I am not naturally a morning person. I usually prefer to sleep in til 10am and stay up later. But for whatever reason with this new cpap machine that I use to keep my airways open, I have been waking up at 3:45am no matter what time I went to bed. I usually wake up to use the bathroom because my bladder disease is pretty persistent, but I can never fall back asleep after that. Five hours of sleep is all I need, apparently, to survive. Granted my five hours of actual, restful sleep is more productive than thirteen hours of me trying to die in my sleep due to obstructive sleep apnea. But I would like to sleep longer. I am getting good sleep scores despite my shorter sleep cycle. I am getting lots of deep sleep, along with REM and light sleep. My oxygen variations are low (because I no longer stop breathing in my sleep). Well, they went from over 200 events per night to under 20 so I say that’s pretty damn good.

Today I tried to go back to sleep and once I put my cpap mask on and adjusted it, I was out like a light. I woke up to my dad pounding on my door saying it was pancake time. Every Fourth of July, my dad likes to wake up super early and run with my sister and then enjoy delicious $7 pancakes at the local yacht club. This year, my sister cancelled dad and her’s running session and so I got to get up at the butt crack of dawn to go get pancakes even earlier than usual.

Soon after dad and I got to the yacht club, I see my ex boyfriend’s dad. He also enjoys getting pancakes every holiday here as well. The first year we ever met him and his family, he said to my dad, “Sir, you have some extra syrup on your shirt.” Like my dad didn’t already know let alone do something about it. My ex was not there because I think he is in the army now. We didn’t talk to them because that would be weird.

My dad kept hitting on this older blonde lady who was running the drink station. And by hitting on her, I mean he kept going over there for more shitty coffee and orange juice so he could try to make her laugh with his dad jokes. My dad has a thing for the 50+ blonde old lady crowd. Especially if they are rich enough to belong to a yacht club. I told dad that he has a wife at home and he said she probably noticed he was wearing his wedding ring for once. He also said she probably didn’t have a thing for gray haired, fat guys without yacht club money.

I digress. We left and he was happy to have taken me because I don’t judge him for eating two large plates of ham, sausage, and pancakes. After that, I went home, put on my makeup, and went to the store to see Diego.

I only went to see if he needed anything from the store for dinner. He wanted spaghetti, but I wanted chicken Alfredo so I bought him and I stuff for chicken Alfredo, along with a watermelon and a Red Bull for my drive over to his house. I wanted to go to the house early in the day because I didn’t want Poncho to be alone when the fire works start booming off. He is a medium sized hound dog, so his hearing is impeccable and I didn’t want his first year of fire works to scare him.

When I got to Diego’s house, Poncho was at the door waiting for me. I got the groceries in the house and put away and then took him to the dog park. The dog park around noon o’clock was quite busy with the people who also thought like me and wanted to get their dogs tuckered out for tonight. One guy told me to give him half of a Benadryl so the fireworks wouldn’t bother his ears or scare him. Everybody who saw Poncho loved him and said he was so beautiful with his reddish brown coating. They kept asking me if he was smart, or a good hunter, and I said no he is a big dope. He likes people more than the other dogs and as a sign of affection, Poncho likes to stand really close to other people and get belly rubs. But then he begins to lean on people and Poncho leaned on this one guy to the point his knee almost gave out! I felt so bad and the guy laughed and said it was his party trick.

I walked about 3,000 step while at the dog park because the park is on acreage with trails on half of it that is all wooded and fenced in. The other half is open field, semi grassy right in the sun. It was only 67 degrees today, but I had Poncho on a leash for the trails so that he wouldn’t run away from me and be out of my sight. He was pulling me along pretty good. I was nearly running. Now my foot is a bit sore, but I was happy I kept pace pretty good.

Now we are both back at the house. A cool breeze is coming in through the open windows so the house isn’t so stuffy. Poncho is laying on the carpet as I do my writing at the kitchen table. I texted Diego on how things were going and he said all his orders have been completed since 9am, so he has been leading his department in doing miscellaneous tasks like printing out new scan tags and barcodes for their bins. He works in drive up and go as the department manager. It’s nice because he makes good money and gets to work 6am-2 or 2:30pm everyday and gets to write his own schedule. However, since it’s a new department, he has a lot to learn and keep up with. But he’s smart; he’s figuring it all out and I know everyone likes him there. I know the front end department misses him because he was good doing that too. I can’t believe he has been with this company nearly a decade.

He called me at 2pm and said he was off work. He said he was pretty hungry so I began making our fettuccine Alfredo and now it is complete. He should be home any second now. I think we will go for a walk after dinner to enjoy the sunshine before the fire works. He has two more days of work and then two days off. I know this is the busiest week of work for him so I am happy to spend time with him.

I just heard him pull off, so it’s time to log off and eat!

Much love,

Dani