Weekend report, II

Sunday, John threw a brunch and had a good deal of the Upper Valley Gang (sounds like we should be robbing banks and performing slapstick, doesn’t it?) over . I made frittata (roast mushroom, lemon/garlic seared spinach, leftover caramelized onions, and a couple of crumbles of blue cheese) and bacon (half with maple syrup drizzled on it, and half without), while John made lemon poppyseed pancakes wrapped around ricotta and honey, hashbrowns with mushrooms, blueberry muffins, chai, fruitsalad, chicory coffee from Cafe du Monde, and probably one or two other things I’m forgetting. Managed to not eat myself totally into a coma, probably because I had 3 or 4 cups of chai (awesome).

Then Kate and I took Sarah to the bus, ourselves to EMS for clearance hats and sunglasses, Borders for pleasure-reading (I got Gregory Macuire’s Mirror Mirror , since I liked Wicked so much, and Gene Wolfe’s The Knight , which has a cringeworthy fantasy cover, but glowing jacket-blurbs from Stephen Brust and Neil Gaiman. I’ve really enjoyed Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun , so I figured this was worth a shot.)

Kate wanted to watch the Eagles in the Superbowl, so I got a quick hour’s playtime in on Halo2 with Luke and Chad (Have you ever chased a friend in Massachusetts around with a shotgun while a friend in California chased you around with a glowing energy sword? YOU WILL) before settling in with our books and laptops to watch … well, it’s been a while since I’ve watched football, but it looked like a clumsy game to me. Lots of turnovers, lots of sacks. Commercials were a mixed bag, but there were a few good ones. I wish Paul McCartney had been able to make a “wardrobe malfunction” joke, but I suppose someone would have gotten their underwear twisted about it.

After years of chronic, low-grade, sleep deprivation, I’ve been more aware of being tired and draggy of late, so I decided to have this week serve as en experiment. I promised myself that every night this week, I’d put myself to bed eight hours before I was planning to get up, rather than the six-and-a-half both Kate and I seem to habitually provide ourselves. That being the case, I ducked out a few minutes before the end of the game (it looked vanishingly unlikely the Eagles would pull out 10 points in that timespan) and headed to bed.

This morning I’m still kinda groggy – woke up around 4 or 5, sweltering hot, but managed to throw off the comforter and radiate my way back down to comfortable temperatures – but remembering past weeklong sleep experiments, it takes several days for my body to realize it’s got more sleep at its disposal. We’ll see how I feel by the end of the week.