So this week has been pretty off-beat. No school yesterday - it was a hurricane day! Today was Veteran's Day, so no school again. I am going to a concert tomorrow night (Barlowgirl, woot!) and on Friday, I have a field trip. Yup, this is the life. We should have weeks like this all the time.
Last night, though, I didn't sleep so good. I took a prolonged nap yesterday afternoon that made it hard to fall back asleep last night. Then, around four in the morning, something spooked my dog. She started pawing at her crate and whimpering and half-wolfing, trying to get my attention. It's a fairly regular occurrence - my dog is terrified of bad weather, and we live in Florida, so she wakes me up all the time. It took me a while to notice that it wasn't raining. As I slowly surfaced from my dreams, I noticed this high-pitched squeak that went off, like a shoe scuffing just right on a gym floor, or the warning that the battery in your smoke alarm is dying. I kept hushing my dog, listening intently. I heard it again, multiple times in the next ten minutes, but it was irregular, sporadic.
When my dog is spooked, I get spooked. So, I used my cell phone as a make-shift flashlight and searched the room. Nothing. I put my ear to the door, but couldn't hear anything over my dog's complaints. So I let her out of her crate. She was watching the door, too, which further creeped me out, so I locked it. Now my room and my youngest sister's room are connected by a bathroom, so I peeked in on her. She was fast asleep and still alive, which was considerably reassuring. I had almost convinced myself it was nothing and I should just go back to sleep, when I decided to flip on a light. Nothing happened. I frantically flipped it on and off, tried the next one, and the next, and then realized the power was out.
Now I'm not afraid of the dark or anything, but I do watch a lot of murder mystery shows, and the first thought that occurred to me was - does our alarm system run off a battery or will it be affected by the power outage too? Is there someone in my house?
I finally steeled myself enough to peek out my bedroom door to see if the alarm was still activated. (Yes, it does run off a battery. It was still working). I tried to tell myself that if the alarm was on, there was no way anyone could have broken into our house without our knowledge. Our alarm is not subtle - it kills your ear drums and about stops your heart every time it is set off. Still, I couldn't get the image of some stranger standing over my little sister's bed out of my head. I jumped when I heard the squeal of someone's tires nearby, spinning and swerving away.
Taking deep breaths, I scooped my puppy up onto my bed and laid back down, my cell phone still in my hands. I had just managed to close my eyes and relax just the slightest when, from the bedroom next to mine, I heard a little girl cry out.
My heart in my throat, I shot up and ran to her room, calling out her name. I felt sick. She said she was scared, because there was no light. But she was fine, and there was no one in her room.
In the end, we woke my mom up. Because my little sister wanted her, of course. I'm a big girl - I can handle stuff like this. My mom lit some candles and we sat around in the living room until 5:30 when, exhausted, I finally decided to try sleeping again. My little sister climbed into the bed with me, and just as we were falling asleep, the power kicked back on and this high-pitched squeak sounded. This time, there was no doubt - it definitely came from our alarm system. My mom thinks it just announced that it was running solely on battery, but who knows.
This is why I don't watch scary movies.
Anyway, after such a strange night, with less sleep than usual, I still managed to have an amazing day. My car, Winston, went to the doctor yesterday. He came back, having been diagnosed and operated on. He no longer groans when I turn, and he's much better about stopping when I tell him to.
I did a teensy bit of homework, practiced piano, took a nap to make up for the lost sleep the night before, and then reported for Praise Band Practice at church.
We have a new record - I had three whole friends at church tonight!!! Santa Maria came for the third time (she's such a good friend!), and I finally bullied Mateo and Chero into attending!!! (I so badly wanted to put a Spanish y for and just then...I resisted the urge, though.) So tonight, I actually had the immense privelege of sitting in between two people I know! I can't remember the last time that happened. I always end up in the aisle seat somehow, and the past two weeks, I've had to latch onto half-acquaintances to find someone to sit with. Anyway, it was good fun, and I hope they enjoyed themselves and weren't totally bored to tears.
And I think that's all I have to say...
(By the way, the title for this post comes from a Jars of Clay song. Good song. Me gusta. It makes more sense in context, though...)
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