Last Night

This entry has little to do with food, but my night was so strange, I'm posting it. :-]

Last night was bizarre. Friday night I went to bed at 12ish, read a bit, and surprised myself by sleeping until 10:30. Whoa! Saturday was a normal night’s rest. But last night was memorable. We went to bed at 11, but as I settled in with the window open I heard some action outside—two sounds: loud rattling like someone shaking a tin can full of marbles or getting ready to spray paint, and the sound of hard plastic rolling on pavement. I could have sworn it was a kid on a Big Wheel. Remember how noisy those are? This thing seemed to be going up and down in the street, which, of course, no one would let a little kid do in the daytime, much less late at night. It was such a weird combo of voices, rattles, and Big Wheels rolling that I got up to investigate.

I felt pretty brave going outside without Steve home. It was dark, so I couldn’t see the thing, but I could clearly hear it. I don’t know if “it” or “they” saw me, or were headed off anyway, but as I walked toward the intersection, it went west, past our house and the neighbors’ and up the street. I could tell its movement clearly from the sound but never did glimpse even a shadow of movement. It was so weird, like chasing down one of CS Lewis’s Dufflepuds. Emma had heard it too, and she also came out to the corner where I was standing puzzled.

“What’s that?” she asked pointing to a little light glowing two-thirds of the way across the pavement, toward Bella’s house. I had seen it, even from the bedroom window, but my vision being what it is, just thought it was a reflection. Now it looked bright and obvious. Since the Big Wheels had receded into the night and there was no traffic or other sign of life, we walked out into the street to satisfy our curiosity at least on one point.

Sure enough, it was a tiny light bulb. Emma bumped it with her toe, then bravely picked it up. It was a single light sitting in the middle of a disc. We had no idea where it came from or what it was for. Em set it on the side of the road and, mystified, we walked back to the house arm-in-arm. The night was quiet . . . for about thirty minutes.

At 12:30 I was maybe starting to doze when Jesse rang the bell to go out. Forget it, Dog! But a minute later he was whining at the bottom of the stairs. Sigh. I got up and put him out swearing that henceforth, it was warm enough for him to be put outside for the night when we went to bed. Annoying dog.

The big thunder, lightening, rain, and wind rolled in at 1. I listened to it, but did not go offer to let Jess back inside. I started to wonder why I wasn’t sleeping. I had not OD’d on dark chocolate, nor had any strong tea tonig . . . . Ah. Wait a sec. My boss and I went to the “soft opening” of a Thai student’s new restaurant. Wonderful food! And a tall, delicious glass of green tea frappe. That must be it. I had no thought of caffeine as I happily guzzled that drink to the last drop. With that memory I started to wonder how I was going to be sure and wake up in time in the morning assuming I eventually did go to sleep. At 8:45 a.m. my bus would come right by where we’d left the tiny light. That’s when I started fiddling with the alarm clock. I must have pushed buttons on that thing for ten minutes, but no action or combination could get the alarm off its 5:30 a.m. setting. Great. I decided to just let it wake me up at 5:30 and then set the nap button for 90 minutes. Good plan. Light off. Head back to pillow. Good night, world.

You won’t believe this, but maybe half hour later at 2ish my cell phone’s low battery signal sounded. At this point I’m starting to wonder if God wants me to get up and pray. After plugging the phone in, I fall back into bed and do pray—I may have prayed for you—but it’s drowsy, lazy prayer. Again it is a half hour or so until the next event of the night is upon me: a second wave of thunderstorm. That was maybe 2:30 or 3.

Finally I went to sleep after the second storm, but, sometime before four I woke up from a bad dream, made worse by the fact that I couldn’t remember the details of it. So, maybe it’s Satan not God who doesn’t want me to sleep tonight?

At 5:30 the alarm clock dutifully goes off; I turn the nap alarm on as planned and ninety minutes later it gets me up for the day. At least I didn’t oversleep. Yes, this is a true story and, no, I don’t usually have such problems with sleeping. I hope for better tonight if I can stay awake long enough to go to bed on time. Life is strange.