Monday, April 12, 2010

Stupid Little Dog

I will, in a few weeks, likely feel like laughing about last night's sleep.  But today I definitely do not.

I haven't said a lot here about life at Grandma's but it's been really, really hard.  There are lots of reasons for this, most of which are not yet fair game for public discussion, but one of the reasons is my intense sensitivity to spiritual activity.  Because it turns out that her house has some uniquely dark spiritual stuff going on.  Which means I mostly haven't slept well in the month and a half or so that I've been living there.  Nightmares, weird encounters, odd wakings.  These have been the stuff of life for me.  Something pouncing on me in the night has never been benign, and it's been noticeably bad in this house.

Grandma has a stupid little dog named Teddy.  Teddy has only once in the time that I've lived there dared to come downstairs and slip into my room.  (I don't have a bedroom door, just a curtain that doesn't reach the floor, so it's easy for her to get in if she wants.)

Last night I was actually sleeping.  Deeply.  For the first time in weeks.  And the stupid little dog, who is black, and silent, snuck downstairs at one in the morning, slipped under the curtain, and pounced on me.  Waking me from a sound sleep, and throwing me into an adrenaline rushing panic.

And then she wouldn't leave my bedroom.  I had to chase her out.

Her odd behaviour made me wonder if she'd come to get me because something was wrong with grandma, so I grabbed my cell phone and trekked upstairs.  Nope.  Sleeping soundly.

I was just nicely calming myself out of the adrenaline rush and panic, when the stupid little thing managed to slip back downstairs and under the curtain without me noticing, planting herself by my bed and breathing heavily.  Hello adrenaline.

That time I yelled at her, and she went running.

Moments later, I heard banging around upstairs, grabbed my phone again, grumpily crawled out of bed, and trekked upstairs.  There was grandma, standing in the kitchen, waiting.  Seems Teddy had needed to make a trip outside and decided I'd be the convenient one to wake.

I'm trying to figure out how to puppy proof my door-less bedroom.  Because that kind of startled waking cannot keep happening.

It's bad enough to deal with the odd spiritual stuff.  I really don't need to add a stupid little dog to the mix.

Puppy-proofing will be the first order of business tonight.

(And, I might add, that none of this would happen if Grandma would just close her bedroom door when she sleeps - then Teddy would be in with her, and I wouldn't have to worry about sneak attacks when I'm sound asleep.)

It took 3 hours for the adrenaline to wear off and sleep to return.  Just enough time to catch an hour or so before I had to get up.

In a few weeks, this might be funny.  Right now, it's still making me growl.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

A baby gate or a piece of plywood or chipboard or even foam board would do it I would think since it sounds like she's little...I did that to keep Kiki out of the front of the house b/c of my art pieces, etc. (Although mine is more permanent than you'd need, you could probably lean it against it and that would do it.

Lisa said...

yep... all of those things are good possibilities. Though, Grandma says that she will block her bedroom door to keep the dog in. (I think she was pretty embarrassed that Teddy came down twice and scared me so badly, especially since she knows I don't sleep well and was actually sleeping last night!)