Sleep Deficit Continues

The end of the weekend has come, so suddenly, and due to a series of events, only part of for which I'm responsible, I find myself almost as tired tonight as I was on Friday when I left work. One of my clients, the 17 year old girl, had a crisis late Friday night and was admitted to the hospital. She's been under a great deal of emotional and psychological stress, and it finally overwhelmed her. I was up until 4 am monitoring the situation. She is a minor, and we had been afraid that the hospital might refuse to admit her, but ultimately she was admitted without incident.

The next day, I spent most of the day visiting with my client in the hospital and then hanging out with her sister. Both girls are now doing ok, and I cannot express how grateful I am for that. I worry about them so much, but they're tough, and I'm confident they can get through this. I'm so pissed that it's taking so long to hear the results of their asylum application. Waiting is putting a tremendous strain on them. It's hard not to be depressed and overwhelmed by feelings of hopelessness when they can't yet imagine a future free of the past that they have not yet fully escaped psychologically or legally. But, they are fighters and they continue to humble me with their resilience and strength.

Around 7 pm on Saturday night, after leaving my clients, I went by Starbuck's and grabbed a medium coffee (I don't do Italian names for coffee sizes), and then went home to get ready to go out. I probably should have stayed in, but it was my friend's birthday party and I was looking forward to seeing a few friends that I hadn't seen for a while. I finished my coffee - my dinner that day - between blowdrying my hair and putting on my make-up while listening to "Buttons" on repeat (Mom, the Bose speaker is awesome), and was out the door headed downtown to the Heartland Brewery in Union Square by 8:00 pm. Not bad, if I do say so myself. By the way, if you make it to the brewery, I recommend the Red Rooster Ale. It's the closest thing they have to an Amber ale and it's quite tasty.

Speaking of Amber ales, after the brewery we went to a karaoke bar on Park and 19th, Tracy J's. For some reason, all of my friends have been all about karaoking lately. Twice in one week is a little much, I gotta say; particularly when the place has a bad sound system, and a DJ more interested in throwing people out of the bar than playing requests. We didn't do a lot of singing, but we did have front row seats to an entertaining bar brawl between a skinny rich girl with perfectly flat-ironed hair, the psycho DJ, and an enormous bouncer who oddly enough took the skinny girl's side over the DJ even though the skinny girl had knocked the DJ in her face. If we could have heard the screaming a bit more clearly, it would have been as good as reality TV.

But, I was speaking about beer. At Tracy J's, the following exchange took place between me and the bartender:

Me: "Do you have any amber ales?"
Bartender: "What do you mean by Amber?"
Me: "An AMBER (enunciated slowly and loudly) ALE or something like it."
Bartender: "I don't know what you mean by Amber. Do you mean Amber in color?"

I was speechless for a moment, but rather than educating her, I simply ordered a Bass. What kind of bartender is unfamiliar with Amber Ales? Clearly, that bartender needs to get herself over to Michigan asap and grab her some Bell's. Then she'll understand the beauty of an Amber Ale.

After the barfight, around 2am, Navy Boy and I (the backstory on that will be forthcoming at a later date) left the bar and headed back to my place. I should have sent him on his way, but instead I invited him in and we stayed up until 5 am!! Five AM! All my fault! I was bad, bad, bad and forfeited my much needed sleep. Again. It would have worked out fine if I could have slept until 1 in the afternoon, but unfortunately I haven't yet gotten around to covering my windows and skylight with blackout blinds. Can you imagine how awful I felt when I woke up at 8:30 am to rays of sunlight drilling into my eyesockets, straight into the center of my head? Mental note: Do not stay up until 5 am again any time soon.

I would have gotten the blinds today, but I was too wrecked from the weekend to do much more than drag my butt to the hospital to visit my client, and catch-up on calls with my friends - one of the perks to being completely hungover and basically useless is that there is suddenly lots of time for phone calls. Among others, I got to have a long overdue, much-needed conversation with Wood. She is an amazing friend, and she has the distinction of being one of the few people in my life who is always there for me, no matter what. She has a two-year old, yet she always makes time for me. How phenomenal is that?

The other thing of note that I managed to accomplish today was making breakfast. I attempted to make cottage cheese pancakes like my friend Simone's mom used to make for me and Simone whenever I would sleep over their house in middle school. I must have done something wrong because whereas her's were fluffy and delicious, mine came out runny and doughy in the middle. I still ate them (doused in maple syrup). I suspect that my ratio of batter to cottage cheese is off, and that I probably erred on the side of using too much cottage cheese. If any of you have a good recipe for cottage cheese pancakes, please let me know.

I'm a little stressed about the upcoming week, which is no surprise as I often feel that way on Sunday night. This week, I have a trial in my contested divorce case, more law firm interviews, and too much work to do in the time remaining. Until Thursday, it's going to be a bit tough, but Thursday night I will celebrate. Perhaps by foregoing festivities, going to they gym, and having a good night's sleep for once. In other words, pretending for an evening that I have balance in my life.

Probably not, but a girl can hope.