Tuesday, August 29, 2017

A Touch of Narcolepsy

My Weather app said that it was 109 in Davis today, a fact confirmed by a friend who actually went outside this afternoon.  Walt says it wasn't that hot here, only 105, I believe, but it still was hot.

While I was blissfully unaware of the ravages of the sun outside, as I had my computer and my book to read and those fans I spoke of a couple of days ago, somehow my body knew that it was damn hot--and what do logical people do when it's too hot to do anything else?  They sleep!

I absolutely could not stay awake today.  I felt like a newborn.  I just woke up long enough to eat and to go to the bathroom, then within minutes I was back asleep again.  I had all sorts of plans for things I was going to do with the fans blowing on me, but I never did any of them.

Monday is NCIS rerun day and though the TV was on, I slept through most of every episode that I watched.  I am reading a new book, which is very interesting, but would fall asleep after a couple of pages (this is another reason why I have a Kindle...when the book falls out of your hands, you don't lose your place).

I did manage to drag myself up and into the kitchen to cook dinner.  We were having tacos and I was eager to try my new taco holders.


They worked great and the pork tacos from Home Chef were delicious too, but when I was finished I sat back in the recliner and within not much more than an hour I was fighting sleep again.

I was trying to find the medical name for the opposite of insomnia (which is my usual problem) and it took me forever to finally find "narcolepsy."  But in the process, I went on an interesting Google adventure.  That's the beauty of Google.  You put in a simple question and amazing things pop up.
I found the translation of the word "insomnia" in nearly 100 different languages.  Languages I'd never heard of, like Cebuano, Cichewa, Gujarati, Hausa, Marathi, Sesoto, Xhosa, etc.  And there were also languages which surprised me that they would need a word for insomnia.  Like Zulu and Samoan.  Apparently there are people all over the world who are having problems staying asleep, but very few who are having problems staying awake.

Naturally, I had to check out some of these translations.

The Frisian translation of insomnia, for example, is sliepeleazens.  The Luxumbourgish word for it is "insomnia."  (I think I can remember that one)  The Yoruba word is "airorunsun," which is kind of interesting if you think about it!  Zulu has two words for insomnia, nokuqwasha and ukungatholi ubuthongo (that might keep me awake right there!).  The Maltese suffer from nuqqas ta'rqad while the Irish word is neamchodladh, but it in Scotland it is also "insomnia."

I find it fascinating that this is such a common problem that nearly everyone has a word for it.
That didn't make for much of an exciting day, but it was just what happened.

Polly drove me crazy in  the evening.  She did her usual 'stand outside and bark until they call me in and give me a treat' routine.  She always settles down after that and I don't hear from her again until it's time to get up.

But tonight she was VERY upset that I would not let her outside again.  She kept running into me here and put her paws on my lap and whine.  I wasn't going to let her outside just so she could bark, so I ignored her for abut 15 minutes, but she kept whining and whining and whining so I finally let her out.  She was out that door like a shot, but whatever was making her want to be outside must not have been there any more because she was outside for about 10 minutes before she barked a little and when I called her in, she ran right in, barked for a treat (which I did not give her) and then gave up and settled down finally.

Now it is 11 p.m. and I have to decide if I'm going t try to go to sleep or not.  I can't believe that I actually feel sleepy, but I have a strong feeling that if I go to sleep now, in two hours, I'll be having to deal with ukungatholi ubuthongo again.

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