On Sleep and Devices Run Amok

 LUCY BURDETTE: I should preface this by reminding/telling you that I am a terrible sleeper. Anything wakes me up and I have a devil of a time returning to sleep. A couple of weeks ago, John’s watch erupted in the night. OMG, what awful emergency had happened? The watch reported: “Your activity ring is almost closed. A ten-minute brisk walk would finish the job.”

This is 2 am people! I don’t know about you, but getting a message about taking a brisk walk at 2 AM does not seem like a worthy emergency to me. We had a few words to make sure he had turned the alerts off and I struggled back to sleep. 

Not long after, the watch piped up again. “Now would be a good time to unwind. Sit in a comfortable position that’s relaxing. Close your eyes if that’s comfortable. Find something close to you. Notice the little details.”

There was something close to him all right—me—but noticing the details of my outrage wasn’t going to help him unwind!

I think we’ve sorted that out and he’s made sure that nighttime conversation with his watch is off-limits. Do you have a watch or other device that you rely on, that sometimes runs amok? How are you sleeping?

HALLIE EPHRON: That’s crazy–and the device doesn’t  even have a sense of humor. 

Lucy, I feel for you. Sleep is so crucial. Sometimes I have a terrible time getting back to sleep, watching the minutes tick by from 2 … to 3… to 4. And I canNOT ignore a phone ping. After having had my credit card number stolen several times, I have my bank account set to alert me whenever the card is charged, and if I forget to turn off the ringer overnight, then those pings wake me up. Why, oh why, does the Washington Post need to charge my credit card at three in the morning??

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Oh, poor you, Lucy. I have trouble getting to sleep, but once out I'm not all that prone to waking up again. HOWEVER, Rick gets text messages, usually from the weather service, and sometimes from friends who don't seem to realize that texts are not emails… But since I'm deaf in one ear, I try to sleep on the GOOD ear and that gives me my own personal noise-canceling device.

JENN McKINLAY: I don’t own a watch and we keep our cell phones out of the bedroom. And, honestly, I’m a champion sleeper. Once I shut my eyes I’m out for 6-7 hours and can sleep through anything. When the Hooligans were teenagers, they threw late night pool parties. I had NO IDEA until a neighbor mentioned it. Ha! Those scamps. If I do get woken up, I can shut my eyes and go right back to sleep. I don’t dream, either. I’m a weirdo, I know.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN; Oh my golly, I remember when I first got my new phone, before the pandemic, I was in a hotel room, one of those times where plane is at 6 AM, which means you have to get up at 4 AM, and the whole thing is terrible, so I went to sleep really early, like 830. I t was ridiculous, and I must’ve gotten ten million billion texts. And they all pinged. Everything pinged. Once or twice I can handle, but ping, ping, ping ping ping ping ping--argh,you can’t believe it.

I almost threw the phone across the room.  Problem was, I had not learned how to silence all the notifications without silencing the alarm. Is there even a way to do that?  But I’ve got to tell you, tossing the phone out the window would’ve happened had there been a window that opened. I was awake, anyway, and zombied to the airport.

When Jonathan takes his hearing aids out, he can’t hear his own phone ping during the night, but I certainly do. I guess the good news is I can always instantly go back to sleep after I wake up for that sort of thing. It’s annoying, but isn’t life-changing.  (I guess my brain says, oh, that’s okay, and goes back to sleep.)

Also, my husband always forgets to take his pills, so I have alarms set everywhere to remind him.  I also set an alarm to remind him after he ignored the first reminder. The alarm is at 9 PM .

We usually have dinner around nine, too. So every night at nine, the microwave beeps, the sous vide beeps, the oven timer beeps, the Alexa beeps with the reminder, and then Alexa beeps again with the reminder about the reminder. 

Plus, the Alexa  does not listen to me. Does not respond to my voice when I say “Alexa stop!”  So, in addition to all the pings and alarms,  there’s also me yelling. It’s quite the moment. 

RHYS BOWEN:  I’m a really light sleeper. This comes after four kids woke as babies, then had bad dreams, then came in late as teenagers. John can creep across the room and I’m awake. And find it hard to get back to sleep. I’ve started turning off my phone because every political candidate in the world texts me at night. So annoying.

