To sleep, perchance to dream

CAUTION: If you ever have difficulty falling asleep, DO NOT read any further. Please close your browser now, and do not return to this page.

Now that I've dispensed with the necessary legal warning, I can tell you about the young man who sleeps as he NEEDS to. Not necessarily WHEN he wants to. And certainly not WHERE he wants to (or even where his parents think he should.) He simply sits down, closes his eyes, and presto-change-o, he is out!

Yes, this young, growing tribute to adulthood runs at 140 per cent for twelve to eighteen hours at a time, and then, with little warning, becomes frozen to whatever surface on which he finds himself. It may be a chair, a sofa, or the floor - it doesn't really matter. We know he is still alive because we can hear him. Yes we can. We can hear him very, very well. We can even hear him in other rooms of our house.

And not just with sonorous tones. He will suprise us with groanings and utterings of the most peculiar kind. For example, in the above pictured position, he managed to say very clearly (and quite loudly) the word ELEPHANT. Just elephant. No introduction. No modifing words to help us understand context. Just elephant. One can only hope in his dream he is in charge and maybe riding the gigantic beast and not being chased by or being nearly crushed by its mass.

And although he may be humorous at times, we have learned that its best not to wake him, to simply let his need for rest and rejuvination find closure to match the state of his eyes.

I'm thinking he'll make a great father, especially when the baby is crying in the middle of the night and it's his turn to get up and change the diaper?

Or is it possible that I'm feeling envious of this deep sleeper, and in need of a few more hours of repose myself?

Heavens to Murgatroid

Does anyone care that China seems to be buying up trillions of dollars of American debt? Does it matter that someday soon the United States will be owned by Bejing? Why should we care about the future of Social Security or Medicare when the future of our nation appears to be headed the same direction? And what does all this have to do with the price of rice in China?

Simply put, my twenty-one-year-old daughter's reaction to the above questions. That's what. Here I was, waxing morose and doing the best Chicken Little imitation I could, when she simply answered all my questions with "That's why it's so good that we have a loving family and good friends".

I forget so easily that Love bears all things.