Even in my quiet neighborhood...

... the evening/nighttime/early morning sounds have increased lately. There is a cat in heat who prefers to make love in the privacy of my back yard, just below my bedroom window. At 3:30 a.m., the city hall alarm goes off every morning. Sometimes it lasts 30 seconds, sometimes 30 minutes. During a ferocious migraine I called the police department and demanded an explanation. "The cleaning crew sets it off", she explained without offering any future relief. All I can think, is that this town better have the most germ-free government in the history of the world.

The train which runs across a mile or so of track delivering something - raw peanuts or bricks, I think - has a conductor who sits on the air horn with a vengeance. This begins around 7 a.m. And now somebody has a sad puppy who barks relentlessly when night falls. The same dog has also learned to howl along with the morning train, as well as to police and ambulance sirens.

And then there are the squirrels who recently moved back into my attic for the season. In the evening I believe that they jog in place just above my bed, perhaps to keep in shape after eating too many pecans, the same nuts which have been bouncing off my metal roof for weeks now.

Then the neighborhood chicken usually starts scratching around the grass at dawn.

Other than the air horn enthusiast and the janitors who can't figure out how to switch off an alarm, I usually don't mind the other sounds. At least they are Evidence of Nature, if you can count the house pets.

I only write this down because I couldn't sleep last night. And all I can seem to think of are all the little disturbances which remind me that the universe is alive and well and there's a bunch of living, breathing creatures happy to make a racket whenever they feel like it. And, whether or not I am in the mood to listen, nature's cacophony is good.

NTD