Pity Hearty.

This isn't something I want to make a habit of--iterations of woe magnified by self-pity. But I'm so distracted by these current irritants, I can't think clearly enough to do justice to a more serious topic. Where to begin. Sleep deprivation probably tops the list and probably contributes to all the rest. Trying to juggle my various duties and not skimp on any leads to skimping on sleep. Duties are developing content for and promoting my web sites which entails lots of surfing--without braodband at that! Lost count of the times I've zoned out or flat fell asleep in front of the screen, waiting for pages to load or even while scrolling down them, reading with the mouse on auto-scroll and suddenly realizing I am reading the back of my eyelids which glow like monitors in the dark. Duties also include getting to the library every Friday to return books and pick up the ones I've ordered for myself or my husband; after dinner KP; maintaining the room my husband and I sleep in here at his parent's home; doing our laundry; tending to our two cats. That was typical of the past two years and then last month I added on a new committment to sit with my husband's 91 yr old grandma 7-11pm 3 evenings per week and 2-11 pm on Saturday's. Haven't figuted out how to juggle this new ball without dropping any of the others. So far I havn't dropped the committment to my web work and writing, nor the after dinner KP or tending to our cats. But laundry, room cleaning and sleep have each been repeatedly fumbled.

The sleep deprivation probably contributed to the stumble last Tuesday evening when I kicked into the cast iron duck figurine that serves as a door stop keeping the back door open. I kicked it hard. Thought for a good thirty seconds I had broke my foot. Must have kicked the duck's tail feathers as there is evidence of two points of impact. the whole top of my foot is tender from the base of the toes to the ankle. Bruises are blossoming in shades of pale lavender and majenta. It hurts to wiggle my toes but not excruciatingly so--just irritatingly so, just enough to distract. And I must be careful how I walk. Tho I can put my full considerable weight on the foot, I had best not try to roll forward onto the ball in a healthy walking motion. So I must walk flat footed. And it has swollen at least two shoe sizes. But that is probably at least partly due to the heat wave since the other one has gained at least one shoe size--another element in the iterations of woe. Southern Oregon has had temps in the triple digits for several days in the past week. High nineties on most other days. The heat zaps me. Even tho I sleep thru the worst of it. I wake in a heat stupor in the afternoons that won't alleviate until after the sun goes down. If it stays hot in the house past ten then I'm contending with that as I attempt to tend to web and writing tasks. The heat steals at least twenty IQ points off of me. One for every degree over 85 I estimate.

As if it wasn't bad enough to have one foot screaming for my attention 60/24, I woke up with a welt (probably bug bite) on the top of my right foot the morning after kicking the duck. The itch was so intense it felt like heat on the edge of spontaneous combustion. Not one of the three anti-itch creams touched the level of itch. I could not think of anything but that itch for the first 24 hours after it started. It outpaced the pain in the left foot for number of seconds per minute it had my undivided attention.

Then to add to the torment, I burnt the gums on the right side of my mouth when biting into a freshly nuked burrito. The cheese must have still been bubbly hot. it stuck to my gums like rubber cement. Later the affected gum tissue blistered and peeled. I do all my chewing on the right side as I have four broken teeth on the left side. So this compromised food enjoyment for at least two days.

Anything else? Oh, yes. My cat, Merlin, scratched the top of the same foot I kicked the duck with after I came close to kicking into him where he was sprawled to catch the fan breeze on his belly.

Oh, and did I mention my Dad is dying of cancer?
Got the call from him about the latest evidence of escalation in
metastasizing on Tuesday evening while my foot was still throbbing after kicking the duck.

I think that duck has it in for me.