Nightmares Before Bedtime, Again

Our life has been a little hectic lately and is about to become hecticker (my spelling, my grammar, my blog). Watch this space.

For quickness, as a cheat or out of laziness – take your pick – I have reblogged a post from November 2012. It’s one of my favorites. You may think that reminiscing about pain would mean I’m a bit touched. You may be right.

We’ve two queen sized beds on our RV. That might seem a little extravagant when you don’t know our nightly drill. “Keep still!” “I can’t!”  “Wellgetintheotherbed!!”  One bed is just kind of there at one end of the trailer and the other one is in a big drawer – a slide-out – at the other end. Once parked, you pull it out and prop it up and sleep suspended in mid-air.

There it is. That boil on the back of the trailer. It doesn’t look big enough to sleep two comfortably. It often isn’t!

If your eyesight is extraordinary you can just see the Tetons on the horizon between Chevy Tahoe and trailer. You may have to take my word for it.

It’s quite cozy with the curtains drawn, reminiscent of a sleeping compartment on a train. The nightmares come before bedtime with gasps and groans, broken fingernails and much bad language as the sheets are wrestled onto the mattresses which cling tightly to the walls on three sides.

To get the idea, try it yourself. Make the exercise authentic by first pushing your bare mattress into the corner of your bedroom flush against the wall on two sides. Ideally, it should be flush against the wall on three sides but your bedroom is probably not that small. Next, flick a fitted sheet out across the mattress and quickly rap your knuckles smartly against a doorframe or other suitable unyielding surface. This will introduce an appropriate level of pain early in the process.

Fling yourself belly down, appendages splayed, in an imitation of Spiderman on top of the rumpled sheet and attempt to tuck all four corners neatly and tightly under the mattress whilst you are weighing it down.

Once you’ve made a poor job of that, rip a fingernail off and repeat the above process with the top sheet. If you can’t bear to rip the fingernail right off then at least bend it backwards until it hurts.

At any point, if you feel the need for a break to catch your breath, you may stop and stuff the pillows into the pillowcases.

Now imagine there is a bunk bed 18 inches above the bed you’ve been fighting with so when you finish with the pillowcases crack the back of your head on the conveniently placed previously used doorframe to disorient yourself before continuing any further.

Next, shake a blanket out over the mess you’ve made so far and smack a knuckle on the other hand (not the one that is already throbbing) on a sharpish object, like the edge of a door, drawing just enough blood to leave a tell tale victory trail on your blanket when you tuck it under the bottom edge of the mattress. You may not be as fortunate as us to have ivory colored blankets to give a good contrast to the blood which will display your pluck.

If you are tempted to cheat and just shake the layers of bedding out, each smoothly on top of the other without tucking and battering of head and hands, you will wake up mummified at some point between 2 am and 5 am when bed making is even less appealing than when you first attempted it.

Seems difficult to imagine that the process could be any less appealing when you are already gasping, sweating, hurting, bleeding and swearing but it is actually true.

The mess we sleep in!

 

 

 

Calling all bloggers: The Results Show

Thanks so much to everyone who took the time to comment on last Friday’s post Calling all bloggers and bloggees. Funnily enough I had second thoughts about posting it as it wasn’t exactly within the remit of Which Way Now 101 with sights and adventures along the way. However the response was very interesting and the post had many views from nine different countries! I frequently read blogger stuff but wondered what my readers thought.

This is what you came up with:

• No one likes to read white on black. The web page can look stunning but it hurts our poor old eyes (speaking only for myself, of course, not all you lovely young things). A color on a color is tricky too.
• A 500 word count is good, 800 is okay and 1,000+ is a bit much but content is key. We (almost) all keep reading if the blog is well written and interesting.
• Titles are important. They need to be attention grabbing.
• We like photos. They don’t need to be of a professional standard (thank goodness) but relevant to the post. (So apologies for the irrelevant photos on that post. I thought they kind of tied it to my travel theme. Okay, I just made that up) Photos are also useful for breaking up the text.
• Large blocks of text are hard to read, especially on a computer screen. Paragraph breaks make the post easier to read.
• Busy sidebars, especially with flashing graphics are distracting.
• Poor grammar, punctuation and spelling will not be tolerated! (Oops. I apologize in advance and blame any of my mistakes on my in-house editor.) That’s a bit strongly worded. We all make the occasional blunder but none of us want to read carelessly written blogs.
• One blogger always likes the post to end with a question to invite comments. Do you?

Bryce Thompson Arboretum. Another irrelevant photograph. So shoot me.

One more question. Well two for those of you who are counting. I find it difficult to keep up with bloggers who post every day. The sheer amount of reading defeats me and I have to skip some posts. Which ones? I fear I’ll miss that brilliant post that would inspire, humor, enlighten me. Do you feel under pressure to read, write, edit, post, snap, post, like, comment and read and write some more to not offend or ignore those you follow or who follow you?