Oversleeping

This morning I woke up twice. Once at 4:45 am and once at 7:00 am. At 4:45 am I checked my phone and noticed that I had about 30 more minutes to sleep and resolved to lying still in bed between sleep and wakefulness until my alarm sounded.

At 7:00 am I awoke with a start. We leave for the field at 6:30 am and today was only the second full field day for the Western Argolid Regional Project’s 2015 field season. When I realized I was late, I panicked, put on my field clothes and rushed to the door of my room. My half-groggy mind imagined that somehow people might be waiting or that I could catch a ride with the last car or that maybe – just maybe – my phone was showing the wrong time. 

Unfortunately, I was greeted by an empty parking lot and a light drizzle that slowly turned into the kind of depressing rain that appears during emotionally demanding scenes in 1980s movies. For the first time in my life, I had missed field work because I had overslept. 

Apparently, the project director rang my doorbell and tried to rouse me to no avail. There was some other chaos as teams tried to organize themselves on the second day. And the teams headed out to the field just slightly behind schedule. 

I was left behind to stew in the realization that our project was sound enough to survive a little chaos and my august role of “Assistant to the Directors” was probably less than completely vital on most field days. So, I decided to spend the rest of my unexpected morning off reading about the Frankish, Venetian, and Ottoman Argolid in preparation for our first round of field trips to Argos and Lerna.