11:30 p.m.: Lights go out, Brian and I close our eyes and eventually drift off to sleep.

11:50 p.m.: Sam decides I MUST HAVE A DRINK OF WATER RIGHT THIS VERY MINUTE. Gets up, doggy claws clacking on the hardwood, circles the bedroom a couple times to announce his departure, and then promptly FALLS DOWN THE STAIRS – BA-DOOM, BA-DOOM, BA-DOOM. As the house is a split-level, he doesn’t fall far, and regains his composure pretty quickly. Decides he needs to walk it off, and proceeds to CLACK CLACK CLACK all around the downstairs.

11:55 p.m.: For 5 minutes it’s been CLACK, CLACK, CLACK, then approach the water bowl and SLURP SLURP SLURP, then his food bowl and CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH SLURP CRUNCH SLURP, CLACK CLACK CLACK – into the kitchen, out of the kitchen, into the living room, over to the front door, under the dining room table a couple times, then back to the food bowl CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH, SLURP SLURP SLURP and then the water bowl runs dry, and then it’s CLACK CLACK CLACK into the bathroom to begin SLURP SLURP SLURP out of the toilet. Our house is about 1,200 square feet, so all of his might as well be happening right next to the bed.

12:12 a.m.: After almost 20 minutes of this I realize that it’s possible I won’t be sleeping tonight. Sam comes back up the stairs BOOM BOOM BOOM and does a couple laps around the bedroom. CLACK CLACK CLACK CLACK CLACK. Finally he comes to stand next to me. He’s wide awake – as am I, but I’m not letting him know that – and he wants me to pet him. RIGHT THIS VERY MINUTE, THANKYOUVERYMUCH. Of course, I’m busy trying to get back to sleep. So I ignore him. And so this begins: PANT PANT PANT PANT BREATHE BREATHE BREATHE. He licks any part of me that’s sticking out from under the blanket – hands, feet, shoulder. Which, because it’s hot in the bedroom, ALL OF ME is out from under the blanket. PANT PANT PANT PANT PANT PANT PANT. Also, Golden Retrievers have a habit of doing a sort of snort/sneeze thing when they’re frustrated or stymied. Sam does this repeatedly. He does a couple more laps around the bedroom. CLACK CLACK CLACK. Goes down the stairs, gets to the bottom, decides that was a bad idea for whatever reason, and comes immediately back up. Repeats the process several times. BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM. SNORT SNEEZE PANT CLACK CLACK SLURP (out of the upstairs toilet), SLURP CLACK CLACK SNORT SNORT PANT PANT PANT PANT PANT PANT PANT.

12:35 a.m.: I completely lose my shit all over the place and tell Sam that if he doesn’t shut the fuck up right this very minute, I’m having him put to sleep first thing in the morning. For the first time all night he’s quiet, but now I’ve got a guilty conscience keeping me awake.

12:48 a.m.: Sam quickly forgets my outburst, because his doggy brain says, "Weren’t we wanting to get petted? ISN’T THAT THE MISSION JUST NOW?" So we’re back to PANT PANT PANT PANT PANT, right in my ear. PANT PANT PANT PANT PANT PANT PANT.

2:30 a.m.: This has been going on for two hours. Up the stairs, down the stairs, up the stairs, down the stairs, food, toilet, walking aimlessly around the house, then returning to my side to pant his hot, stinky breath right into my ear. Sam finally goes downstairs, and I close the door to the bedroom. Almost immediately it gets unbearably hot in there.

2:45 a.m.: It occurs to me that what’s REALLY going on is that I died sometime in the night and am now in Hell.

3:00 a.m.: I give up, take my pillow, and go downstairs to the office. I grab my laptop, lay my exhausted ass down on the couch and watch the entire Star Trek movie from beginning to end. I keep thinking I’ll be lulled to sleep, but I see every second of that film. Sam, stymied and confused by this, snorts and paces outside the office door, which is closed.