If I fall asleep at the perfect time I sleep well. If I watch a movie until eleven my brain is wide awake again. If I wake in the middle of the night my brain immediately kicks into full creative mode: that scene you just wrote … how about if the dialog went like this….. and I dream all the time. Vivid, interesting dreams. Rarely nightmares these days…

 

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Lucy, I had the same thing happen when I first got my Fitbit - evidently it was refurbished in Hawai'i because it kept giving me messages based on "my time" of GMT -10! When I finally figured out the app and fixed it, I was so releived. I thought I was doomed to 3am exercise notices forever.

I put my phone on sleep mode, with exceptions for my kids, so a call from one of them will break through. I'm actually sleeping better thanks to an electronic device: the Alexa Dot in my bedroom plays ambient noise all night long. It's sooo soothing to fall asleep to Train or Spacedeck or Wind in Trees - and it masks the sound of commuters zipping past my house starting at 5:30am each morning.

How are you sleeping in your homes Red friends? Any devices causing problems?

The Little Things: Do You Make Your Bed?

 JENN McKINLAY: A few years ago, Hooligan 1's band director tasked the entire marching band with a daily chore. Before arriving for zero hour, which was marching band practice, they were to make their bed. 

He got the idea from Navy Seal Admiral McRaven in a commencement address he gave at the University of Texas in Austin. Here's the clip:

Shockingly, the child who usually left half of his bedding on the floor was suddenly not leaving his room until the bed was tight enough to bounce a quarter on. Huh. The theory is that if you make your bed every morning, you will have managed to accomplish your first goal of the day which will carry forward through the rest of the day's tasks. 

 Of course, at our next band parent meeting, there was a mom who stood up and said that making the bed wasn't healthy and her child would not be doing it. She felt that the bedding needed to be aired out and therefore making the bed was a bad thing. Yes, this was the hill she was prepared to die on. (Picture me in the meeting eyerolling and sighing). Although, in all fairness, there is support for not making your bed because of dust mites and dead skin (ew, I know, sorry): Why You Shouldn't Make Your Bed Right Away but they to wait until after breakfast not as this mom insisted that you should never make your bed. I have to say, I never saw this bed making controversy coming!

Now confession time: I love a neatly made bed. There is nothing better than pulling back the sheets and sliding in, however, I am not a very good bed maker. In fact, I intentionally rise early so that Hub is the last one out of the bed and therefore responsible for setting it to rights. On the rare occassion that he's up first, I stall and ignore the jumbled mess, hoping he'll give in and make it when he wanders by. Sometimes he outlasts me and I give in and make the stupid bed, but then I am even more determined to get up first. He has no idea about any of this, so shhhh. 

 So, how about it, Reds? Are you a bed maker? Do you believe that it sets the tone for your day? Or are you more of a free range bedding sort of person and the floor is fine?

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Ooh, I hate an unmade bed. But since I am almost always the first one up, Rick gets that job. He does it passably, although not as well as I would do it, so that I usually do some extra straightening before I get into it at night. On his plus side, he's much better at folding sheets than I am.

Don't you wonder how the kid whose mom said he didn't have to make the bed turned out? And did the bed making expertise stick with the Hooligans? 

JENN: It did with one, Debs, but not the other. I opt to not go into his room anymore -- I just close the door.

LUCY BURDETTE: I don’t like an unmade bed, but if I don’t do it, no one does. (John has many fine qualities but bed-making not one. I just asked him his theory--he said he enjoys getting into a crisply made bed, if someone else made it.) To be fair, I often spend several hours working in bed, so it’s my domain during the day.

The animals in our house do love “helping” make a bed though--especially T-bone, who burrows into the sheets and purrs and purrs.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: When I was little, we had to make our beds or else. We were never sure what “or else”  meant, and no one wanted to find out.

Now, oh, I love getting into a nicely made bed--remember how lovely hotel beds can be?--and I am a happy bed-making helper, but whoa. When I do it on my own, it never looks right. It’s never puffy enough where it’s supposed to be puffy, or flat enough where it’s supposed to be flat.

Jonathan, now, is the KING of bed-making. I am truly not sure how he does it, but it is genius. ALL perfect corners and tight sheets, and it’s quite the talent. We do it together in the morning. I’m not sure we have ever not done it. I can’t imagine just leaving it. It would be too depressing.

(Jenn, tell the hooligans that future girlfriends will be very impressed.) 

