2002-09-24 2:25 PM

Bedtime... Or Not

9:30 PM: It looks like for once I'm going to get enough sleep. I settle into bed with a book and relax.

10:00 PM: Lights out, I snuggle down into the covers and anticipate a blissful night of sleep. TheCat is on hand to watch over me and make sure that happens.

10:15 PM: Too hot. Turn up the fan, crawl back into bed, wad the covers up around my ear to block the noise.

10:30 PM: Still too hot. Turn fan down, open curtains up to improve airflow. Doze.

10:45 PM: Toss. Doze.

11:15 PM: Turn. Doze. Cat huffs off in disgust.

11:30 PM: TheBoy shows up. Doze.

11:45 PM: A lot of noise coming from outside. It sounds like the neighbors are having a party. There are occasional bursts of laughter and choruses of "Ohhhh!" Apparently they're watching the drunk equivalent of Video Catnip, or America's Drunkiest Home Videos, or something, since it's too late for football to be on. TheBoy pipes up, "Oh, a second night in a row?" Apparently I managed to sleep through it last night -- but it looks like that's not going to happen now.

12:00: The drunks wake me up again.

12:10 AM: And again.

12:20 AM: And again.

12:30 AM: TheBoy convinces me that charging out in to the neighborhood to track down a noisy drunk party and yell at them to shut their fucking yaps already because some of us need to sleep might not be the best plan of action.

12:40 AM: Remember that calling the cops won't be effective since I can't tell them exactly where to go. Also remember the (lack of) seriousness with which the police dispatchers treated a potential domestic violence situation when friend A. called it in, and realize that it would be even more of a waste of time to call in a party. Toss, turn, seethe.

1:00 AM: Is that my pager going off?

1:05 AM: !#$!*($# !#(!*$#@ *!(#$*1$!$(!#*4!!!

1:07 AM: Stub toe on the cat, who's decided that the best place to position herself is right in the path between my bed and my computer.

1:10 AM: Dial in to work, restart software on 2 of a group of 4 troublesome machines. While I wait for the other two to go toes-up, a coworker logs in, rewrites the program in a programming language he has just created on the spot, optimizing it for precisely the conditions under which the program crashed, teaches himself proper QA methodology, tests it himself through 3 QA cycles, and deploys it to every live system in the company.

1:30 AM: Feeling utterly inadequate, I slink back to bed and reclaim all my proper share of the covers.

1:40 AM: TheBoy starts snoring. I pet his back in an effort to get him to stop. It works, mostly.

2:00 AM: One of the drunks heads for their bathroom, which from the sound of it faces onto the alleyway, and starts barfing noisily. Thank goodness -- that means the party's winding down and maybe I can get some sleep.

2:30 AM: Drunk noise, but less of it. Ahhhh.

2:31 AM: TheCat starts yowling and bouncing off the walls.

2:45 AM: TheCat, having gotten her ya-yas out, settles down on the bed as if nothing had ever been wrong.

11 AM: The Boss wanders into our office, casually asks how I'm doing. Words cannot express.

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