The so-you-can-sleep medicine!

Once again enjoying the peace and comfort of the Retirement Home!  My mom is puttering in the kitchen and my dad is puttering in the library/sewing room/staging ground.  I'm in my favorite chair in the living room, instead of sitting up in bed, but otherwise, the cup of tea is steaming at my elbow, and I'm feeling very relaxed.

It's a lovely grey and overcast day, constantly nudging you in the side and whispering, "Rain!" but never quite raining. 

I am suffering from some sort of allergenic head cold.  I had thought it was just allergies getting to me, but it has lasted too long, and progressed too far.  As a result of this, I took a couple of Nyquil capsules when I went to bed last night, and I would like to stand up and attest to their soporific properties.  I slept perfectly soundly, until my phone rang its six-thirty alarm, without a twitch.  I then got up and staggered to the bathroom, and was extremely surprised to see an unfamiliar woman sleeping on the living room couch.  I went in to the bathroom and peed thoughtfully, and when I came out I stood and looked at the woman for a minute, to make sure that she was there.  And after I returned to bed, I got up again and went out to look.  Yup.  Still there, still asleep, and still totally unknown.

Turns out that my parents' meth-head neighbor had had one of his noisy, shrieking, furniture- breaking fits, and had thrown his wife (girlfriend?) and their small daughter (eight?) out, and all their belongings after them, splintering the breakable ones all over the street.  My dad had gone out to investigate, and found the woman and girl silently picking up clothes and shoes and books and toys, and hiding them in the shrubbery, preparatory to walking in to town and waking up a friend.  My dad brought them in and my mother put them to sleep on the couches in the living room.

And I had slept like a puss-cat through it all!