Summertime Insomnia

It's hot here. Even inside, you can almost feel the heat outside pressing in like a large hairy animal. Ms. Packratty is not terribly fond of this type of heat, which seems to abate only in the late evenings and early morning hours after it rains and it is not raining nearly enough to suit.

One of the side effects is that Ms. Packratty is having a terrible bout of insomnia. The lying in bed almost asleep type (where every noise starts you wide awake) until about 3-4 a.m., when suddenly she is deeply asleep - only to have the verdammt alarm clock start chirping away. Ms. Packratty is reminded of a West Point cadet ditty sung on occasion by her PPU which goes "someday I'm going to murder the bugler". In Ms. Packratty's case, it will be the alarm clock which is slaughtered, but even so, it's self-punishment as she will then have to go out and buy a new one.

The current bout is 5 nights old - last night the sleep hourage made it to a little more then 4 hours with the help of some melatonin and a cup of Celestial Seasonings Sleepytime. No dinner seems to help a bit as then there is less of an issue with indigestion causing wakefulness. All in all, not a pleasant thing. Ms. Packratty has exactly one sleeping pill left from her last prescription and is loathe to use it except in an utter emergency.

In other news, when it is hot outside and since the Packratty budget does not extend to lowering the temperature of Chez Packrat below about 78 degrees, it's time to sit still and read a lot. The current and/or recent reading menu has included:

By heresies distressed - David Weber. SciFi and while not as engrossing as the Honorverse, still a good read.

Dancing to the precipice : the life of Lucie de la Tour du Pin - Caroline Moorehead. A bio of a woman whose life intersects with the French Revolution.

We band of angels : the untold story of American nurses trapped on Bataan by the Japanese - Elizabeth Norman A look at a group of servicewomen who have largely been forgotten, but whose courage and endurance were beyond question.

Four seasons in Rome : on twins, insomnia, and the biggest funeral in the history of the world - Anthony Doerr I always like to read about Italy and Rome, but this account of a year in Rome underwritten by a foundation for artists of various sorts, recounts more a year that seems subsumed by coping with twin children in a foreign land. I can't recommend it as much as I can others, such as "Extra Virgin".

I've also read several books recently about the plight of women in the Mohammedan world and find myself depressed by the fact that almost none of them reject Mohammedanism as the root cause of their oppression, preferring instead to claim (despite the prevalence of female oppression in conjunction with a Mohammedan majority/government) that somehow, Mohammedanism is not to blame for the excesses committed by its adherents. Yeah. Right.

There has been little reading and only a little bookbinding going. Ms. P is varnishing two pieces of oak plank to serve as pressing boards to supplement the little finishing press that she made with the help of Marleen's Joe last month. Pictures to come.