Charlie and Marta, Christmas 2016

The ‘kids’ are here!  Let the holiday fun begin!  Never mind that the kids are in their sixties and (ahem) a bit set in their ways.  It’s a little late in the game to expect the house rules to apply automatically when they cross the threshold.  Yet, I’m always a bit unprepared for the difference in our lifestyles – particularly when it comes to sleeping.

The crux of the matter is that Marta and Charlie are night people; Nyel and I are day people.  We are all a bit long-in-the-tooth to be changing.  Take yesterday, for instance.  Marta had flown in to PDX and we fetched her in time for our Friday Night Gathering.  Charlie was ‘expected’ in time for a late supper.  He arrived sometime close to 2:00 a.m.! YIKES! (We ate without him.)

“Tongue in Cheek” – Cover Band, 1980s

Nyel crashed first – about nine.  Me next at tennish.  Marta, who seldom goes to bed before 1:00 waited up, cribbage board and dice for Farkle at the ready.  It’s a ‘family’ tradition for the two of them to play games and ‘catch up’ well into Night One.  I did wake up about midnight-thirty and waited until Charlie rolled in before going back to bed.  The ‘kids’ were still going strong at four and, needless to say, I don’t expect them to surface today until noon.

“How did this disconnect with ‘normal’ sleep patterns occur?” I ask myself each time we converge.  I don’t think Marta became a night owl until she was a young adult.  She had her own band for a number of years (no need to say more, really) and during the lean times supported herself as a waitress and bartender.  In recent years, she’s had daytime jobs, though music is always just under the surface.  I think she manages with less sleep than I find necessary.  Most people do…

Charlie, on the other hand has always been a nighttime kinda guy.  I had THE worst time getting him up in time for school, even when he was in Kindergarten.  Fortunately, his career as a free-lance (mostly) writer allows him to follow an upside-down time schedule.  And, now that he’s acting in live theater… ditto.  His lifestyle and sleep patterns are a good fit — usually.  He and I have talked about our different sleeping styles and circadian rhythms and the whys and wherefores and have never reached any satisfactory conclusion as to what causes us to be so different.  Why am I getting up each day about the time he goes to sleep?

Charlie at Hanna Barbera, 1979

And then… voila!  This morning as I began reading Miss Pym Disposes by Josephine Tey, I found the answer.  Maybe.  Bed was a charming place at any time, but if one was so sleepy that neither riotous bell-ringing nor the wails of a colleague made any impression, then getting up must be torture.  Welsh, too, probably…. Celts hated getting up…

Charlie’s full name is Charles Morgan Howell, IV.  ‘Morgan’ is as Welsh as Welsh can be.  There you have it!  Thanks, Elizabeth MacKintosh (who wrote as Josephine Tey.)  You’ve answered a very basic question.  It’s his father’s fault.