I'm not even sure how to start explaining yesterday. It's very simple in some ways, but not in others. Let me start by acquainting you with three basic facts: 1) Mary Anne gets tired easily (due to the thyroid deficiency), especially at night when the drugs are wearing off. 2) Mary Anne has a bad cold, and is especially tired as a result. 3) Mary Anne gets cranky when she's tired. Cranky like a five-year-old.
So yesterday started pretty well. I woke up and worked in the morning, revising the intro for Aqua Erotica, which I needed to get done. When Kirstie woke up, we chatted for a bit and then I made us crepes. Nice brunch. We went into the sunroom afterwards and planted herbs -- some of them are in! I now have happy pots of cilantro, parsley, lemon thyme, mints, oregano and sage -- the garlic chives are also still going strong. Once the basil comes in, I'll be pretty well set. Had a nice time planting; she's good at it. Lounged around and chatted for a bit afterwards. Kevin called -- we arranged to meet up around 3-ish to go play pool on campus for a few hours before cooking dinner. I took Kirstie up to the cemetary (two blocks away) and we wandered around taking photos. I'm really enjoying futzing with photography these days, though I like live models, not just objects. Kevin went to the grocery store in the interim -- we had decided we would make roast cornish game hens stuffed with couscous, apricots, pistachios and currants. (In fact, no pistachios or currants at store, so we substituted almonds and raisins). This was really the first big mistake.
See, I had forgotten that they take three hours to defrost (plus an hour of cooking time). Which meant that we would eat around 7:30, 8:00. Which is awfully late for a Mary Anne who has to get up and teach early the next morning. Especially a Mary Anne who had planned to drink some champagne with Kirstie and Kevin before going to bed (long story; leave it as a ritual for now); Kirstie had bought two bottles for that sole purpose. And remember -- she's leaving Monday afternoon, so this was the only chance to do this...
But I figured it would be okay -- or I didn't really think about it. We go to play pool, and I'm already getting tired. I get a little frustrated 'cause I'm playing poorly, but not too badly -- we're pretty evenly matched, though Kirstie did win 4 games and Kevin won 1 and Mary Anne won 0. Each game was very close. Then we had a bit of an argument about whether a shot would go in, and I bet Kevin $5 that I could get it in in five tries and I lost and I got very frustrated trying to make it go in afterwards while they patiently explained to me that it just couldn't because of the geometry, and I tried not to pout.
As we were leaving, we passed the air hockey table, and they suggested playing, almost certainly to try to break me out of my pouting. Which would have worked fine, and in fact did break me out of my pouting, except for the slight problem that air hockey is very vigorous, and after a few games I was exhausted. Not to mention unpleasantly sweaty. Then we went home.
Mistake #2 -- I should have either a) showered, b) napped/rested or c) both at this point. I was tired, stifling crankiness, and feeling pathetic because I just wanted to go to sleep and be left alone but I was trying to be a good hostess and also wanted to spend time with Kirstie since she was leaving soon. So I made a mild nuisance of myself in the kitchen and then had the small sense to leave them to the cooking and just do some grading which did calm me down a little.
When they finished the prep and put the chicken in the oven, we did have a nice half hour or so of lounging with some merlot, relaxing and chatting. Then we started eating, and the food was very good, and the conversation was lovely, and so what if it was 8:30 at this point -- I was having a nice time. Though I was very very tired. And then Kirsten and I got into this argument which I don't think I can explain properly to you because it was nominally about whether women who claimed to be lesbians in college but reverted when they graduated were in fact moral cowards and hypocrites or whether they were just experimenting; as it turned out, Kirsten and I both had our own reasons for getting very het up about this and defensive and they were reasons we didn't want to bring up which made it even less likely that it would all get sorted out, and we were all trying to be calm, and Kevin was calm but he was agreeing with her which didn't help, and after half an hour or so of this I was trying not to cry. And why is that, boys and girls?
Because Mary Anne's get pathetic and petulant when they're tired.
I ended up crawling into bed after dinner; they kindly cleared up and then left me to sleep. I wept pathetically into my pillow for a bit, and then fell asleep. No champagne, no nice after dinner conversation, no nothing -- and they probably both ended up feeling guilty for something which was entirely not their faults. And the moral of the story is that when Mary Anne is tired, she should learn to put herself to bed, rather than letting her strong self-sacrificing streak turn into something which is actually selfish and silly.
*sigh*