That’s what you get for going to the Media. Insomnia. (MII is the official term)
Mine takes a grueling form. I have a vast repertoire of music inside my head, not all of it good. If the song is annoyingly catchy, it becomes part of the “insomnia playlist”. There is nothing worse than lying in bed, and you can’t stop thinking about the words to ‘Thank God I’m a Country Boy” or “Le Freak”, interspersed with worry about what will be printed next to your name in the next local paper. The old hamster wheel gears up and I swear I could power a small car with the voltage. Instead, I toss and turn until I have wrapped all the sheets around myself like a human burrito. I listen to my husband snore. I listen to the birds outside, one of which yells “TWEET”. Then I listen to “Love Shack” in my head, and think about letting the B-52’s know that they owe me about two years worth of sleep. My muffled cries go unheard from somewhere inside the bed…my husband has left for work already. Then I smell the coffee, which gives me the superhuman strength to break free from my own sweaty chrysalis. Thank god I can be done trying to sleep. Now I can focus on trying to stay awake!
The problem? One headline: “Open playgrounds anger NV parents” and my picture underneath, a look of consternation (constipation?) on my face. That’s my serious face, not my angry face, as my husband can attest to. I suppose that no one would pick up the paper if it read “Altruistic advocates try to regain shelter for NV kids” or something equally as benign. No, we need to be angry parents with pitchforks. Also we weren’t talking about playgrounds, so that’s a problem.
The link: Angry parents!
And another: cbc coverage
We would have taken a picture of the kids huddling under the stairs, their only space to keep dry, but they recently fenced it in (instead housing the garden supplies there) leaving the kids to cling to the fence like little drowned bats. Sigh.
Here is the thing. (Pause for the sound of me scraping my soapbox up)
I want my kids to know we tried to help them. I want the School Board to understand that there are people committed to looking out for the community. And… I just can’t help it. My Mom said when I was a kid I used to say “that’s not fair!” quite a bit, and that I got my back up in the face of injustice. And part of me will always be that red-headed kid, ready to stick up for what I believe in. So I am going to have to deal with the headline, shut out the B-52’s, perhaps take a sleeping pill (which I don’t have, so if anyone has some lying around please contact me) and get on with it.