Day 87: Morse Code

Tonight, send a message in Morse code from your window.  See if anyone responds.

This was a fairly simple task. I wake up anywhere from four to nine billion times in a night so a couple of days ago I looked up a Morse Code translator  and saved a quick message to my phone.  Saturday night was a tough night for me what with the freaky dream and impending hormonal meltdown so when I woke up Saturday night it didn’t seem like the right time to bang out a This Book Will Change Your Life challenge.  And for some reason I had made up my mind that this would be a late night missive.  I think everything that happens in the middle of the night is open to greater interpretation.  No one plays Bloody Mary or Light as  Feather Stiff as a Board (with any success anyway) in the middle of the day.   Where is the fun in that?

Sunday night I woke up several times.  My neighbors across the parking lot  had decided that Sunday, the night before the first full day of school, would be a most excellent night to sit on the porch and drink cognac and listen to their car stereos.  And since I hadn’t saved the Morse Code message “For fuck’s sake, can you turn down the bass!” or “Remy Martin from a brandy snifter beats the shit out of Hennessy from an orange juice glass!!” I didn’t really have an appropriate message planned out.  On the off chance they even heard my message, tapped out on my bedroom window.  But really…. if you were ever inclined to think someone was sending you a Morse code message –  half lit on cheap cognac and three blunts deep is the time.

(And lest you think I am being presumptuous with regards to their choice of beverage, our walk to the bus stop takes us right past my neighbor’s recycling bin.  They make keep late hours and have little regard for potential noise violations, but they seem to take their recycling quite seriously.)

So, Monday night.  It was on.  I hopped in bed with MQD at a reasonable hour. Fish snuggled between us both, his head in MQD’s armpit.  I read for a short while, the snoring from their side of the bed a kind of lullaby, I quickly decided to hit the hay.  It usually takes me in the neighborhood of 45 minutes to fall asleep but last night I was out by about 9:30.

Pregnancy Wake Up Round One was not until almost 1 am.  Almost a full four hour sleep cycle, who is the luckiest girl!!??

Standard routine:  Wake up, assess need to pee.  Need to pee is urgent.  Wiggle feet around until I am free from the shackles of dogs and cats sleeping on the blankets between my legs and stumble in to the bathroom.   Pee.  Flush. (This is a change to the routine.  (We were formerly an “If it’s yellow let it mellow household”  but the cat pee frenzy of 2011 has put a temporary ban on that plan.)  Throw the animals out of the bed.  Reclaim some bedding and my Snoopy if MQD was sneaky enough to snag it.  Assess level of sleepiness.    Check email or read RSS feeds.  Listen to a chapter of current audio book if that doesn’t do the trick.

Last night’s routine:  Wake up, assess need to pee.  Need to pee is urgent.  Note that Fisher is still in the middle of the bed.  Quick trip to the bathroom, throw the animals out of the bed.  Wide awake.  Remember I am not listening to any kind of a book right now and wonder what I am going to do to kill time for the next half an hour.    Remember the Morse Code message.

(600+ words later and I got to the point of my story!  Record time, Kelly.)

..  .-.. — …- .  -.– — ..- I tap out on the window.  Morse Code for “I love you.”  A good positive message to send out to the Universe.

I waited, let my mind wander.  Mentally wrote an outline for this scintillating post in my head.  And just before I fell back to sleep.  BOOM!  That incredibly loud one note blast of a sound that I generally associate with a big power generator blowing or a single clap of thunder.  As I wondered to myself if that was Universe Morse Code shorthand for “Go Fuck Yourself” I got distracted.

……………  Tap tap tap tap tap tap tap, parental Morse Code for tiny kid woken from sound sleep by loud ass noise hauling ass down the stairs to your bedroom.  “Mom?”

I pulled my covers back.  She climbed in.  The Universe did not respond to my message exactly as I had hoped.  But I got a late night snuggle with a little lady that is growing up way too fast for my liking.  So, I am calling Day 87 a success.

Emily June, six weeks old. You know the sappy hormonal woman is going through old pictures lately, right? That was predictable.