RHYS BOWEN:  I say thank God for duvets!  Bed making these days is so easy. Those really deep fitted bottom sheets stay in place. I just shake out the duvet and voila. Bed is made. In Germany when I was a student women hung their bedding out of the window. I imagine it smelled fresh but I’ve never been tempted to do it. Besides I have screens on my windows. 

Like Hank I do love hotel bedding, so cool and smooth. And my own luxury is a silk pillow case, supposedly good for face and hair.

 

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I always make my bed in the morning, with the rare exception that everyone with a cat will recognize - if she settles on the tossed-aside duvet while I'm in the bathroom and falls asleep, by law I'm required to wait to make the bed until after she's gotten up. As for the Karen who didn't want her precious making his or her bed, fuggedaboutit. Let's face it, as disgusting as it sounds, we've all been sleeping around dead skin for as long as there has been bedding, and dustmites (scary!) are doing us a favor by getting rid of it so we don't vanish in a pile of epidermal rejects.

 

The Boy was the absolute worst about making his bed (or keeping his room in any better style than the town dump) so Ross and I wondered what would happen when he joined the Navy. Lo and behold, he came back as The Sailor, and now on visits he helps me make my bed with nice square corners and a tight tuck! Thanks, Adm. McRaven! 

HALLIE EPHRON: Our beds are slept in, thrown together, repeat; and I envy anyone who can make well a bed. 

As for me, I blame it on my parents that I can’t and don’t. And my kids blame it on me that they can’t and don’t, either. I also cannot properly fold sheets to save my life. 

I can, however, make pie crust. And gravy. And write. I can do that, too.

JENN: Always play to your strengths, Hallie, which are many!

Okay, Readers, chime in! Are you a bedmaker or no?

Gone to the Dogs by Jenn McKinlay

JENN McKINLAY: “Five puppies in the bed, and the little one said, “Roll over, roll over.” So they all rolled over and one fell out.” This is a counting rhyme I used to sing when I was a children’s librarian. Now…it’s my life. Why?

Well, way back when when Hub and I got married, I came with Chubs, a cat. Chubs had more staying power than any of my prior boyfriends, so he was allowed to sleep wherever he wanted. Because loyalty matters. Naturally, Chubs chose the bed, and Hub learned to live with it. 

https://www.facebook.com/OffTheLeashDailyDogCartoons/ 

Then we got a dog, Lucy. She was a great dog, a standard poodle, but not a snuggler. She had boundary issues as princesses do. Lucy patrolled the house at night and once assured we were all safe and sound she went to her own room, the office, where she happily slept on the couch, with her legs in the air and her head on a pillow – no, not kidding. 

Sadly, in the following years, both animals passed away. We got two more cats, Patsy and Loretta, who each chose a hooligan to sleep with, and Hub and I had our double bed all to ourselves. Yes, I said double as in a full size, basically a twin on steroids. We were still newlyweds, so we didn’t mind the close quarters. Then we got another dog, a schnauzer, named Otto. 

Otto was roughly the size of a guinea pig when we he came to us. Tiny, pitiful, my little bundle of eyebrows and mustache, I couldn’t bear to stuff him in a crate to sleep. He slept on my chest for months so that my heartbeat could soothe him. Yeah, he was so soothed, he became the most pathetic mama’s boy known to canine kind. I couldn’t (still can’t) take a step without him. Then we found Annie, our pittie mix, thrown out in an alley. She quickly became Daddy’s girl and worked her way up into the bed by batting her big, brown eyes at the Hub, also known as the marshmallow. Plus, she and Otto are besties so where one goes, the other follows. 

https://www.facebook.com/OffTheLeashDailyDogCartoons/

So now, Hub and I were in a bed built for two with what was essentially another small adult in the bed. Oy vey. Did we kick them out? No. Did we train the dogs to sleep elsewhere? No. We bought a bigger bed, because, of course, we did. Let me just say, king sized is just right. I love this bed so much, I dream about it when I’m traveling and am forced to sleep in lesser beds. 

But then, we found a tiny kitten. King George. At first, he slept on a heating pad in a box (he was that itty bitty), then in a fleecy blanket in his little crate. Once he had some self determination, he moved to the master bathroom sink. Next it was a perch on his cat tree. All perfectly acceptable. But recently, the weather got cold, and I woke up to a pair of feet in my face because Little G had migrated to the bed, too. 

Little G sleeping with the big dogs.

