Early morning,I am tired,in pain,but clear headed

Good morning journal,the time is 4:45am,I have been fully awake since 4;00am,following a night of disturbed sleep when I awakened on several occasions.I finally gave up trying to sleep when our oldest dog Buttons,decided she needed to go outside.Of course,when I let her out of the bedroom,our youngest dog,Caesar,just had to come to,in case he missed something.Outside it was bitterly cold,it had snowed at some stage,and there was a soft blanket of powdery snow in the garden,much to the delight of the canine children.After about ten minutes snuffling around,the dogs decided that enough was enough,and padded indoors again to go back to bed with my wife.I put some coffee on and came into the lounge,having decided that going back to bed would be a somewhat fruitless exercise at this point.I sat in my old armchair,which,like me,has seen better days,but it's a comfortable old thing,again,a bit like me,and I like it.It fits my body like a favorite cardigan,hugs in all the right places,if you know what I mean,and when I need it,it's like an embrace from an old friend,it is especially welcome this morning as I am in quite a bit of pain,but that's okay,I accept that,at times,I will be in the sort of discomfort I am in now,and,like everything else in life today,it will pass;eventually.Yesterday was another pleasant experience for both my wife and myself,there were a couple of occasions when I almost fumbled the ball,so to speak,but I recovered well,and I was pretty pleased with my efforts in general.I was calm,even tempered and aware,and I did notice that I had the ability to pause mentally before speaking,either in reply to one of my wife's questions,or posing one of my own.I don't always have that particular weapon in my armory,but yesterday,it seemed to go okay;I watched the big soccer game on television,took my night medication,and retired to bed at around 10:30pm,that is quite late for me,but considering that I had slept until noon before being awakened by my wife,it was understandable.The new medication seems to be letting me sleep uninterrupted,except when I am in pain,then it has very little effect,it will let me drift off to sleep,but it isn't powerful enough to let me stay asleep through the pain,if it is severe enough;last night was one of those times.This morning,I am very tired,but it would be a fruitless exercise to go back to bed owing to the present level of pain that I find myself in,so I chose to come here and waffle on about nothing in particular,hey,it kills some time,and you never know,we may unearth some hidden nugget among the detritus of fool's gold in our metaphorical mental prospector's pan.It has occurred to me this morning,that the creatures in the world today who seem to live the longest,are the one's who take life at it's slowest;take the giant turtle for example,they live to be over a hundred in some cases,why?,because they don't jog,that's why.They even eat slowly,I once watched a turtle in the zoo chew a bunch of lettuce leaves for fifteen minutes before swallowing them,and I thought to myself,I hope the waiter at your table is prepared to work overtime the next time you take your wife out to dinner.Elephants are another animal who take life slowly,even when they do break into a trot,they don't seem to know what's happening,like it's alien to them,you can almost hear them think to themselves,"what the hell?....what AM I doing???".That old story about the hare and the tortoise having a race,and the tortoise won?,come on people!,wake up and smell the coffee!;anyone who knows anything about track and field knows that the judges slipped up there,it's obvious that the tortoise was on some cocktail of performance enhancing drugs,the result should never have stood and the hare was robbed.If,as I surmise,slowness is the key to longevity,then I should live to be at least 983,give or take a few months,if I should happen to break into a brisk walk,I find myself looking downwards to see if I have inadvertently borrowed someone else's legs.I played a game of lawn bowls on my computer the other day,I actually won,and went on a small victory lap of honor around my computer chair,nothing wrong with that at all,except that I was trotting victoriously with my body,I had to sit down afterwards for ten minutes just to get my breath back,it's not easy admitting that a slow walk to the bathroom is the best you can do,when you have a brain that thinks your still at school.Taking life slowly has it's compensations though,you get to notice more stuff happening than you would if you took every day at breakneck speed,my advice to anyone,yes even the young,is be mellow man,slow is cool,take time to breathe,(which is rich coming from me!),and view the world through the eyes of a turtle.That reminds me of another of my stories,there was this family of turtles who decided to go for a picnic at the bottom of the garden,so mommy,daddy and their young son,set off one bright,mid June morning.Daddy turtle had the hamper strapped to his shell,while mommy turtle carried a nice soft blanket for them to sit on.Three weeks later,around the second week in July,they reached a lovely spot at the bottom of the garden,and daddy turtle said,"this will do family,let's eat,I'm hungry". So mommy turtle spread the blanket,and they opened the hamper,it was packed full of delicious things to eat,there was lettuce and cucumber,hard boiled eggs,carrots and all kinds of good stuff."Oh boy!",said daddy turtle,"I'm starving,let's eat",then he stopped,looked in the hamper and said,"Thelma",that was his wife's name,"Thelma,you didn't pack the ranch dressing"."Oh dear",said mommy turtle,"I'm so sorry Trent,"that was her husband's name,you are following this I hope,"what are we going to do",and she drew her head into her shell in shame."Well,one of us will have to go back and get it,"said daddy turtle,with a harrumph of annoyance,"Tobias,"yes,that's the son,"Tobias,"said daddy turtle,"You'll have to go back for the dressing,"."But you'll eat all the food before I get back,that's not fair!,"whined Tobias,who could whine on a daily basis."There,there Tobias,"said mommy turtle,"we promise not to eat a single thing before you get back,besides,you know how daddy loves his dressing,it wouldn't taste the same,"so,after both mommy and daddy promised not to eat anything before Tobias got back,Tobias set off up the garden towards the big house at the end.Three weeks passed,and Tobias still hadn't returned,"I'm starving!,"said daddy turtle grumpily,"where is that boy of ours?,all the sandwiches are going curly round the edges". Mommy turtle said,"he won't be much longer surely,"daddy turtle said,"I don't care Thelma,I'm hungry,I'm going to eat,"and he reached for a sandwich,"but you promised!,"said mommy turtle,"don't care,"said daddy turtle in a huff.Just as daddy turtle picked up a sandwich,a little voice from behind a rose bush three yards away said,"daddy,if you eat that sandwich,I won't go for the dressing!". Who got to the end before I did?,if you did,give yourself a pat on the back,if you didn't,thanks for reading anyway.Well,that's about it for now journal,I will stand up and attempt to stretch a little,I just want to reassure myself that my spine hasn't snapped at some point during the night,and anyway,my coffee mug is empty.Until the next time then,keep walking with me,let us both take today very slowly,and peace and slowcoaches everywhere be with us.