Holy Week Unholy Meltdown

We woke to a tantrum. Not mine. But I wonder how much my sleeplessness for the last couple of nights has affected my daughter, the one who threw the tantrum. She's not tantrum prone, and the chanting that went along with it was near primal.

The news Sunday of the Fed's bailing out Bear Stearns by loaning it money and taking mortgages (which is what got Bear Stearns into trouble to begin with) as collateral depressed the living daylights out of me.. well, after the giggling fit at the absurdity of the transaction passed, I got depressed. Bush's comments to the press that we're in handy-dandy shape bewildered and troubled. I live in a country run by cartoon ostriches. It's enough to keep people agitated, if not wide-awake. Maybe my wakefulness is a metaphor: STAY ALERT! Maybe it's due drinking Kefir and psyllium at bedtime. Come to think of it, drinking the Kefir may have been News motivated: get the c-r-a-p out wherever you can.

I had decided yesterday morning to avoid The News. Without my saying anything about this decision Frank said this morning -- after reciting more details of the Fed deal, "what are we supposed to do, turn off the News? We can't afford to. We have to stay alert." Sigh. If my leaders are ostriches, maybe I am, too? Maybe I need to look in a mirror and check for feathers and big lips. And maybe I need to hold my honey's hand while continuing to imbibe The News. How else am I to know when our house is worth less than it was when it was built in 1928?

At the end of last week, I went grocery shopping. The same elderly people were doing their careful checks of prices and coupons, but others were maneuvering a little more cautiously, too. Everyone I saw seemed to choose carefully between items, putting things back, choosing fewer items. Thanks to running out of several cleaning supplies at the same time, my cart was the most full at checkout, and I drew stares. I mean STARES. Avoiding eye contact, I paid, reminded myself that our school PTA gets eScrip credit for these purchases, and we'll get 10 cents off per gallon of gas, and left. Ostrich.

Frank reports that the bus seems more full these days. The email airfare super-saver deal to Paris this week topped $700. Not that we were planning to go, but it used to be three or four hundred and something to fly to Paris on a super-saver. This situation, however, is easily remedied: hit the delete key on the email. Ostrich.

So, how do we transfigure all these cartoon ostriches into vigilant Eagles?

I need a cup of coffee.