Did I boot him out? Nope. Did I try and roll him over? Nuh uh. Instead, I contorted myself into some weird shape that resembled a fusilli pasta noodle because heaven forbid baby gets deprived of a minute of his twenty hours of cat naps. 

Yes, I know. My life has gone to the dogs..and cat.

So, how about you, Reds and Readers, are you the victim of pets in the bed? Or are you made of sterner stuff?  

Things We Can Agree On

INGRID THOFT
In a recent issue of "O" magazine, the writer Leigh Haber created a list of "Twenty Things We Can Agree On."  In these divisive times, she thought it was important to come up with something—anything—that we can all feel good about.  I've decided to take a stab at writing my own (shorter) list.

Dessert

It doesn't have to be chocolate or layered or melted.  It can be fresh berries or a delicious selection of cheeses, but I think we can all agree that health concerns notwithstanding, dessert is a good thing.

The Muppets
I have a special fondness for this motley crew because I watched them as a child, but even if you didn't, can you really resist Kermit, Miss Piggy, Animal, and Fozie?  Don't like puppets?  There are two old grumpy men just for you:  Statler and Waldorf.

Flowers*
Is there anyone who has an objection to flowers?  Every color of the rainbow, every shape and size, some scented, some not.  You can even opt for dried if that's your choice.  *If you're allergic, I realize you might not like flowers, but they're still pretty to look at, right?

Fresh Air
Preferably, it's clean and not too hot or too cold, but fresh air is a good thing.  No one wants to spend all their waking hours sealed in a building or an airplane.  It's good to get out there and take a deep breath.

Sleep
We may disagree on the ideal number of hours, but sleep makes us all more agreeable.  No matter your party affiliation, your religious beliefs or country of origin, sleep is essential.  And usually, after a good night's sleep, we're better able to tackle whatever this crazy world throws our way.

Please add to the list!  What else can we agree on?

Giveaway Winners! Marla Bradeen and petite send your mailing address info to ingrid@ingridthoft.com to claim your copies of The Good Goodbye!

Perchance to Dream

RHYS BOWEN:Unless you are like Lucy in Key West, the rest of us are suffering from a large dose of winter! Here in California it is raining and raining and blowing. It's dark and gloomy and all I'd like to do is crawl into bed and hibernate until spring!

However,one of the annoyances of my life these days is that I have trouble sleeping. I find I have a really narrow window of opportunity to fall asleep and it's right around ten o'clock. If I don't take advantage of it and fall asleep then, if I dare to stay awake to watch the rest of a show on TV, then I am still staring at the clock at 2 a:m.

And when I'm on deadline, when I'm stressed, when I'm about to take a trip I can fall asleep only to wake up in the middle of the night muttering to myself "Wait. She would never have said that!" and there I am, re-writing the chapter in my head. Or I wake having had a nightmare in which the flight is due to leave and I haven't packed my clothes or I don't know where the airport is. And then there I am, staring at the ceiling until it's dawn. I've tried hot milk, melatonin, lavender, and various other natural remedies and nothing works. Ambien works fine but I keep that for when I have crossed time zones and really need a good night's sleep. Advil PM works too, but I'm against taking any drug too frequently.

So is this something you suffer from, darling Reds? And do you have any solutions that work for you and might work for me? Please share.

HALLIE EPHRON: I love to sleep, and it's the opposite for me. If I got to sleep too early, I'm up at 2 or 3 or 4 and it takes hours to fall back to sleep, and yes I'm herding all the anxieties of the day in my head. Packing dreams? Oh boy do I have them.

I'm afraid of sleeping pills. I know too many people who are hooked on them and they make it hard to wake up.

I try not not to drink too much wine at dinner. Two glasses and I fall right to sleep and wake up two hours later. My friend Pat puts on a headset and listens to audio (never music, never a page turner), something marginally engaging but somewhat boring. I do counting things... like trying to remember all the kids in my elementary school. Or all my teachers. Or I wander around my high school in my head -- down corridors, up and down staircases, in and out exits.

RHYS: That would be a nightmare for me, Hallie. I'd be terrified I'd bump into my headmistress. Boy, was she scary and I once knocked her downstairs (not on purpose, of course)

LUCY BURDETTE: I am not a good sleeper, though I was a champion in my youth. I need to try to get to bed reading by 9, and then lights out by 10 or I suffer. I'm rarely able to nap, and I can't sleep in cars or on planes. It doesn't help to have John and Tonka snoring on either side of me (John's in bed, Tonka is not), but they are my beloved peeps so I can't change that. And the cat is an early bird and quite insistent about the rest of us getting up when he wants breakfast!

