Lilly and lilies

You know that old childish refrain, "You're not the boss of me"? Well, with chemo, it sadly IS the boss of me: I can't sleep sometimes, no matter how tired I am. Somehow I had managed to forget this periodic side effect (a Freudian thing, I know). I. Hate. Insomnia.

So yeah, despite not being able to fall asleep until a little after 1am, my eyes promptly sprang wide open at 5am. Yes, before dawn. Poetic justice, I suppose, for not going to bed earlier, when I was already tired. I will be SO cranky at work today. You know it's bad when I'm already longingly thinking of leaving work at 5:01pm...

The only way to be at least moderately pleasant is to think of the good things in my life. Like flowers. The lilies on the right, given to me by my visiting college pal this past Saturday, merrily went along blooming while I was gone on Sunday and Monday. (I am still damn exhausted though.) Almost all of the buds bloomed, with their threatening load of pollen (have you noticed how much those suckers shed & stain? Nature at her most ingenious I suppose). I didn't know you could do this, but he had had the florist pinch off the pollen from the open blooms when he bought them. However, this of course, doesn't affect the sneaky late bloomers.

Speaking of things which are exhausting, I had not realized that the baby birthday party on Sunday involved about a dozen or more actual babies, above and beyond the 3 tots in my family! (And of course, a dozen infants and toddlers yielded about 2-3 dozen attendant adults.) Remarkably, most of the children (I would say 99%) were very well behaved -- not really any major meltdowns apart from a brief cloudburst or two. (I am always awed, however, at the ear piercing volume capable of being generated by such a small being.)

Happily, I can say that (a) the birthday girl was quite the little lady, and (b) she is, like all of the youngest generation of my family, is really adorable. See? I am always grateful that this is true because then I am not called upon to politely lie and can actually say with real feeling, "Awwww... s/he is so cuuuuute!"

The photo to the left is baby Lillian with her dad, my nephew. (Yes, every now and then I am still bemused by the fact that my nephew, whom I used to baby sit, is now a proud daddy. And yes, I feel old when I think about that.)

The photo to the right is my mom, being amused by the houseful of super preppy babies, and being dwarfed by the mountain of borthday presents. (The little yellow, animal-covered gift at the top of the pile is my gift, the Little Bubbles sweater.) Mom is darn cute too, if I may say so.

Oooh, speaking of which, there was one baby who I SWEAR was the embodiment of baby Stewie from The Family Guy, but in a more benign, less erstwhile-demented-ruler-of-the-world way. Baby Linus was very cute, and I had to restrain myself from telling the dad, "Hey, did you notice that your son looks JUST like Stewie?" since I did not know if he was a fan of the show and/or would be offended at the comparison. Instead, I contented myself with telling my nephew, who acknowledged that yes, Linus did look like Stewie. Hee!

I am so tired. Wonder if I can squeeze in a 45 minute nap before "officially" getting up for work....