Whoosh in the Night

In the middle of the night, I hear things. The other night, it was a crash that woke me and Shane—bang—out of our sleep. Joan got up to check. Then, the sirens came. But, there are other noises that awaken us. The wind, for example. The leaves still on the ground from last fall blow across the grass and make a shhhhhhhhing sound that’s easy on the ears—not like a crash; the opposite of a crash. Shane and I wake up and pant at each other. The shhhhhhhing lulls us back to sleep.

Then, there’s the distant parkway sound—the whoooooooooshshshshsh that doesn’t stop until around three in the morning and then picks up again at around five. Every now and then some yanker with a muffler-less motorcycle wakes up the entire world, but he’s gone in no time, so we just re-close our eyes and pretend he and his noise never happened.

The strangest nighttime noise comes from the ga-yowling cats. Wow, they can sing up a storm. Sometimes they tell a story with their snarly back-throated howling. I think they’re fighting over potential love interests. The meowing starts out all sweet and pussycat nice. Then it gets loud and switches between low-pitched and high-pitched duets, so you wonder if they really are singing. Then, it gets very very thin and trembling, and you can almost hear the slow extending of their claws. They seem to be swiping at each other with their screams. Finally, you hear their little paws cutting through dry grass and weeds. Then, maybe one last meow and it’s all silent. Well, if that’s love, I’m glad I’m out of the loop. Too much effort.

Shane hurt his leg yesterday. He limps around the house. I felt bad for him until I noticed that when Joan started baking pastel de tres leches, he didn’t have any trouble fast-footing it into the kitchen in time to get a finger-full of cake batter. We know that the sounds of sifting flour and creaming butter equal a cake or batch of cookies in the making. And, when that happens, you’ve just got to be in the kitchen. Our favorite time is when Joan drops things, because that’s where the good licking happens.

Best wishes, Juno