July 20, 2022
Are we being attacked?
Was it the afternoon cup of coffee? The small diet Coke with my supper sandwich at the park concert? Although I didn’t feel agitated, I could not get to sleep. I tried the three controlled breaths and slow breathing. Nope. Sitting up in bed, I played a couple of mindless games on my iPad before settling in with the book “The Woman in the Window,” a thriller which kept me awake more than tiring me.
Attempting to sleep again, I lay down, slow breathing, pretending to be sleepy. Suddenly around 2:00, the wall outside our room vibrated as something swiped noisily across our window. Four-wheelers on the tiny canal behind the house? The windows and walls continued to rattle repeatedly. Mike rose, looked out the door, and announced that it was the sprinkler which the homeowner had worked on that day. It was directed at our end of the house rather than the lawn. I retreated to the relatively quiet living room for more reading; Mike found a spot in another bedroom. The disturbance continued for about one hour, but I didn’t return to bed for another two hours.
We stayed home that day, having misunderstood or been misinformed about another riverside concert which takes place on Thursdays, not Wednesday. I finished the book. Landlady, H, came over with her lovely 12-year-old daughter to address an issue with the television and replace the malfunctioning coffeemaker. She apologized for the sprinkler and listened patiently as Mike explained the problem which he had analyzed earlier. Supper was a chicken salad with blueberry vinaigrette made with raspberry preserves rather than blueberry. Alas, I miscalculated the proportions making the salad much sweeter than it should have been.
Exhausted by the previous sleepless night, I immediately went to sleep after “Midsomer Murders”, sleeping well all night with only one potty break. There is nothing like a full night’s sleep to prepare one for a day of lounging.
