what does a girl have to do get a little rest around here?

Ugh. I’ve had this terrible cold the last two days, just deflated, pitiful, lying on the couch, moaning. Parenting has been reduced to mac n cheese and TV. Thank goodness it stopped raining today so at least the kiddos can go outside and get away from my grumpy assed self. [ETA: although I did manage to take Sophie to her aikido belt test today, which she passed! She was smiling a thousand watt smile, she was so proud in her little white pajamas with her stiff, ridiculously long, yellow belt (comes after white and blue)! Go Sophie!]

So, in the midst of this, last night, I woke up for the hundredth time to blow my nose and I decided that I had to pee, and not only that, I was going for the Nyquil, screw this. I get up, stumbling through the dark yurt, barely conscious, what with the throbbing sinuses and the sleep deprivation from being constantly woken up by the snot. Oh, colds, how I hate you. Let me count the ways.

But I make it to the door and open it—only to find an opossum right there at my feet, its nasty pink tail flopping over the door jamb as the door opened, its beady black eyes staring up at me like, “what the hell do you think you’re doing, interrupting my meal?” The opossums around here are so HUGE, and fat, and not afraid of humans at all. They terrify me. To be honest, I’m sure our bountiful compost pile has helped in the creation of these monster beasts. But what to do? Take up archery, perhaps?

Anyway, I screamed and slammed the door, horrified at the thought that I had caught its tail in the door (I hadn’t) and the opossum would start howling, or whatever sound they make, on the other side of it, and I would have to open the door again to let it free. Which I was NOT going to do. Damn—I had totally forgotten, what with the oceans of snot I’ve been dealing with, that I had left a trash bag right outside the door, to be taken to the big, locking trashbin behind the yurt by the next person to head that way. Which hadn’t happened, so the opossum had seized his/her opportunity with gusto, tearing mighty holes in the bag and dragging everything out all over the deck. Did I mention that it was raining? Make that soaking wet trash, all over the deck—but I didn’t find that until morning.

At that moment, all I knew was I was standing in the dark yurt, rain pounding over my head, sinuses pounding in my head, and now I’ve really got to pee, but there is this freaking opossum blocking my way. How am I going to get to the bathhouse? How am I going to get the Nyquil? A person shouldn’t have to face such challenges in the middle of the night.

I actually tried to go back to bed. That is, I started walking in that direction…but that pissed me off. No mother effing opossum was going to keep me from my drugs, for gawd sake, I’m a grown woman. So I get the broom.

Did I mention that I was wearing my striped long underwear, wool and silk, delightful for sleeping in on cold nights?

Okay, so I grab the broom, half out of my mind, what with the cold, and the headache, and being half asleep, and I steel myself, and I throw open the god damn door. I hear scuttling and skittering at once, so, of course, I scream again and start whaming the bejezus out of everything between me and the bathhouse. Slam! Bam! I’m flinging stuff off the deck, poking the remains of the trash-bag viciously, flapping the broom down on anything the looks like it might move. It’s dark because the switch to the outdoor lights in also in the bathhouse, a mere four feet away, and I’m TERRIFIED of the thought of that opossum running across my foot, or me stepping on that naked tail, ewwwww, heebie jeebie dance, yuckyuck. I mean, I was lost in crazyland, let me tell you.

Only I didn’t realize it. Not until Paul, who had been hanging out in the warm bathhouse, reading (to keep the lights from being on in the yurt, what a thoughtful guy), opens the bathhouse door, flooding the small landing with light….

….only to see me there, totally deranged, striped, soaked with rain, slamming a garbage bag with a broom.

“I thought it was a monster,” he says, and unspoken in his expression is that it IS a monster, a Maya Monster. Grab the children and run for the hills.

“It is! It was!” I say, trying to sound sane. “An opossum, and…it was huge and had teeth and…it was in between me and the Nyquil!”

“Okaaay,” he says, stepping gingerly towards me. “Just…how about you give me that broom?”

I have no idea what happened to the opossum.

But the Nyquil was sooo worth it.