5:00 a.m.: Still awake, I start an episode of Firefly on my computer. The entire thing plays, and I am awake. I start a second episode and FINALLY drift off to sleep within the first five minutes.

8:13 a.m.: I wake up, an hour later than usual and with only minutes to shower, brush my teeth, get dressed, and get out the door for work. I make Sam wait until right before I’m ready to leave before I let him out to potty. I tell him, "I love you, but I don’t like you very much right now. Which means that I am going to feed you before I leave, but I’m not going to pet you or look at you." Sam snorts and goes upstairs to lay on his bed and give me dirty looks. On the way to work I get stuck behind two cars driving parallel because the drivers are having a CONVERSATION OUT THEIR OPEN WINDOWS at 10 mph, all the way down 23rd Street. We all get stuck at the stop light at Wal-Mart, which is one of the things I hate the most in this world, that Wal-Mart gets to have its own light. I usually run it; today I can’t. I have a road rage moment; the conversing drivers see me shouting at them to speed up. Thing is, I’m running out of gas and honestly don’t know if I’m going to make it to 7-11. When I put on my turn signal just before the gas station, the woman in front of me immediately pulls in there as well. I think it’s possible we’re heading for a confrontation. I think, "I don’t even care if she has a gun." 

9:20 a.m.: I get to work late, tired, cranky, and hungry because I didn’t have time to make breakfast. I consider that it’s possible I’m not ready for children of my very own. I look at Flickr photos of Sam to remind me why I like him, as the total sleep deprivation – I’ve heard tactics like this have been used at Guantanamo Bay, is all I’m saying – make it a little tough to remember.

Y’all haven’t had enough Sam lately. And this one, taken of Sam when we ALMOST KILLED HIM by taking him to Red Rock Canyon for the hardest hike he’s ever been on, comes with a story.

Brian was out of town this week, and I was home Tuesday and Wednesday nights by myself.

Sam’s had to deal with some changes lately, the most irritating (to him) being that I no longer allow him to come in my office. The place REEKED of dog and his presence in there was a major stress factor in my life. He’s chewed up books and papers and he infested the room back when he came down with fleas. I need a space to write, to read, and to be completely alone, and what had happened instead was that that room had become Sam’s and I was an intruder in it. Changes had to be made. So I started closing the door and keeping Sam out of there.

So, being the resilient and creative dog he is, Sam started hanging out in my little closet upstairs. I wish I could snap a picture of it – he looks adorable hanging out in there with my old jeans and sweaters.

So the other night I’m home by myself, watching television and goofing on the internet, when all of a sudden, I hear Sam start SCREAMING, this blood-curdling dog yelping I remember hearing when the coyotes that lived near us when I was a kid would get into fights. And I can’t tell where it’s coming from, but it’s clear he’s in distress. I get up and look around the entire ground floor of the house, calling his name. After a minute he went silent, and I had no idea where he was. I ran upstairs. He wasn’t on his blanket and I didn’t see him in the closet. The house was silent as the grave.

You guys, I thought he’d died. I really did, and I thought I was going to find him somewhere. Dead. I called his name, each time more frantically, and tears started clouding up my eyes.

“SAM!” I screamed as loud as I could, and I heard a tiny, little breath. I looked in the closet again, and there he was.

He’d been scratching at his ear, the way dogs do, and he’d gotten the claw on his back foot tangled up in his ear hair. That’s what was hurting him. I pulled him forward out of the closet, making very careful not to aggravate the situation, and helped him remove his claw. He was fine, my heart attack stopped, the dog wasn’t dead. I went back downstairs and he lay there next to me the entire night until Brian got home just before midnight. All night he lay there, and I couldn’t stop petting him and telling him how much I loved him. When I told Brian he thought it was the funniest thing in the world, which he WOULD NOT THINK if he’d heard the screaming, the awful awful screaming of our sweet, stupid little dog, who, despite his propensity for peeing the floor if you LOOK at him like he’s in trouble, managed to hold himself together intestinally and did not shit all over the floor of my closet, which was a major plus.

I may give him a steak tonight.