Early to bed...

Well, it was early in that "it's so late it's early" sense that some of you party animals may remember from your wild 20s.

I crashed into bed last night, or rather this morning, at 3:30. Which wouldn't be so hateable. My son's 11 now; it's not as if I have to get up and nurse him. It's a summer week -- we "school" year-round, but take breaks now and then. I had no appointments today, other than getting the new-issue file to the printer as soon as I hit consciousness. I could, in theory, hit it hard and get some decent sleep.

Except that I think I've mentioned I live in an apartment backing an alley, just across the way from some very wealthy home owners. These people have decided that with the economy the way it is, the least they could do is completely relandscape their backyard, so that the apartment dwellers who have to see and hear all the noise and breathe all the ick from the work will have even more reasons to be bitter.

I wear industrial-strength earplugs when I sleep. Doesn’t matter. Once the huge trucks start rolling in at eight o'clock, it's like trying to sleep through an earthquake.

I know it's more convenient for the people who live there to have all this stuff going on around back; but why should it be convenient for them? They're the ones who decided to have this done. They're the ones who already had a pretty yard and will now have a prettier one. Why shouldn't they have to deal with all the tromping back and forth?

'Cause that kind of thing is for apartment-dwelling povs, apparently.

So I staggered out of bed, took a shower that I really needed twelve hours ago, washed about half the dishes, threw some leftover pancakes at my son (homemade, rye and cornmeal, want the recipe?), and then screamed us out to the car to go to the printers.

We got to the parking lot, and I realized -- dang nab it! -- I'd forgotten the copy of the magazine I like to bring as a visual clue. It's easier than explaining what I want done, and I never remember all the technical stuff about what weight the paper is and things.

Well, that was okay. They could probably just pull the specs from the last order I placed.

Bringing the disk for them would have been a nice touch, though. You know -- the one with all the text and layout of the new issue?

The one sitting quietly on my dresser at home?

Give me some credit. I didn't say even ONE thing that could have qualified as a bad word.

Don't give me too much credit, though. A cop had just pulled into the lot, and even if he couldn't arrest me for having that kind of mouth around an eleven-year-old, I still didn't want to have that kind of conversation.

I pulled out of the parking spot I'd just pulled into and made it back home in record time, thanks to the Bare Naked Ladies. (The rock group. Not the other kind.) Ran upstairs, grabbed the disk and a copy of the current issue, ran out again, drove back to the printers, and realized I'd forgotten my wallet.

That last one's a lie. Trust me, you'd have heard the screaming. Would have made a great story, though. (And anyway, these printers don't make me prepay, bless their little hearts.)

I'll be checking the baby's galleys on Monday -- the first in what I hope will be a long line of bimonthly issues of Secular Homeschooling. We'll be posting officially on the site tonight, but it's 48 pages and it will cost $6 a copy.

If you already placed an order or have a subscription, don't worry. We'll do right by you.

And now I’m going to go dream of sleep.