Caveat: maudlin romantic twaddle ahead.

Ted is covering for me tonight at Dave Koz.

I know that doesn’t seem like a big deal, but it is. I’m just plain exhausted, physically and mentally, and it’s starting to show badly. As Ted so eloquently put it, I look like I’ve taken to wearing eyeshadow underneath my eyes. He knows I’ve got a ton of Lab-related correspondence to catch up on, that I’m falling behind in my Hermetic studies, and that I’ve got 27 orders at home that are still sitting on the shelf. We’re midway through rearranging the alchemy lab, and I have bottles, lab equipment, and… stuff… scattered all over the damn place. The herb garden is in dire need of a pruning, the flowers need to be weeded, and the fish tub is opaque. There’s so much I need to do, and I’m sluffing into full-blown Full Moon womanly madness, to boot…

… so Ted is pulling up my slack and giving me some time to get all this sorted out.

In other words, he’s being my Knight in Shining Armor again.

The proverbial Knight rescues a Damsel In Distress(tm) from Fire Breathing Dragons, Lofty Towers, and Terminal Sleeps. My Knight saves me from another set of double shifts and Fire Breathing Concert-Going Assholes. I love him. He covered me this morning so I could sleep in and watch my hockey game on TiVo, and now I don’t have to work tonight.

So, here I am in the office, drooling with fatigue and clutching my back, but I only have to work 4 hours today instead of 13.

To make a long story short (too late?), thinking of him and all that he does for me brought one of my favorite poems to mind. A girl never gets too old for a bout of adolescent mooning over her beloved, right?

So sweet the hour, so calm the time,
I feel it more than half a crime,
When Nature sleeps and stars are mute,
To mar the silence ev’n with lute.
At rest on ocean’s brilliant dyes
An image of Elysium lies:
Seven Pleiades entranced in Heaven,
Form in the deep another seven:
Endymion nodding from above
Sees in the sea a second love.
Within the valleys dim and brown,
And on the spectral mountain’s crown,
The wearied light is dying down,
And earth, and stars, and sea, and sky
Are redolent of sleep, as I
Am redolent of thee and thine
Enthralling love, my Adeline.
But list, O list, — so soft and low
Thy lover’s voice tonight shall flow,
That, scarce awake, thy soul shall deem
My words the music of a dream.
Thus, while no single sound too rude
Upon thy slumber shall intrude,
Our thoughts, our souls — O God above!
In every deed shall mingle, love.