(Originally posted on the website Heron Flight)

I cannot sleep. I tried and I tried. I read. I tossed and I turned. I stared at the clock and watched the amount of time I had left before work shrink and shrink.

Then I got up, somewhere around 12:30 AM.

“What did you do?” you ask.

I re-potted plants.

“What? Are you crazy?”

Yes, but that’s beside the point.

I remembered that there was a “Snake Plant” that I wanted to thin out and re-pot. It was outside. So, I shuffled out there in the late October chill air, in my old sleeping shorts, a t-shirt, and my two-year-old bedroom slippers that are now splitting at the seems. To my great nocturnal pleasure, I found that the Snake Plant had produced new shoots. They were perfect!

Being that it was too chilly outside for mid-night gardening, I moved operations to the basement.

“What? Are you a doctor?”

Not those kinds of operations.

I found a partial bag of potting soil outside the basement door at the bottom of the outside steps. I dug up a couple of decent pots. Next, I disentangled the roots of the shoots. (If I were wearing boots I could make a rhyme like Seuss. But I was wearing slippers. Do you remember? Soon they will be “trippers” without a mender.)

“You ARE crazy!”

Yeah, well, it is now 2 AM. Tick tock. Tick tock. Work is inching closer.

All rhyming aside, I scooped the soil into the pots, installed the plants, and swept up the mess.

A little farming should make anyone tired. Right? But just in case, I made a cup of chamomile tea.

“Oh! Just like Peter Rabbit!”

Well, sort of. Peter’s mom gave it to him because he was a naughty, fat, little rabbit who ate Mr. McGregor’s plants (Rabbits are evil! Don’t believe me? Just watch this!). I made some for myself because it’s supposed to make you sleepy.

Poppycock (as the Brits in that video would say)! That was over an hour ago and I’m still wide awake! I’m so wired it’s as if somebody slipped me a massive load of caffeine somewhere along the way tonight. I don’t know what else to do with myself. More gardening? Mow the lawn? Watch a Monty Python movie?

Hey… now there’s an idea! Just as soon as I plaster this jibber jabber on the internet, I’m going to crank up the dvd player and watch me a good ol’ silly movie. If nothing else, it will give me a reason to smile when I walk into the office at 9 AM – something in addition to the delirious smile sleep deprivation usually plants on my face.

And now I bid you happy tidings
As in your beds you’re tucked and hiding
I cannot sleep, tis how I am
There is no sleep for Sam I Am.