listen to some musak, pump some iron

My deadline at work just got pushed out to early January. The "schedule relief" now means that my life returns to normal. That's right, my dumplings, that means this afternoon I am listening to some musak and pumping some iron.

I am so overtired that I had trouble sleeping last night. I mysteriously woke just after midnight with an inexplicable and vivid craving for a tin of sardines, which I ate, with a pfeffernusse chaser. Then I drank some water, brushed my teeth again, and went back to bed where I dreamt that I was made of kevlar.

Eating the sardines was lovely, and in my midnight kitchen in my pajamas I was transported back to a moment on the Peel River in the Yukon this summer when, on one of the long paddling days, my sister found a tin of kippered sardines at the bottom of one of our food barrels. No one else was interested, so we shared the tin, ate them with cheese and crackers. Although we'd been eating well, good and delicious food, there was something about those smoked sardines that seemed novel, extravagant and gourmet.