Night Music

Our dog has been on a pretty regular walk schedule for a long time. I used to walk her in the morning before leaving for work, and the Mrs. would walk her when she got home. When she started school last fall, I would come home early on the day the Mrs. had classes to take the dog out. Given her age, she gets a couple more trips out to the yard each evening, one around 7:30 and the other around midnight.

For the past few months the dog has been waking us up between 6 and 6:30 most days; 7 is late for her. That means she wants to go out again around mid-afternoon. For a week or two, she has been needing to go out again an hour or so after her mid-evening yard visit, and during the past week she has woken us needing to go out around 4 am. These temporary changes in her schedule are not totally unprecedented, but they are somewhat unusual.

For the past several nights I have been taking the dog on another walk around 11 pm, hoping to prevent more 4 am wake-ups from deep sleep. At that hour the neighborhood is pretty quiet, with the exception of motorcycles and the occasional tow truck or flatbed from the garage nearby. We walk on a side street because there are fewer distractions (these things make a difference when you're hoping a dog will focus long enough to do what it needs to), and I have discovered that we have a neighbor who is an accomplished pianist.

This person has been playing or practicing at this late hour each night this week when I've walked the dog down this particular side street. Their windows are open, and the sounds are flowing out freely into the night. I don't recognize any of the music being played, but I would characterize it as neither pop nor classical; it reminds me of Scott Joplin more than anything else.

The houses in our neighborhood are spaced only about ten feet apart, so the playing must be audible to the player's immediate neighbors, but from more than a couple of houses away it can't be heard, so I have been stopping in front of the house for a minute or so to listen. It's quite a pleasant change from the typical outside sounds we hear during warm weather.