Sleep and Force Fields

The best thing about having made up my mind that I'd try for a "full" night's sleep, and about having subsequently been DARED to follow through for two weeks by the gravid goddess, Julia, is that now I can feel empowered (okay...maybe "justified" is a better word) to do something that, really, I love to do anyway.

As a child, I was often happy to go to bed so I could play out adventures in my head, imagining new Robin Hood or King Arthur stories where I was the kid sister/gypsy/peasant girl that everyone accepted/loved/protected/admired. This was pre-Star Wars, but for science fiction stories, I had Star Trek material and, later, the John Christopher books such as The White Mountains series. For fantasy reference, there were the Susan Cooper, Lloyd Alexander and C.S. Lewis volumes.

Yes, I am a geek. It's already been established.

But I'm not alone!

Two nights ago at dinner, our 5-year-old demonstrated that she's reached another rung in the Geek-in-Training ladder. She had already finished her dinner, but R, D and I were still eating, and we were having a mundane but involved conversation about something while S happily scribbled away, working hard on what looked like a rainbow Pegasus. (Although it could also have been a tall dog with a big golden growth on its back, perhaps inspired by Alby's recent tick episode. It's hard to say.)

Anyway, the 3 of us "older" members of the family were all having this amiable discussion about the weather, or school or something, and suddenly S announces with great enthusiasm to no one in particular,

"MY HORSE'S WINGS HAVE A FORCE FIELD AROUND THEM!!"

I laughed so suddenly and so hard that I actually spit tiny projectile pieces of turkey loaf at my husband across the table.

I mean, you know that earnest pencil-protector nerd gusto, the kind that usually comes out of High School Astronomy Club Members or Ant Farm aficionados?

Uh. Well.

Anyway, you know the nasal importance that you hear when someone says something like, "Well, it's a well-known fact that Thorium -233 has a half-life of approximately 22 minutes..."?

S had that kind of intense conviction in her FORCE FIELD statement. And that kind of socially challenged timing.

We all laughed, but you could tell that we all, each of us, was actually very proud of S for putting a force field around her horse's wings. We approved.

The conversation moved to force fields and how COOL they are.

I think D in particular wished he had a personal force field that would deflect turkey-loaf-particles, for example.