Rough Night

Sam is visiting again, which, as you know, makes me ecstatic and makes M ... well, something other than ecstatic. Don't get me wrong: he adores Sam. The two of them (along with Pat, Sam's owner) have been on a number of extended camping/paddling trips together and he's pretty used to her hogging all the spare room in the tent.

That said, Sam occasionally brings out M's allergies, which can be pretty hard-core when it comes to animals, although more with cats than dogs. (When we visit Addie, Mike and Laura in Seattle, he's usually spends the entire time toked up on Sudafed because of the cats. I, on the other hand, am always thrilled for the chance to commune with Frida.) But if you have animal allergies, you know that sometimes they really get you, and sometimes, with particular animals, they're not so bad. Usually, the latter is what happens when Sam comes to visit.

In fact, M has had a good enough allergy experience the last few times she's visited that he lets her sleep in the bed with us. :) Let me give credit where it's due: this is clearly not something he would choose to do on his own, and I absolutely recognize that he allows this to happen only because I get deliriously happy about falling asleep while snuggling a puppy -- and M wants me to be happy. And I know it's a sacrifice for him: Not only does Sam sometimes bring out his allergies, but she also snores and, at least once a night, her tail really gets going (maybe she's dreaming about something happy?), which results in a lot of whapwhapwhapwhap at 4:00 in the morning. But M has put up with all of this so far to let me fall asleep with my arms around Sam, and I'm totally grateful.

Unfortunately, I think that's all about to come to an end. Last night was evidently the "perfect storm" when it comes to sleeping with Sam -- and I mean that partly literally. We had a crazy thunderstorm in the middle of the night that Sam and I managed to sleep through, but M didn't -- partly because his allergies were acting up, partly due to the noise of the storm, and partly due to the combination of doggie snores and whapwhapwhapwhap. I woke up this morning to find that M had spent several hours attempting to sleep on the sofa before giving up altogether (I didn't even realize he'd left the bed, because Sam had appropriated his entire side of our California king).

"You doing okay?" I asked when I bumped into him in the hallway around 6:00 this morning.

"Yeah," he answered, "but I think you and Sam are sleeping in the Blue Room tonight."

Well, fair enough.