A Bad Country Song Entitled: Another Sleepless Night.

So last night the hubster comes to bed about 11:15- I’m already upstairs with the ice bag, still working on the WIP, and he says, “I have to get up real early, like 5:50, to get Jake out for a walk and make it to my meeting in Oakland on time.”

And I’m like- “Seriously? It’s still dark at 5:50 (especially now that daylight savings time has begun) and Jake will be asleep.”

And he’s like- “But I gotta because you can’t walk him.”

We kind of went back and forth like that, with me saying I’m taking him to puppy camp tomorrow because I have my first physical therapy appointment and the yard guys are coming and yadda yadda yadda.

And then Jake appears with his glow-in-the-dark chewy ball and he drops it in my lap because he wants me to toss it across the room. I toss it over to his bed and tell him to go to sleep.

Oscar turns out the lights and he’s gone in less than 60 seconds, meanwhile the dog is chewing so loudly on his ball it sounds like there’s a herd of goats in the room and the ball is glowing, not glowing, glowing, not glowing, depending upon the state of his chewing. It’s as bright as a flashlight. Seizure material. And then the dog stands up and starts shaking his head and scratching his right ear like crazy. I can tell it’s his right ear because thanks to the glow of the ball it’s like daylight in my room.

Is that a moon? No it’s a dog ball.

It suddenly dawns on me that he’s been shaking his head a lot over the past couple days. I figure he’s got swimmer’s ear from playing in the puddles when Oscar takes him over to the wilderness park.

So I get out of bed and examine his ear. He cries, which of course confirms my suspicions.

So I head down to the kitchen, open the back door to let him out, and start throwing everything out of the medicine cabinet because I know somewhere in its murky depths is some ear medicine. By god. And then the cat meows and wants me to let him out the front door because he hates to exit via his cat door. Entering is fine. Exiting is a no-no in his mind. So I carry the cat to the front, let him outside, and return to my search. The dog comes in, sees what I’m doing, sees what I’m holding in my hand, and high-tails it up the stairs where I find him- eventually- half on-half off my bed. The half on part of the dog is on Oscar’s chest. Oscar, who can sleep through anything, is snoring away, but I can’t get the dog down in order to squirt the medicine in his ear without squirting Oscar too.

So I make my way back downstairs, retrieve Jake’s house collar, which tells him it’s time to pay attention, and I lead him into the guest bathroom where there’s better lighting. I put the medicine in his ear and massage it around, so he, of course, must run all over the house shaking his head, trying to get the medicine back out.

I put the medicine away, tell the dog to go to sleep, and climb back into bed. The next thing I know, there’s a big dog lying on top of me. He never gets into bed until Oscar gets out in the morning, but apparently he’s in need of comfort, so I spend an hour petting him and trying not to either suffocate because there’s a ninety pound dog on me or re-injure my knee. Finally he jumps off the bed and retrieves his ball and we begin the cycle all over again. Chew shake. Chew shake. Then he jumps onto Oscar’s chest again, half on-half off. Then he walks to my side of the bed and bats at it repeatedly until I get up and let him outside again.

Then I see his water dish is empty so I refill it. At last we go back upstairs. I get into bed, Jake lays down on the floor on Oscar’s side. Ten minutes later he huffs and puffs and moves over to my side. Then it’s back to Oscar’s. Then mine. Then Oscar’s. Then he bats my side of the bed until I get up and let him outside again. And then he sits in the middle of the kitchen and gives me a significant look. Mind you, it is now 3 a.m. So I get a bowl and the storage container of Life Cereal and I make him a bowl of cereal. I’m out of milk so he gets heavy cream. He licks the bowl clean and follows me upstairs. Jumps half-way onto Oscar’s chest. Oscar mumbles something but I don’t think he’d wake up if his life depended upon it.

I’m starting to wonder if the problem is that we are about due for an earthquake because despite his boundless supply of energy, if there’s one thing Jake’s good at, and always has been good at, it’s sleeping through the night.

But no, no earthquake, at least nothing I could detect. Must just be the ear.

At last Jake climbs off Oscar and begins again with the huffing and the puffing and the moving from place to place. At 5 a.m. I take a pain pill just because. At 5:50 Oscar’s alarm goes off and he hops out of bed.

“What a great night’s sleep,” he says.

This is when one needs a baseball bat. Jake has finally crashed and I am so not with the program. I think Jake’s the one who needed the pain pill. I’m singing the blues-

Another Sleepless Night In Napa.