A Series of Unfortunate Events

I'm going to try to keep this as short as possible because I just need to write it down and hopefully get it out of my system.  The events of the evening are replaying in my head on a loop.  Hopefully the act of writing it all down will kill the loop and I will be able to shut my brain off and go to sleep.

Bed time started like any other except I didn't take any benadryl because I was plenty tired.  Still, I took a magazine with me because I have to do something before going to sleep.  After reading a dull-ish article which was about to work its slumber inducing magic my heavy eyelids snapped open when I heard a crash upstairs followed immediately by the sound of water falling onto something.  A lot of water.

Even before I heard the water I knew what it was.

Bob.

Darn cat!  She knocked over the pitcher of hydrangea on the dining room table.  I flew out of bed and ran upstairs stopping long enough to grab a bunch of kitchen towels on my way to the dining room.  Ryan got there a second before I did so I handed him some towels and after we soaked those I grabbed some dog towels (old, ragged bath towels now designated for doggy use).  After using three big towels we dumped them in a heap on the tile floor in the kitchen and went back to bed.

But that darn burst of activity woke me up. 

I read a little more and was preparing to doze off when Theo woke up.

Gyar.

I resettled him.

Then a headache I had all evening was really bothersome.  Then I realized I was ravenously hungry and felt like I was going to throw up.

I took some ibuprofen and nuked a Trader Joe's Frozen Indian dinner. 

Twenty minutes later I felt much better.  Forty minutes after that I was ready for sleep.

Then Theo woke up.

I put him back down.

Then I was awake.

Then I got on-line.  I saw it is the memorial for a friend tomorrow.  Harold "Bud" Crovisier. We worked together for a couple of years.  He was a great guy.  Seeing as how I was the receptionist I saw him often in our office.  We were chummy.  He called me Sugar and Dahling.  He made me laugh.   I made him laugh.  I think everyone made him laugh.  I liked it most when he talked about life.  What was real.  He talked about his relationship with God.  His desire to get married.  Diving.   He loved to dive.  He got a huge crazy tattoo on his back.  I never really "got" the dream he talked about that was the inspiration for the shark tat on his back.  I didn't tell him that, though.  I can't imagine that pain for that much ink.  It was pretty cool, though.

But something was wrong.  Bud killed himself from what I gathered on his facebook page.  I didn't know he died until his sister, also someone with whom I worked, friended me on fb and I saw her status about Bud being gone. 

Tomorrow, no, tonight, is his memorial.  A celebration of his life cut short by his own hands. 

I can only imagine the pain he was in to take his own life.   Did he really think the pain wouldn't end?  Did he think the world was better off without him?  He was so loved.   

So, thinking about Bud has kept me up.

I ate some ice cream and read a magazine in an effort to not think about Bud and what his family must be going through.  I keep putting myself in his mother's shoes.  That's not a good place to go.

I was eventually able to nod off. 

Then, you got it, Theo woke up.

Then I thought about Bud some more.

Then I nodded off.

Then the thing that I think would make Bud laugh that kept me up this last time was the repetition of Mary Had a Little Lamb going through my head.

Stupid children's song!  It won't stop!

While that little lamb is making children laugh and play, laugh and play, laugh and play I am trying to sleep but coming up with a contingency plan for tomorrow that does not involve going insane. 

I think it may involve the zoo.

Or the Children's Museum.

And careful orchestration of nap/quiet time.