The Night

It was early in the morning, I am not sure what time, because I did not want to look at my watch, that lights up like ET. Nor did I want to try and read the bedside clock. I realized my breathing, due to congestion, was not soundless, but I did not think it was too loud. My wife thought otherwise. She got up to leave the bedroom and go downstairs. This is a story of what she does at night.

The next morning as I woke up tired from her leaving the bed. She disrupted the nice cocoon of hot air around my body, which made it difficult to fall back to sleep. She went downstairs, and it turns out she was wide awake. The next morning she simply stated I was snoring too much. I will admit I am not as quiet a breather as she is, in part due to cartilage that was removed from nose surgery years after I suffered a few broken noses playing football. I did not get the surgery until I was married, because, well, my breathing kept my wife awake. Apparently, it still does. She has, however, been a light sleeper. I would get home late from Tuesday meetings, often early Wednesday morning and she would have woken up with the garage door being opened, or the door from the garage to the house. I am sure it was not my clodhopper feet which have gotten almost a size bigger since I retired. I realize that my loss of height is going to my feet.

But, this is not about changes in the physical body. While awake she made mental notes of what she would have to do the next day. My takeaway is that my breathing assisted her in her chores for the next day, providing an ability to make mental notes of what she would have to do.  Being a Land Girl, she got right to the tasks that morning. They were probably all finished within a half hour.  I like to think I made her more productive and I should probably be thanked for having woken her up with what she defines as snoring. I think I was in twilight zone, and the snoring was just some heavy breathing.  

One time when she was pregnant, so many years ago, and could not sleep, her nesting instinct kicked in and she made many jars of apple pie filling. I guess this shows I am a sound sleeper because I did not hear anything. She also has tendency to hear weird noises in the walls or in the fire place. I tend to think it is an animal or two on the roof. Although, I do have to admit some noises sound awfully close. I did see a mouse coming out of a corner piece of siding years ago, and since then have placed stainless steel wool in the bottom of the corner pieces. At times, she complains about noises in the chimney and I have even gone outside to examine, and the next day up on the roof to check the flu for the chimney, only of course to notice everything is intact. 

She can be rather funny when going to sleep. At one point she is covered up and twenty minutes later maybe the sheet is left as a cover. She pushes the covers off, then will complain that I pulled them all to my side, when I insist she pushed them on to me, and I pushed them further off. She produces much more heat than I do at night, and perhaps that is one reason why I could not get back to sleep. Not only did she disturb my cocoon of heat, but my furnace went away. All I have to do, is just lift the covers from between us to allow her body heat to flow over. She is that way when walking. A few times in the past few weeks she would get back from her walk and talk about how nice it is outside, only for me to then go biking, and wonder how biking in cold and damp 25+ mph wind is nice. Tuesday was a good example, it was 23 degrees with a windchill of eight above, and she talked about how nice it was on her walk with the neighbor ladies, except, she said, in Lewis Park by Lower Mud Lake. I decided to bike indoors.

What is cold to one is not cold to another, and of course biking at over 12 mph and closer to 15 mph, on average, has a much different effect on the body than a walk at four or five mph. Even though we are not moving in bed, I toss and turn much more than she does, she is the one who gets too hot. I think her body just produces too much heat, in other words, I have a hot wife. One never knows what occurs with my wife at night. Downstairs making lists, making pie filling, getting upset over animal noises she says she hears on the walls. The night is simply a different time. We now have much longer nights as we approach the winter solstice and I wait her next night time finding.