Making The Transition

Bit by bit. Or perhaps more like hour by hour, I have begun to hit the third shift stride. The first week was tough, when I threw my body’s clock onto graveyard. Although I pretended I was still living in Hawaii it wasn’t an easy transition.  I pushed myself not to doze during the day. My body cried against the new rhythm.  My plan was to be tired enough that I would go to bed at 5 pm and actually fall asleep. That first week, the northeast was perspiring in a heat wave, a six day stretch of ninety plus degrees. I slept in my old room squeezed in a twin bed between two needy cats – one at my feet and the other tucked under my arm pit. In the shade-drawn room the air conditioner droned on cutting out sounds of some mysterious construction project underway in the neighbor’s back yard, and the sound of Dad watching the weather channel’s endless 8 minute cycle.

When the heat broke I moved into the master bedroom. Despite having a larger size bed for my two cats I locked them out of the room. Their curiosity insisted on demanding entrance to the room. My need for undisturbed sleep and their need for access to a liter box ruled otherwise.  There were days that Diablo yowled outside the door and slippers flew through the air out of sheer frustration.

With a project to prep and stain a neighbor’s barn I imposed a curfew. By 3 pm I was to begin to relax and ready my uniform and gear for easy assembly at 11pm. Bedtime was 5 pm.  That kept me up all day after I got off at 8 am. During the remainders of the mornings I pressure washed the barn and then hand washed every rough cut pine board.  By noon my arms had fallen off and my wrists felt like I did a double shift at the Target Distribution Center. And, not to let the summer get by me, I loaded the kayak on the jeep and took off to cruise around Moreau Lake in the early afternoons.

But I had done no hiking since my week in Alaska at the beginning of July. With the plan to hike Mt Marcy after Labor Day I knew I needed to condition my legs for the long 14 mile trek to the summit and  return descent.  Robin and I had talked of doing this last summer and I knew she would be cresting peaks in New Hampshire to get ready. Always more athletic than me, I would have a grueling climb if I didn’t start preparing.

So yesterday I hit the trails above Moreau for the second time this week and got a little disoriented when I forgot my map. I knew I would eventually hit either the lake or the Hudson River, a place I really did not want to end up at.  Three and a half hours later I emerged from the woods on the lake side. By five I was in bed sans cats.

The past two nights have gone by fast. I've been writing and surfing the internet for camping and hiking gear or reading up on the trails in the Adirondacks. During my break I crawl into my sleeping bag laid out in the back of my jeep. I’ve managed to zone out for twenty or thirty minutes, a power nap at 3 am. After 4 am, the gate is wide open to traffic and the next four hours I am on my feet checking IDs, credentials and monitoring horse traffic.

Midway through week three, almost to the half way point of the six-week racing meet at Saratoga, I have got the routine.  I confess I am sleep deprived and I have noticed brain lag. Nothing too serious.  Just a moment of not being able to remember where I put my paint scraper or forgetting what I was going down into the basement to get.   Heck I’ve done that before.  I’ve also fallen asleep under the dryer at the beauty salon.  I did ask my hairdresser is I was drooling.