Sally the Night Wanderer

Something was up with Sally last night. At least she was up. Which meant that I was up, at least more often than usual.

Sally’s usual routine is to come into the living room two or three times during the period between getting home from work and bedtime. I am usually lying on the loveseat wasting time with the Nintendo DS we gave Brian years ago and he ignored for the glitzier X-Box, leaving me to become addicted to battling mythical creatures in a tiny screen. Sally will walk over and stare at me with her eyes that are growing milky in her old age until Karen, usually reading a book on the couch perpendicular to love seat, will say, “Sally wants you, Mark.” And I get up and walk her. Since she is deaf, I usually put her on a leash so we can mutually explore the back yard. Without the leash I have to run around to get in front of her so she can see me.

Then Sally usually falls asleep next to the bed until morning when she will get up, walk around the bed to Karen’s side, wake Karen up, who will turn to me and say one word, “Sally.” So I will then get up and walk her. Why Sally does not simply wake me up, I have no idea. I don’t object to being the primary dog walker. It is the fair trade-off for the fact that I refuse to comb the two Himalayan cats…ever.

Last night was weird, however. It started with Snowball, the mother Himalayan, who sleeps on our bed, and who last night started snoring. Not a purr. It was a regular high pitched squeaky mewing, sort of like a mouse blowing into a clarinet.

But Sally just wandered all night, her toenails clicking on the hardwood floors from kitchen to bathroom to bedroom to front door to back door. I kept getting up to walk her but once outside she just stood sniffing the air and then headed back inside without leaving a drop. Sometimes I wonder what her senses are picking up that mine don’t. Some lost spirit floating around the house? Some nocturnal animal under the crawl space? Maybe she is picking up vibrations from the European financial markets that were apparently tanking even further while I was sleeping…sort of sleeping.

Anyhow, I ended up tired this morning and awake long before Bagman and Butler were stirring. I left them a message telling them we had to go to work today and they couldn’t play on blogspot as much as they did yesterday. Bagman, in particular, will be disappointed since he got all goosebumpy about being allowed to flirt a little with strangers who seemed to like him. Butler actually likes work, so he’ll be fine with me blogging about the pets rather than waiting for them to do their thing.

I must cut this short…Sally has just walked into the room again and is staring at me.