The Weedhacker, Vern. The Weeeeeeedhacker.

(please excuse the super big font...it seems rather obnoxious to me but try as I might, I'm not able to get it to a normal size...it's either this or microscopic ...I'll stick with this and apologize for the the obnoxiously large font)

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I'm home sick from work today.

I'm not entirely sure what kind of sick I am. All I know is that I feel sick.

....and tired.

I am sick and tired.

~An Aside: Raise your hand if your mom ever, in a half-crazed voice...either half-crazed in a shrill and cracking  way or half-crazed in a low and menacing way--both being equally effective....told you and your siblings, that she was "sick and tired of" whatever dumbass (and usually loud) shenanigans you guys were up to. 

Mine did. 

At that point, we knew that we had pushed things way too far and would cut it out....usually. I remember on one or two shameful occasions we pushed  her off  the Cliffs of Sick and Tired down onto the jagged rocks in the Sea of Making Mum Cry.

Ouch.

There's really not much that's worse in the Universe than making your Mum cry.

Thankfully, in my own career as a Mum, I think I've only had to pull out the old "I am SICK and TIRED of your (insert specfic loud dumbass shenanigans or thoughtless lazy slovenliness )" one or two handfuls of times and it's awesome.

 And I've only been reduced to tears of super crazy parenting frustration a couple of times. 

I count myself extremely lucky.~

Anyhow...

The past couple of days, I've been just plain old sick and tired of nothing in particular and I've  just plugged along, goin' about my business not allowing the general overall feeling of yuckiness to impact my day to day life....

Until yesterday morning...

~Rather Lengthy Preamble~

As we are all quite aware, the news rarely is anything but depressing. I have devoted my life to a relentless quest of cowardly self-preservation, thusly, I never watch news on tv and I don't read the newspaper....except maybe the funnies...and maybe sometimes, the birth/death announcements.

In my "Life: Take One", I used to stay up late and glean my knowledge of current events from the Knower of All That's Interesting and Relevant, Mr. Jon Stewart.  I'd then "balance" ;) JS's liberal slant and watch Stephen Colbert. And, since I am a good Canadian, I'd catch Rick Mercer once a week in order to keep abreast of what was happening here in the Great White North.

I'm not sure what the fact that I got all my current events from  3 comedians says about me....but I don't really care. I'd rather laugh and be marginally well-informed than be right on top of world events and never be able to crawl out from under my covers.

Now, in my "Life: Take Deux", since I go to bed way earlier and I don't watch much TV,  Jon, Stephen, Rick and I have, for the most part, parted ways. 

Instead, I've grown to rely on CBC talk radio to deliver the newsworthy goods. It's lovely and boring and informative and doesn't clobber me on the head with graphic images and gruesomely sensationalized stories

...not often anyway.

...with yesterday morning being the exception.

~End of Rather Lengthy Preamble~

Yesterday morning, I was driving to work and the 8:00 news came on the radio.  It started off well enough ... talking about the nasty cold snap that has hit much of Northern Europe. 

Brrrrrr...Chilly....poor bastards. 

I can deal with that.

Except they went on to explain that the cold is having disastrous consequences in the northern UK...

...where it's lambing season.

...and the huge amounts of wet heavy snow and the days of super strong winds, have resulted in farmhouse-high snow drifts.

...and the Royal Military helicopters have been air dropping hay into the fields so the stranded sheep won't starve.

...and it's lambing season.

...and the sheep are buried in the snow and it's next to impossible to dig them all out.

...and it's lambing season.

And the Scottish farmer being interviewed bleakly stated, in his lovely soft Scottish accent, that the ewes and rams have a chance of surviving but the newborn lambs will most certainly perish.

...

...

....the newborn lambs will most certainly perish.

Well....

I was done for.

As I thought about all the poor mummy sheep labouring and giving birth, stranded in snowdrifts in the fields, all the while being pummeled by a brutal blizzard, only to have their wee newborn lambies succumb to the cold, I could feel the heavy black sorrow as it bloomed in my heart and slowly clawed its way up the back of my neck into my brain. It only got worse as the Scotsman  continued to inform me that his family's ....his whole county's ... livelihood depended solely on the wool produced by their sheep....and to lose the majority of this year's lambs will have catastrophic consequences for years to come. He wasn't sure how they'd all survive...sheep and farming families alike.

I started to sob.

Who wouldn't really?? (ummmm....probably everybody else but me)

I couldn't stop.

I finally gave my head a shake and  began to take slow deep breaths in order to get my shit together before I got to work...I only live 7 minutes away so chances were slim. I rolled down my window with hopeless hopes that the cold wind would make my red splotchy cry-face less red and splotchy ...dare to dream.

Anyhow, I landed in at work and had my weirdo self mostly composed and laughed through my lingering tears as I told my boss about my sheep-induced temporary lapse in sanity and then we carried and had a discussion about a work-related something that really wasn't much of an issue, involving a dog I've developed a huge crush on (for the dog-people out there...even though he's not my dog, he has somehow managed to become one of my 'heart dogs'...non-dog-people won't get it but others may).

...anyway...

Much to my dismay...and horror, really...I started to cry. 

I didn't mean to...

I didn't want to...

I certainly didn't need to...

But blubber away I did.

And my sweet wonderful friend/boss, naturally felt my ridiculous lack of composure was a result of the dog issue that wasn't really even a little bit of an issue 

I tried to explain that it was the dead lambs' fault...but I don't think she believed me.

We wrapped up our meeting and I tried to carry on with my morning duties but I couldn't stop crying and I started feeling yuckier and yuckier...

And yuckier and yuckier.

And stiff and sore.

And sick.

And tired.

And still kept sniffling away.

A teary hour or so later she brought me a cup of tea (she's English...it's what they do) and as I launched into my explanation that I thought I was coming down with something and that I should probably take the rest of the day off, she launched into a very sweet explanation/solution for the issue that wasn't even a little bit of an issue but seemed like a HUGE issue because I cried like a baby and I've never cried like that at work.

So then I felt silly and horrible for making her feel so bad and started to cry even harder and then SHE started to cry because she felt even worse...and she never cries...she said she didn't want this issue that wasn't even a little bit of an issue but seemed like a HUGE issue because I cried like a baby and I've never cried like that at work, to affect our working relationship and, more importantly, our friendship ...and we had a great big teary hug ...

...and I tried to convince her that it wasn't her, it was the sheep....

and then I went home...

...crying all the way, wondering just what the hell was wrong with me. 

I collapsed into bed and actually wrote a list of all the things that are wrong with me...

This list included the fact that my dogs' nails are ridiculously and embarrassingly long because I don't cut them often enough....so, clearly, you can see how logical and rational I was.

I finished the list...checked it twice...gonna find out who's naughty and nice...

And ripped it up and threw it into the garbage...

....and slipped into a coma for 4 hours.

So...

Anyway....

I'm sick and tired of feeling sick and tired.

The End.

p.s. Last night, as I reflected back on my emotional break-down and how I kept trying to comfort and convince my sweet friend/boss that it was the sheep that were making me cry NOT her...for whatever strange reason, I kept thinking about this scene from one of my favourite movies....

Over the Hedge. (you have to click on the link in order to bring up the clip...blogger wouldn't let me post it by itself)

"It's the dying sheeps, Jan. The dyyyying sheeps."

The End...again.