I had been sound asleep because it was the middle of the night – just after two a.m. – when suddenly, I was wide awake and very confused.  I thought I had heard a noise; a very loud noise.  But as I lay there with my eyes open, listening, all I heard was the sound of the crickets through the open sliding glass door of my bedroom.  But suddenly it came again, WHOOO-WHOOO-WHOOO.   It was the loudest owl I have ever heard in my life.   Then, way off in the distance, I heard another owl answer it, whooo- whooo- whooo, which caused the loudest owl to grace the planet to respond WHOO-WHOO-WHOO.  Seriously, I had never in my life heard an owl that was so loud.  At first, I thought it was fascinating, even funny, lying there listening to the two owls converse. But after an hour I didn’t think it was so funny; I couldn’t fall back asleep.  Every time I’d start to drift off, I’d be awakened again by the loud WHOOO-WHOOO-WHOOOing of the owl.  To try to drown out the noise, I closed the sliding glass door.  But I could still hear it so I put the television on and when that didn’t drown out the noise, I put a pillow over my head.  Eventually, all got quiet and I fell back asleep.  Continue reading →