2003-03-07 - 1:10 p.m.

On the internal soundtrack: "Good Lovin'"

So, yesterday morning I found out exactly how well I'd handle a crisis situation: Horrendously badly.

Of course, this is because I didn't have a PLAN. Now that I have a PLAN, perhaps I'll handle it better next time.

Let this be a lesson to you all: MAKE a PLAN.

Yesterday morning at approximately 6:38am, while we were spooning peacefully in slumber, the burglar alarm went off.

After having had three or four false alarms, my first instinct upon awakening (we have a bright strobe in the bedroom) was to TURN IT OFF BEFORE IT CALLS CENTRAL STATION!

Poindexter was already up, and I LEAPT out of bed and ran for the control panel (stark naked, sans glasses, mind you), only to realize midway that if there was a burglar in the house, maybe I didn't want to turn it off.

I can't remember anything after that, so I guess I must've just run around like a chicken with my head cut off. I remember saying, "Oh my god, oh my god" and thinking "There can't be anyone in the house, but why is the alarm going off? What's malfunctioning?"

Poindexter, however, who has perfect eyesight and hearing, calmly got out of bed, picked up his Glock, and cautiously investigated, all the while wondering what the bloody fuck his wife was doing.

What happened was, the door to the deck off our bedroom had opened. The knob was locked, so probably I hadn't shut it tightly enough two days previously when I went out to see how the weather was. I'm surprised it took two days to open itself. And that it happened just before we were going to wake up anyway.

So. The control panel is midway between the bed and this door.

What this means, then, is that if there HAD been an intruder, and he hadn't turned tail and run, he would have had a naked blind woman crashing into him on her way to the control panel. As Poindexter put it, "In court, he could say, 'She ran right towards me, and she was naked! It was consensual!'"

Sigh. I am just mortified. And to add some irony to the mix, as we were drifting off to sleep the night before, I mentioned that I wasn't sure that my side of the bed was the right place for the gun and that perhaps we should discuss that.

Anyway, here is the plan, if it should happen again:

1. Grab glasses, and a hearing aid or two if possible
2. Grab gun
3. Go to Poindexter's side of the bed (between bed and wall)
4. Let Poindexter handle it.

Let's face it. I'm deaf and blind. If we were in any kind of non-civilized situation, I'd be dead by now. Might as well let the survivally-fitter one handle things.

The other night, I said to Poindexter, "Let's get ready for bed at 9:30, so we can have lights out by 10:45." (Before-bed is our chatting time; it doesn't take an hour fifteen for us to get ready.) He agreed.

Next thing you know, it's 9:38 and I'm gabbing away with a girl friend on IM, and as I told her, "Poindexter is glaring at me. I have to go to bed."

This is an unfair representation of the situation, however. The truth of it is this: If it weren't for my need for sleep, we would never go to bed. Both of us stall, every night. So usually, whichever one of us has the stronger will (Poindexter, in that particular case), shrieks and nags the other person to go to bed. In this case, P was doing the nagging.

However. After I got out of my shower and finished brushing my teeth and flossing, I came back down to the office and saw Poindexter -- unbrushed, unflossed, un-Viadented -- standing in front of the TV watching the hockey highlights on ESPN. So it was my turn. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! I'M ALL READY FOR BED!"

It's a give-and-take kinda thing, y'know. And even when we get ready for bed on time, it doesn't always work. We gabbed until 11:15, half an hour past the intended lights-out time.

Today is our fourth official anniversay.

Last night as I was getting in bed, I said to Poindexter, "Four years ago right now, I was sleeping on the floor in my brother's room and crinkling granola bar wrappers in the middle of the night."

He replied, "Four years ago, I was in the bar with my uncle, your brother, and Justin, drinking beer and smoking cigars."

Ha. The granola bars were because I was so stressed (because I didn't want a wedding) that I was having trouble eating during the day, so my stomach would wake me up, growling. I was sleeping on an actual mattress, but the two guest rooms had been given to out-of-town guests. My brother still complains about the crinkling. I think the first time he heard it he had no idea what it was.

There are two other days that I would rather use as anniversaries than this one. One is the day I told Poindexter I was ready to get married. This was November 20, 1997. He'd been ready for a while, and I had been lagging behind. None of it had anything to do with him; it was all about my fears. Previous relationships had led me to think that marriage would be stifling. It took a couple years with Poindexter get over that baggage and know with certainty that life with him would never be stifling.

Another day I could use would be sometime in July of 1997. That was when I was ready to move in with him. Prior to that I had a room in a boarding house. But that July, I didn't stay there at all, and I realized I didn't need my own space anymore. I could just pick a prime number ... maybe July 23, 1997. Hm.

But according to the officials, and my mother, today's the day. I've been wanting to go to a particular restaurant for dinner, so since the anniversary falls on a Friday, we're actually going to celebrate it. No cards or presents, though. Because (grab your puke buckets, everyone) EVERY DAY with Poindexter is a present. It really is.

Another cactus picture. Cactuses are COOL!

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