Wedged

Last night, as we sat in bed reading aloud to each other, we heard people singing. Loud voices carrying a lively tune just under our bedroom window.

"If I'm not mistaken," I said to Ann, "They're singing 'Happy Birthday' in Spanish."

"They" were are neighbors -- Antonio, Sequoia, and Aldo. The birthday was Ann's, her 49th. The dog barked, unaccustomed to troubadours at any time of the day, and raced down the stairs with me hot on his heels. Ann pulled on another shirt to cover her pajamas and we opened the door to see the three neighbors standing on the walkway, guitar in hand, belting out the Mexican version of Happy Birthday.

It was sweet -- not a word I use often, but there you have it.

I did not sleep well. Wedged between Ann's hot body and the exhausted dog, I tried to sleep curled around my pillow in my quarter of the bed. Struck by numerous hot flashes, the covers flung themselves from one side of the bed to the other as I tried not to disturb the birthday girl or the tired puppy who'd played like a wild man earlier that day.

I woke this morning to the sound of the blinds tapping against the window casing, the wind strong enough to bend the large maple at the front of the house, and the amplified hymns of the singing Ethiopian priest at the Coptic Church the next block over. I was still wedged, not only between Ann and the dog, but between cultures represented in song. Still sweating from the last hot flash, I stretched my leg onto the floor and stared at the ceiling trying to make out the tonal rhythms of the priest.

It was barely 7 in the morning.

"Do you think he's singing words?" Ann asked.

"Yes," I said, "But I can't make out any patterns. Just the same tune over and over, distorted by the cheap microphone and speaker system."

The dog didn't lift his head -- not for the sound of our voices or the sound of the priest. Stretched out fully, he takes up a good half of the bed and the half he occupied was mine, his curly body pressed up against my sweaty leg.

"How did you sleep?" Ann asked.

"Not well." I motioned to my space, the ball of sweat my body made in the corner of the bed. "You two demanded a lot of room last night."

"We just wanted to be close," she smiled.

"Yes, well, then you should know the repercussions of your actions," and I wiped my sweaty arm on across her exposed belly.

"Ewww," she moaned, but did not move. The dog didn't move either.

I got up, went downstairs to make coffee, turned on the radio to hear that it was National Sleepy Head Day, which is celebrated in some parts of the world by bands of awake citizens finding the last person asleep in their village and once found, throwing the sleepy head into the ocean.

In our house, the sleepy head was the dog. He's still asleep now, stretched out on his bed behind my chair as I type, wedged comfortably between the wall and the file drawer, his eyes and paws twitching slightly whenever the priest's voice rises above the maple leaves tossed by the chilly summer wind.