I as okay, because I was glowing red. They said it started in my face, but got brighter and brighter as it went out to my ears. I knew my face (and my face only) felt so hot that I wanted to step outside to cool it down, but I couldn’t explain it. I didn’t feel sick.

A few minutes later I got a text from Ling – her dad had told her yesterday that he didn’t want to be alone in the hospital anymore, and she had brought him home today. She needed to delay her trip home to take care of him, and could I make the new arrangements. She had been staying up overnight taking care of him over the exact same period of time that I had been feeling progressively more exhausted.

I told her no problem, I already knew she was staying longer. She asked how could I know – just a few hours ago she had bought the bus ticket to take her back to the airport, she hadn’t known. I told her I didn’t know how, but I knew, and I would arrange the tickets.

She told me that she was so tired that she couldn’t think straight, and couldn’t talk to me. I thought about how exhausted I had been feeling all day – for no reason – and I went home early. Then I slept. Honestly, I think I slept for her. I hope it helped.

At the end of the sleep, I got up, went to work early, and completed what I hadn’t been able to do on Monday. I felt relaxed, and refreshed.

I’ve been praying to be able to help Ling in any way I can, and it almost feels like I did, and I can only hope that it helped her.

This was shaping up to be quite a day (after all, we were still in our first day in Wuxi; in fact the day was still young). We had gone to the hospital to visit Ling’s dad, we had met Tim’s father, seen his office and gone out for lunch with him, and now we were sitting at home waiting for Tim’s grandparents and his aunt to arrive. All people that I had heard about before, and I was wondering – how was I going to feel when I saw them? More to the point – how were they going to react to me? After all they could view me as the person who had kept their grandson away from them for all these years. How would I feel if things were reversed? I really didn’t know what was going to happen next, and I have no idea what was in Tim’s mind.
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It’s our last day in Wuxi, and time to think about the experience here, and who we’ve met. We’re getting ready for a big lunch with all the family – Tim is in he shower, Ling’s sister is helping Ling get ready, and I’m in the background watching it all happen.
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