I have discovered the joy of ear plugs.
And I'm not the first. Slate's Ulrich Boser describes the turn down service as having "reached nirvana". The writer happily dwells in self-imposed silence for sometimes up to 16 hours a day.
Anyway, I roll two every night, thread cautiously through my ear canals, and boom! (or not)...
...I'm living inside a sea shell.
For now, this light sleeper only indulges this exclusionary sport in a search for the ever fleeting solid eight hours (I'll take six) of slumber every evening around 10 PM.
Which brings me to my dog. The terrier mix will bark at anything at moves outside the plate glass front window separating her from the natural environment called a busy neighborhood. Whatever it was yesterday--animal, biker, jogger, dog walker--the girl lit into sporadic engagement of interval yelping.
I turned on the Dog Whisperer, a show guaranteed to engage her interest. Something about the trainer transfixes the canine and typically, her owner, hypnotized by his inner doggy zen. To my chagrin, the episode had just ended, so I surfed away from whispering to heckling.
Chris Matthews' Hardball. My thinking? If I increased the volume to just the right tone, his screeching and the dog's barking would synchronize to the perfect decibel pitch and completely drown each other out. A sort of audio neutralization.
Until the shouting turned to Rush Limbaugh. One HA! and the pup's under my computer chair, quivering from a Matthews bleat. Looking at me with her liquid brown eyes, I could almost read the thoughts from a mind typically engaged in scenarios featuring the quick lunge at strangers who walk too close to her mom or the perfection of the chase of small squirrels up a tree. Make them stop talking about this insignificant mouthpiece. Please.
As much as I enjoy hearing the Left, let's make it relevant, shall we?
I reach for my ear plugs and consider offering my sweet girl a couple for herself.
