Read chapter 35 here
Groundhog Day (the coronavirus pandemic edition).
Each night I walk into the bedroom with the Arts section of the New York Times in hand. The crossword puzzle serves as my method of inducing sleep. I work on it until my eyes begin to flutter and my vision blurs.
I have the bed to myself as JoAnna now prefers to sleep on the daybed in the Presidents Room, where the TV, tuned to an episode of “Murder, She Wrote”, lulls her to sleep.
Sidebar: The separate bedrooms situation is a result of two factors that predate the pandemic: my occasionally orchestra-volume snoring and JoAnna's ongoing nocturnal hot flashes. For her, it’s a lose-lose situation. Either I wake her up, or her body’s wildly fluctuating thermostat interrupts her sleep. Starting last summer, we would go to sleep in the same bed, but restlessness, brought on by a pulsing hot flash, led her to move to a space of her own. In the Presidents Room, she can open a window, allowing cool air to offer her relief from her suffering. I’m grateful that she chose not to kick me out of our bed! (Guess I can consider it my bed, for the time being.)
As for Andy, he remains in the family room, stretched out on the couch, where he watches TV until midnight.
We have our nighttime routines down pat.
There has, however, been one change to my bedtime habit. I keep the shades up during the night. I enjoy experiencing the slowly increasing early light of day. I continue to wake up shortly before 5, my brain unsuccessfully sorting through a fading collage of disturbing dream imagery, much of it pandemic-related lately, and then struggling to determine what day of the week it is. After dozing off once or twice, I search for blogging materials by checking my email (lots of Google alerts) and the headline news on various apps: Wisconsin State Journal, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, USA Today, NPR, Wisconsin Public Radio. I’m out of bed by 5:30, at which time I make coffee, retrieve the newspapers from the edge of the driveway, do a series of stretching exercises, wash down my vitamins and hypertension pill with a mix of OJ and cranberry juice, pour myself a cup of coffee, and commence blogging. Not even a pandemic has been able to alter this routine.
Not yet anyway.
Read chapter 37 here
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