Night Noises

     It's too noisy to sleep in our bedroom. Since I've had this cold I'm really tired, so you'd think it would be easy to fall asleep, but I keep hearing this squeaking sound. And kind of a whistling. You know those paper New Year's Eve horns that roll up and down? Like that. Or there is a mouse right under my pillow. But, wait. It's  even closer than that!  It's my nose! Or, more accurately, my sinuses. Holding my breath doesn't work out too well. Neither does holding my nose. How the heck are you supposed to get away from a noise when it is you??
     And then I lay there worrying that I'm keeping Dennis awake with the Sinus's Seventh Symphony. He is asleep pretty soon, though. I can tell by his breathing. You would think that he would be a snorer, but he's really not. Oh, sometimes a little bit, but not like some people that you can hear two houses away. He claims that I am the one who snores, but we know that couldn't be possible from a dainty little (stop smirking!) old lady like me. Okay, I have woken myself up with a snort or two a couple of times, but I would never admit it to Dennis, and you don't need to blab, either.
     Gus, the Wonder Yorkie, is the one who snores the most. He sleeps on the foot of our bed.This is the dog who sits on my lap while I'm watching television at night and I will almost wet my pants to keep from getting up and disturbing him when he's comfortable. He doesn't snore then. Sometimes I kick his pillows to rouse him just a tiny bit so he will turn over. But it takes me a long time to decide to do it. So I just lay there. Listening to my nose. It's probably Gus who Dennis is hearing when he thinks I'm snoring.
     What Dennis does in his sleep that cracks me up is, he chuckles. I wish I knew what was so funny. Sometimes he talks a little bit but not enough to really understand him, even though I try. I guess he's telling himself jokes. It's pretty likely I've heard them all more than few times before, anyway. You probably have too. Come to think of it, maybe some of his really weird jokes are ones he just "dreamed up."  Years ago.
     When we first got married he talked in his sleep and it was loud and clear.  He wasn't used to having anyone else in the bed and he must have felt crowded because we had not been married a week when he said in a very stern voice, "You are going to have to learn to stay out of my armpit!" I looked to see if we were going to have our first fight, but he was sound asleep. Or at least he pretended to be.
     If noise is coming from somewhere else in the house it is at least possible to deal with. When the boys were teen-agers and we went to bed before they did, after the third, "Quiet down out there!", we often turned on the fan even when it wasn't hot so the "white noise" would drown out a lot of the commotion in the living room. 
     And here is my hint if you have a drippy faucet: put a sponge underneath the drip and you won't hear it. I don't know what to tell you about the neighbor's dog who whines all night. When we had that happen I asked my neighbor if she had heard a baby crying in the neighborhood. Turns out it was her dog and they did move it to another place or something. Really. I thought it was a baby. It was a total mystery to me how she assumed it was her dog.
     Until this cold is over I'll just have to keep trying new things. Tonight I'm going to try to breathe in a rhythm. I'm hoping it will at least be kind of a lullaby. Eventually I'm sure I'll fall asleep.  It will be just an hour before it is time to get up.