March 31: Like Heaven, All I Do Is Work, Mindless Fun

A man in a boxcar across the way called out through the ventilator that a man had just died in there.  So it goes.  There were four guards who heard him.  They weren't excited by the news.

"Yo, yo," said one, nodding dreamily.  "Yo, yo."

And the guard didn't open the car with the dead man on it.  They opened the next car instead, and Billy Pilgrim was enchanted by what was in there.  It was like heaven.  There was candlelight, and there were bunks with quilts and blankets heaped on them.  There was a cannonball stove with a steaming coffeepot on top.  There was a table with a bottle of wine and a loaf of bread and a sausage on it.  There were four bowls of soup.

After his long march, Billy gets a little glimpse of heaven.  Warm bunks.  A candlelit table with bread and wine and sausage and coffee.  It is a scene in direct contrast to the boxcars stuffed with prisoners of war, coughing and groaning and dying.  

I am sitting on my couch at about 9:30 at night, and it feels like heaven to me.  It is the first time I've really had to relax all day.  When I got off work (over eight hours answering phones), I threw myself into cleaning at my parents' house.  Another hour or so of work.  I am beat.  Nearly falling asleep.

In about an hour, I have to pick up my daughter from a friend's house.  And then I will be able to go to bed.  Tomorrow is going to be another long day.  My son has another wrestling tournament, and we have to get an early start.  Seven-thirty in the morning.  Right now, that does not sound very appealing to me.

It seems, sometimes, that all I do is work.  At the medical office.  At the university.  At home.  It never seems to end.  The only time I really sit down is when I'm too tired to do anything else.  Like now.  Next week, I will be taking a couple days off.  Friday and Monday.  We will be traveling to the Wisconsin Dells for a dance competition.  I am hoping for a few hours of mindless fun there.

Again, I'm not complaining.  Work is a blessing, too.  I just wish I wasn't blessed with so much of it.

Saint Marty is thankful tonight for a comfortable couch that fits his ass well.