Tourist Season, with Festive Green Boogers

It's always tourist season here, but at this time of year we have the added benefit of a steady stream coughing, sneezing, "We spent a shitload of money on this trip and we are going to have fun no matter what!" planeloads of domestic and exotic international germs, resulting in a non-stop snotfest for the locals. Girl is "seasonal help" at a Major Theme Park that does not feature famous rodents or performing whales, and she is exposed to a battery of bugs whenever she works. She's been fighting a cold since the Christmas tourist season kicked into high gear and now I've got it. My throat hurts like fire.

It doesn't help that I slept so badly last night. I woke up at 2:30 a.m. and realized the front lights were still on, which meant Girl wasn't home. Now, my logical mind analyzed this immediately: She had to work again early today, she was already on the other side of town near work, she spent the night with a friend so she wouldn't have to drive back here only to get up and drive back down there. That's what my logical mind immediately perceived, and what I knew to be true.

But then, there's the Other Mind, the Mother Mind. The one I inherited from my mother, she who can see the dark cloud in the brightest silver lining. The Mother Mind whispers about abductions and accidents and bad things, oh my. My logical mind told the Mother Voice to shut the fuck up you stupid cow, but the voices of doom never listen. So I barely slept from 2:30 a.m. until the clock went off at 5:30. My throat started hurting at mid-morning at the office, so I'm on board with the concept that last night's moronic self-induced sleep disruption was the last straw for my immune system and let the cold I've been successfully fighting off get a grip on me.

Girl of course was fine and had spent the night with a girl she works with on that side of town. Just as I knew, in every functional part of my brain but the one that draws nightmare scenarios at 3 a.m. Her plans changed too late to call and she'd assumed, sensibly, that she'd have been waking me up, which is true. By the time I woke up and figured out she wasn't home she was snoozing at her friend's apartment.

The plus side of this is that I was awake to hear, or not hear, the sound of my newly refurbished sprinkler system NOT turning on. 4 a.m. came and all was strangely quiet. When the light dawned, I realized that Lawn Guy and I had set the program - zones, timing, etc. - but didn't tell the computer what days I wanted to water. So it was only set for Monday. Whoopsie. As long as these are new plantings I'm watering them every day, then I can kick it back to the mandated watering days. (New plantings get a pass on the water restrictions.) So the system is running on manual right now, and if I wake up tomorrow morning and don't hear the sound of sprinklers hissing I'll have to take the handy manual out there and figure out what else I haven't figured out.

We're supposed to be up near 80 degrees on New Year's Day. Lots of pictures of lovely new shrubbery, I promise, and more glamor shots of the sexiest cheap plastic pond ever. I so want a new patio set, this is the time of year to use it, not when it's so hot and buggy and rainy and nasty, which is about six months of the year here. We pay dearly for our 80 degree New Year. And of course, it'll hit 80 this weekend and may be 40 by midweek, so don't get all green with envy just yet. This is the winter roller coaster in Florida. We have no "seasonal clothing" we just throw sweatshirts over the t-shirts. I'll keep on working on the Koigu and the green mistake rib scarves, both will be done this weekend, God Willing, and both will most likely see lots of action this season. Shorts, sweats, tank top, sweatshirt, coat, t-shirt - that's winter.