My kingdom for a bed...

Since we've been up here, we have been furnitureless. All our furniture is still in storage down in Atlanta. We are saving up to get it moved here. Of course those of us lucky enough to have crates have nice soft bedding in them. Those of us that are crateless, (lets see, six dogs, six crates, hmmmm that must be me), don't have a nice soft bed to sleep in. What we do have is a "pallet" on the floor. Now the sound of "pallet" on the floor has a kind of rustic sound to it. Believe me, rustic doesn't half cover it. What a pallet, in my case is, is all the extra dog bedding covered by the one quilt I own to give a semblence of softness to the wood floor. Remember the wood floor?  The pallet is an excuse to give my body the impression that the floor really isn't hard. Of course, my body having been around the track more than a few times isn't easy to fool. It knows the floor is hard, and it is. The first night I awoke after about an hour. I was exhausted from trying to get down on the floor. Getting down is the opposite torture of getting up and we all know what a labor that can be. The Doos were watching me with amusement thinking of all the times they wanted to sleep on the bed and they were relegated to their crates. "Well look who's on the floor now". Okay, as I said before, I woke up about an hour after I went to sleep. Going to sleep was accompanied by major tosses and turning, a lot of oooohs and ahhhhs and grumbles from the Doos since i was evidently keeping them awake with my moaning. Well excuse me, I didn't see any offers to share a crate!

That initial attempt to sleep on the pallet should have been a clue as to what was to follow. Lotto, sweet little girl that she is decided to join me on the pallet. Lotto has always slept on the bed. The "pallet" better known as the torture chamber is not as large as a twin bed. It's thinner and shorter. Lotto has always claimed her side of the bed. One half of a king size bed is a lot of space for a small chubby dalmatian, but 1/2 of a pallet isn't much and every square inch is valuable real estate. So now I am laying on the pallet on my side with my knees up. There was no comfort in the original space but this added restriction has made sleeping impossible. At some point Lotto decided that this arrangement is uncomfortable. I stole her crate blankets the moment she abandoned her crate to add to the comfort level of the pallet so she couldn't go back to her crate What she did is to claim the pillow. Now this was not happening. I'm sorry, I love Lotto very much and would give my life for her, but not my pillow. I pulled the pillow out from under her and with an old dog attitude sigh she decided to stay there. Okay I can live with this and I move my pillow below Lotto. Now I have the full width of the pallet but the short pallet has now become shorter, about 4'5" long. I finally fell asleep out of sheer exhaustion. One thing should be noted here. I've already explained that Lotto is a nocturnal farter. However, it seems that the mountain air or more likely not being in absolute comfort has put a cork in her farting. More likely though is that I was to tired to notice.

The next big surprise in the pallet adventure was waking up. Waking up itself has always been a challenge for me. First I have to locate where I am and secondly why I woke up to begin with. Not being a morning person, it's rarely early. The first thing I noticed was that I was on the floor. Before I could ponder how I got there I became aware of excruciating pain in most of my body. This was followed quickly by the realization that Lotto was sprawling across the pallet and that included my pillow too. Lastly, Riggins was having one of his barking sessions. He's not really saying anything just letting the world in general know that he is alive and noisy. Of course once he starts and the Doos realize that I am conscience they all join into the chorus. Normally, I would get myself together and shuffle off to let said Doos outside. However, today was different. After becoming aware of the pain, I realized that I needed to get on my feet. Easier said than done. Usually this is accomplished by crawling to a piece of furniture and lifting oneself using said piece of furniture. Good plan except that with the pain, crawling was impossible and there were no big pieces of furniture. I decided to roll off the pallet. One benefit of the pallet is that if you fall off, you only have about 1" to 2" to fall. Having accomplished the roll accompanied by the minimal amount of groaning. I started scooting across the floor to get to a crate. (these are considered furniture suitable for using to get oneself upright. Of course, the Doos were just thrilled to see Mama coming towards them. This must be a new game where we will all crawl on the floor and jump up on crates. I looked for Lotto and saw that she had resumed her position across the pallet and pillow.

The rest  of the day was very uneventful in comparison. That is until it was time to go to bed and the sequence repeated itself. Actually, this sequence repeated itself for 3 days and nights  After three nights, I swore to myself I would find some sort of bed to sleep in. Later that day, I was cruising Walmart. Yes, there is a Walmart in town about 12 miles from the house, for the other necessities of life beyond beer and gas. I went through the camping section and found this miracle of technology, an air bed!!!! It was the kind that takes sheets and all. One step above an air mattress that you use to float upon in water or top your cot.. I already had the electric pump from a previous air mattress that did not go with dignity.

I rushed home with my prayers answered. As I pulled the mattress from it's box and inflated it I was smiling. I was imagining the comfort I would sleep in. Of course I laid down on it and it was heavenly. I put the excess dog bedding in a pile on a crate and made the "bed" up. I went back to working on the internet and the usual duties of letting dogs in and out of the house and crates. At 11pm I was done working and put everyone in crates for the night.  I took a shower as I anticipated the wonderful sleep I would have. As I dropped to the floor and rolled onto the mattress I went to sleep with a smile, knowing that I'd wake up in less pain and able to get up without crawling. I'd brought Sunny's crate into the bedroom and put it next to the mattress. Perfect height for getting oneself off the floor!