When the Forces of Nature Won’t Let You Sleep.

I haven’t written for quite some time, and this is disgraceful. It’s not that I didn’t have time or subjects to write about; in fact, there has been an abundance of both. However, last night gave me a very good reason to write (and to laugh), because a series of crazy things combined together to disrupt my already strange sleeping habits.

As I think I’ve mentioned before, there is a considerable amount of wildlife in my neighborhood. Maybe not; I was going to write an article, but I was distracted from my purpose. Anyway, a few of my non-human neighbors plotted together to see just what they could do to keep me awake; at least their efforts, instead of putting me in a foul mood, cheered me up, mainly because I was able to fall right back to sleep.

I always go to bed late: it doesn’t matter how much I attempt to get to bed no later than midnight—preferably around 11:30—I never make it until about 12:30 – 1:00. Last night I was on top of the sheets (it was a bit too warm for anything more) at about 12:30 and fell straight to sleep. I was roused from my slumbers at 2:45 by the dulcet tones of my Kitty and our newest feral cat neighbor, Raccoon Cat (the name says it all) quarreling. Kitty’s voice is not very loud, but when she uses that tone of voice, smarter cats than Raccoon Cat turn around and run the other way. He didn’t and so, in order to keep them from waking up the entire neighborhood, I got up to see what the problem was. When I opened the door, Raccoon took off, but when I invited Kitty to come in, she ignored me; she had other things on her mind, as I discovered when she started jumping from one side of the cat carrier to the other: she had “cornered” (more like trapped) a mouse behind the carrier and that’s what the two cats had been arguing about.

Five minutes after returning to bed, and as I was drifting off to sleep, I heard a loud pounce as she pushed the carrier out of the way and captured her prey. I knew the capture had been made because it was followed by a series of terrified squeaks as the torture began… She’s a very good hunter and an even better torturer. Poor little mouse… Fortunately, I fell asleep again before the real fun and games began. And again, thank goodness the results of her prowess disappeared before I got up.

One would think, after this experience, that the denizens of my forest would let me get my beauty sleep, but alas! this was not to be; a few houses down one of the dogs must have had puppies and they decided to have a rather vociferous free-for-all. I felt like tearing out my hair as I listened to magnified growls, yips, out-and-out barking, and tussles as they fought among themselves. Their mother gave a warning growl and peace and quiet returned to the neighborhood until around five o’clock.

The sun was just beginning to conquer the moon when I was once again awakened by the inhabitants of our “woods”; angry chk,chk, chk, chks came, as it seemed, from under my bed. It wasn’t really, but when I heard another sound that I recognized as Big Bird, our red-tailed hawk, menacing the chker, I decided to get up and check things out. And there, to my sand-filled eyes, appeared a big fat squirrel holding one of my next-door neighbors’ tomatoes and threatening Big Bird with his ear-wrecking chatter. I said, “get out of there you stinky old tree rat” and he took off running, the tomato still hanging from his mouth.

Fortunately, this was the last disturbance or, if there were any others, I was fast asleep for the next few hours.

Have any others of you had close encounters of this sort, or similar, when you would rather have been sleeping?

 

© July 9, 2015 by Mary Purpari. All Rights Reserved. All photos taken by Mary Purpari.