As for dreams, both John and I have what we call "sh*t" dreams. What can I say? Poop everywhere--ridiculous! And like Rhys, if I'm getting close to the end of a book, ideas start coming in the night. If I don't get up and write them down, they are gone in the am. Maybe it was only gibberish, but it feels like an awful loss...

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I don't sleep well, either. I have had restless movement syndrome since I was a kid--I've had all the clinical sleep trials, etc. (Talk about NOT fun.) So for me medication has been a godsend. I take a very low dose (comparatively) of a drug that is given to Parkinson's sufferers, and I do take Ambien sometimes but try to reserve that for really bad nights or across time zone travel. Still, I have a window (mine is about midnight) and if I don't go to sleep then, I am miserably awake until the wee hours. And it's so frustrating when you get those book ideas just when you're drifting off, and you know you have to write them down, but you also know that if you do then you're probably not going to sleep for a couple of hours!

Lucy, poop dreams! That cracks me up!

INGRID THOFT: Oh, sleep, how I love you.  I tend to be a good sleeper.  Some might argue I'm too good at it; in an ideal world, I could sleep nine or ten hours a night!  I tend to go to bed around the same time every night, but do allow myself to sleep in on weekends.  I always hear that elderly people sleep much less.  That should put me around the seven hour mark--a normal amount of sleep for most people--when I'm old and gray.  We always have on a sound soother that plays gentle ocean sounds.  It helps to soften noise from the sirens and trucks in our downtown setting.

I do sleep poorly on occasion, but never for more than a few nights.  I can relate to Hallie's packing dreams.  I have those in spades with all kinds of nifty variations.  It's almost like a writing prompt: You have a small suitcase, a room full of stuff, and the clock is ticking.  What happens next?

HALLIE: And where are the children?! That's always the question in mine.

JENN: Ah, sleep. It's lovely, although I only clock in about five or six hours per night. That seems to be all I need and I can't make myself sleep any longer. I go to bed about midnight, and it's like hitting a light switch. Snap. I am out. I don't dream, well, maybe once a year and then it's a weird recurring dream where I'm ironing an outfit for my first day of work at the library and I'm freaking out because I'm already late, yet I can't stop ironing. I don't wear clothes that require ironing, generally speaking. So, weird, right? I'm also a very deep sleeper. The only thing that wakes me is a sniffle or a cough from my sons' rooms. Otherwise, thunderstorms can roll, neighbors can have loud parties, etc. I sleep through all of it. Okay, right now, I'm a little tired. Oh, and I do take the occasional power nap. Fifteen minutes of being completely out and I'm good to go!

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: I get in bed, and wham: Asleep. I love to sleep. LOVE. I dream all the time, very elaborate colorful and  complicated, and sometimes blazingly hit you over the head obvious with their not-so-hidden meaning. Like:  had a dream where I was shown my new "house." At the entrance, I was so disappointed, it was not--pretty. But as I went deeper and deeper into the house, it got more and more wonderful, until the last rooms which were fantastic. I said to the person (Who?) "Oh, this is much better. This should be the first room you see."  And the person (who? no idea) said "No--you have to go on the journey to get to the good part."
DUH.
 But as for sleep inducers--if I ever have trouble drifting off, I try to think about being somewhere. LIke on an island, watching the birds fly over. Just watching the birds, then another one, then another one. Just...flying. OR I have an imaginary conversation with someone. If I say this, what will she say? And then what will I say? (Maybe that's SO boring that I just fall asleep.  :-) )  Or-- try thinking about--floating. Just floating.

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I had a lot of trouble sleeping when I was going through menopause, but now I'm post-, I do pretty well. My problems are mostly environmental - Ross snores AND has restless leg syndrome (Debs, he's finally seeing a doctor about it! I'm hoping medication will help him, too.) The dog snores - lightly - and we have a drip in the bathroom faucet that we haven't gotten fixed (because it will involve tearing out the whole WWII era plumbing.)

So I lie in bed at night listening to the Anvil Chorus from Il Trovatore: SNORT! snore Twitch drip SNORT! snore Twitch drip..

RHYS: How about the rest of you? Do you find it hard to sleep? Any suggestions for someone like me who was woken by the storm at four this morning and could never get back to sleep?