Mental Health Day

Well, as predicted, the automated telephone voice told me there’d be no school today. So I did get my short-term mental health day (a pleasurable relaxation from work) at the expense of long-term mental health (piles and piles of headaches still waiting for me at work).

But, I have to admit, it was enjoyable. The girls let me sleep in to the generally unheard-of time of 9 am. They also let me take an enjoyable hot bath, where I finished Lovecraft’s “The Mound” while they played on the iPad and watched their DVR’d shows. I made us all PB&J sandwiches for lunch, and Patch went upstairs to take a nap (she’s fighting a cold).

Little One and I watched Disney’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, a favorite from my youth, a highly well-done film featuring one of my favorite actors (Kirk Douglas) as an adult aficionado and one of my favorite actors (James Mason) as a childhood fan of such flicks. Patch came down midway through and the three of us, in blankets on the floor, watched Captain Nemo’s demise together.

Then, my El Guapo: the eight inches of icy wet snow that granted me a day off. It took me an hour of backbreaking shoveling to get us out and set up an easy commute out of the driveway tomorrow morning. Heart pounding, lungs heaving, my old carcass did it only with my brain chanting the mantra “one more foot … one more foot … one more foot.” I calculate very roughly that I shoveled an area of 300 square feet. With wind drifts bringing most of that up to a foot, and assuming a cubic foot of icy wet snow to weigh forty pounds, I moved six tons of snow in those sixty minutes.

Might need to take a Physical Health Day.

Anyway, made the us all a hearty dinner of eggs, bacon and toast. They’re playing upstairs while I type this, but soon I’ll put them down, and then it’s me and my math book (plus a few others I’m skimming) for the evening. Might watch some Impractical Jokers, because I need a good laugh.

Especially considering that looming desk at work …