It surprises me to be able to say that since leaving college one of the things I enjoy most on the weekends is sleeping in, but not sleeping in too much. I was never like some of my friends who could, and would easily sleep until 4 or 5 in the afternoon. But more often than not I wouldn't get up until about 1 or 2. I love that now, on the weekends, I can wake up at 9 and feel like I've been great and wondrous gift of an extra hour and a half of sleep. Actually making a concerted effort to get six or more hours of sleep a night has made this seem reasonable.
This morning I awoke after being up far later last night than I have been in weeks. And by far later what I really mean is 2:30am. I wasn't doing anything interesting, I was recovering from the adrenaline rush of trying to fix a crisis that arose at work. It involved airplanes and airports in New York and possibly Homeland Security and I can probably blame President George W. Bush for the fact that I was up until 2:30am. I'm gonna roll with that unless I find out on Monday that it was someone else's fault.
Anyway, what caused me to wake up at the same time this morning that I do every other day of the week? A strange crashing sound out my window (which, despite a "freezing warning" was open because I live on the third floor of my house, and we all learned in kindergarten or something that heat rises... so it's freezing down in the kitchen, and a tropical resort in my room). I bleary-eyed looked out the window and could make no sense of the situation. And then I remembered that I've worn glasses for the last ten years of my life, and making visual sense of the world below would be aided by actually putting them on my face. And then I saw the dog.
Far below on the sidewalk was a dog I have noticed in my neighborhood before. I notice this dog because in an age of Human Societies, and a concerted effort to reduce the population of mutts in the world, it is very rare to see a.... shall I say, "intact" dog. But intact he is. Independent of his anatomical correctness, the dog looks sort of like a cross between a greyhound and a great dane. He has the height and face of a great dane, but the body and build of a greyhound. Anyway. The glorious sound that brought me out of slumber at 7:30 this morning, the crashing of metal against metal was caused by this dog.
Two cars, swerving to avoid the dog? Someone distracted by his dangling bits, crashing into a lightpole?
Nay my friends. The dog’s owner had tied him to a wrought iron patio chair, and apparently the dog had decided he no longer wanted to be where he was, and so he left. But he took the chair with him, because you never really know when you will need a nice patio chair. And as he was running with his freedom down the glorious streets of North West Washington DC he came to an abrupt stop. His buddy, the chair, had become intractably lodged underneath the creepy black van parked outside my house.
This was when I began observing the scene. Uncomprehending, and still reminding my eyes of how to focus in order for my brain to process information, I saw a giant dog and a creepy black van outside my house. And like any good neighbor I stayed in my warm, cozy bed and opened the window a little wider. After a moment I heard the frantic calls of the dog’s person. Having recently spent untold hours calling for a reluctant animal who is doing what he oughtn't, I felt a twinge of guilt for not pulling on some sort of clothing and going out to assist the guy (at this point I didn't quite understand why the dog couldn't freely continue on his jaunt to the great dog park of freedom). But I'm kind of intimidated by any dog owner who, for whatever reason, does not "fix" his dog.
Guy arrived, dog was disentangled from creepy black van, and guy, firmly scolding the dog, retreated, chair in tow.
And, at 7:35 this morning I was in my cozy bed, with two small cats curled around me, observing this poor man's misfortune, and empathizing. From my warm cozy bed. If i stayed up all night and slept until 2pm I would never get to see these things.
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