I'm asleep.

That was the good part. It had been a long day and after a long day I had managed to get to bed to sleep in a way that was both satisfying and relaxing.

Life was good and quiet.

The first thing to wake me up was the dog. The dog clicking and clacking along the hardwood floor at the end of the bed. He does so because he is cold. He had his hair trimmed last week and since then he has been getting the shivers and shakes at night from being cold. I understand his pain. What annoys is that he had not deigned to join me in bed when I asked him at ten in the evening. Instead he chose to sleep on the floor in the sitting room until he was cold and then come wake me up at two am to get into bed.

Fine, I lean over the side, grab the munchie little monster, grab a pillow and roll back over to sleep. Sleep alludes me for about a half hour, until finally I start to feel myself drifting off. Which is when the dog decided he was not comfortable at my feet and decided to come sleep by my head. Which was not happening. So we fight about it for a while until he ends up back at my feet. I turn over on a different side and prepare to go back to bed. And as finally the sandman drifts in silently through a window the dog starts to snore. Then roll over. Then paw at the bed. Then roll over again. Then snore. Repeat.

I'm getting close to kicking the dog out of the bed when he finally seems to settle and go completely to sleep. His warmth and sanombulance is catching. I find myself dosing now, at three am, and soon to sleep.

My eyes close and I drift off to the sounds of the quiet city. A car passing here, or there, mostly just quiet fall night. A truck pulls up outside my window and I note it in my half wakefulness but I'm moving closer to dreaming. Then I start to wake up, thinking that it sounds like the truck has parked under my window leaving the engine running. Then another. Then another. Then a bunch of Korean guys start yelling really loudly.

"You have got to be KIDDING me." I get up, throw on a bathrobe and head into the sitting room to look out and see what is going on. I throw open the window and see not one, not two, but three, gigantic trucks parked outside my window. All with the engines running. And hoses running down the ally into someone's apartment. Apparently someone in the neighborhood was having their heating oil tank filled at four in the morning. The sound was almost deafening from the sitting room.

I went back into my bedroom. Throw the window closed. Crawled back into bed and tossed and turned and tossed trying to find some way to get back to sleep.

An hour later I have a pillow over my head. The building is still shaking from the trucks parked outside. I keep wondering when my alarm will go off.

A half an hour later I wake to the sounds of Chicago NPR. My head hurts and I'm tired.

Perfect.