Morning vibes: headache and coffee. ☕

Have you ever had a morning where you wake up, look in the mirror, and ask yourself, “Self, was that really worth it?” I had one of those mornings.

Badger, Heron, and I stayed up until 1 a.m. watching that blood moon, and no, it really wasn’t worth it. Cowboy briefly woke me up when he came in from work at 4 a.m. I sort of remember popping an eye open, snorting, and going back to sleep. I had to get up at 7 a.m. because Heron asked me to make sure he was awake. He had to go into work really early. So, I went into the living room, turned all the lights on, poked his foot, and told him it was 7 a.m. Then I sleepily stumbled back to bed until 8 a.m., when my inner alarm told me it was time for morning medication. Heron was still on the couch when I shuffled back into the living room. I woke him up heading to the bathroom. He rolled over, slid off the couch, mumbled something, and headed to the kitchen for a cup of coffee. It was close to 9 a.m. before he headed to work.

It gets bad when you’re too old to have a moon party and still wake up the next morning. I had one of those busting headaches where even your nose feels like it’s prickly, and your eyes hurt, and your head feels jammed with cotton.
I had to wait until 12 p.m., when Cowboy woke up and roamed into the front room, before I could go take a Tylenol.
My Tylenol is kept in the bedroom.
In between, I had a cup of espresso and a cup of coffee, and Badger’s magic elixir.
No, for once, none of it helped.

Badger, meanwhile, the little perky heathen, gave the house a quick cleanup, put Heron’s bedding in to wash, and went into Raven’s room.

In just a few hours, she had Raven’s things packed and stacked on the bed.

When she finally called it quits, she was mostly down to clearing off his bookshelves.
It’s mainly glass knickknacks with a few books.

She says nothing can be done with the closet, but when I feel better I’ll go in there and make her pull everything out.
If nothing else, it all can be stacked by the bed, but we won’t move anything of ours in until at least January.

You know as well as I do that Raven will probably be back.
He hasn’t been able to keep a job for very long, and right now he can’t afford a place of his own.
His ex-wife probably isn’t going to want him living with her and her new girlfriend forever.

Once Badger and I got into Raven's room, we realized he really didn't take very much with him at all.
That room is still packed to the gills.
There's no way, if he doesn't come back and get some of this stuff, we'll even be able to move our things in there.
It doesn't look like he did more than maybe take a backpack of clothes, if he even did that.

She started out just tossing things in boxes, but I told her we were going to treat it as a professional moving job.
We would fold, bubble wrap, and label all the boxes.

All I’m saying is that Raven is messy, plain and simple.
He still had chip bags, cookie bags, one or two fast-food bags, broken toys, broken crayons, ripped paper, lots of receipts, lots of store bags, and crumbs.
It was under the bed, behind the bed, and thrown around the middle of the floor, and poor Badger deserves a medal.
Or maybe a coffee from Dunkin’.

Badger finally called a stop.
She was down to the glassware, and I don’t think she likes messing with glass.
We went and ate dinner, or I ate dinner.
I’d tossed a family-size frozen chicken enchilada meal in the oven, heated up some refried beans, and called it good.
Badger didn’t want to eat it, so she went for a peanut butter and jelly instead.

Then we went to watch television in my room, and I fell asleep. I fell asleep to “Merlin,” and woke up to barbarians, I think. Badger had put some weird show on. The nap helped considerably.
Of course, Badger has also been shoving her magic elixir down me.
There’s really nothing magical about it; it’s just very tasty liquid that staves off dehydration.
She blends it up in the blender, and I don’t dare ask her what’s in it.

After Cowboy went to work, we moved into the living room and watched television all evening.
Neither of us wants to do any more than we have to.

To close, today was Hippie Aunt’s 74th birthday. Holy Toledo! That just, that’s like no way. She was only 18 when I was born. She’s the last of my granny’s four kids, the baby. I sent her a text, but we were never close. She always favored my cousin, the pretty redhead who was a perfect lady and normal. I’ve never been normal a day in my life.

Yep, moving on. Oh, and how in the world could I have forgotten? There was a stabbing in Knoxville, and the suspect was reportedly heading toward the University of Tennessee campus. They put the campus in lockdown. Why does that matter? Peacock works security on campus. When the students and staff flee to safety, his job is to run into danger to protect them. I hate, hate that part of his job. All turned out well this time. I’m going back to my show, not bed. That nap late in the day may have messed my night up. But King Uther is finally dying, and I’m finishing up at least this episode.