Wake-up call

So Muffin the Wonder Poodle woke me up at 4:15 a.m. this morning. Those who’ve met her in person know that Muffin’s hobbies are (in this order): playing ball, barking, eating treats, and barking. But Muffin, being highly influenced by me, is not a big fan of interrupting her sleep, so her little woof this morning was a bit out of the ordinary.

I woke up when she barked, a little miffed because I only had like 30 minutes before the alarm was going to go off (don’t ask. . . .I’ve started getting up at 4:45 a.m. these days to do Pilates. Sometimes I regret this decision.). But Muffin has different types of barks, and this one was her “I’m-scared-and-don’t-really-want-to-call-attention-to-myself” bark. And I recognized this. So I lay there in the dark, eyes wide open, just listening. Then I heard this slamming or popping sound. Which creeped me out. Was somebody in my house? What was going on? Then I hear it again! Now I’m convinced something bad is going down and become determined to be a responsible homeowner. So I go into the guest bedroom where the blinds are pretty much wide open and look out over the condo parking lot.

What do I see? A fire truck and an ambulance. And lots o’ flashing lights and absolutely no people. That was kind of surreal. A random thought that one of my neighbors had lit a fire in their fireplace last night when it was “snowing” and caused an inferno to break out ran through my head, but instead of looking at the surrounding condos or otherwise finding ways to disprove this idea, I did what all sane people do at 4:15 a.m.

I went back to bed. Guess I needed the sleep?