You took all the covers!
A most unusual thing happened last week. I woke up to find that all the blankets were on my side of the bed, all the way to the floor. Now, it does happen from time to time that the covers end up all the way to the floor--on HIS side, not mine. Meaning, that I was often left cold.
He had pulled the bottom corner out with his feet and his tossing, apparently, and he wasn't cold yet--the temperature being only marginal--and had pushed them off; whereupon--no longer anchored to the mattress--they came to me (since I was a little chilly and pulled them up), and kept going. All of it unconscious, both of us asleep.
Now, before I was married I liked to be snug in my blankets, and I liked to nestle down; but I did not like to have that top line tight across my neck. That means I would kind of pull the center down, like a cowl neckline, snug over the shoulders but not confining under my chin. I knew just how I liked it.
(When my mother wanted to break me, gently, at the age of three, of carrying a 'blankie' everywhere, she took me out to pick out my very own Big Blanket. Twin size, whatever color I wanted, figuring that would insure that it would stay on my bed. Hah. I would pull it off and carry it into the living room and roll up in it like a cocoon. It's true that I didn't try to take it to the grocery store anymore, but I was still attached. Eventually I pretty much left it in my room, but I would leave my bunk bed after I was put to bed, roll up in my blanket cocoon, and sometimes plop down in the closet and go to sleep. The closet had two doors which pulled across on a track, left to right, so it was long and skinny rather than square and deep, and I could keep one side halfway open where my head was. My maybe five-year old self felt very secure somehow in this position. I did eventually give this up and grow up to be a mostly normal person. I've just had a thing with blankets.)
Enter marriage and sharing a bed with another person for the first time. I had shared a room for most of my growing up years, and in college, but not a bed, except sometimes when I was visiting my cousins. My new husband was naturally warm (which was lovely when my feet were freezing) and liked to have his arms outside of the blankets and he liked to sleep way up to the top of the bed and pull the covers with him. This meant that if I wanted to snuggle down, I could smother. Oh, all right, I wasn't going to smother, but those covers were going to pull tight across my throat and make me uncomfortable. And every time he would turn over, with his elbows pulled into his body from the outside, all the blankets went with, and cold air intruded even if I wasn't 'uncovered.' Sometime during the night, in the wee small hours, I would wake up cold to find that I had lost my covers and have to reclaim my share while trying not to wake him up.
We had to make some adjustments. Everyone does. Ours might have been more comical than yours, but maybe not.
We didn't own a bed. Our first digs were in part of my great-aunt's house and came furnished. We moved to San Francisco to a furnished apartment--in early basement, but we were glad for a place, sight unseen. Hubby was hired by Traveler's Insurance for training, and my grandmother lived in the Oakland area. She had a friend whose granddaughter managed an apartment building in the city. So they vouched for us, total strangers, to the landlord and pulled an assortment of cheap furnishings out of, yup, the basement storage room, and we arrived with a four-month old baby. The only thing we brought with us was a crib, and we bought a wooden rocking chair once we moved in, which we still have. Pretty good $39 purchase from an import store, made in Yugoslavia, and it didn't make me feel like I was going to tip over backwards when I rocked in it. But I digress.
When training was finished, he was assigned to Seattle, where we found an apartment and needed to actually find furniture. He had been unemployed for a year before getting this job, and we didn't have much money, so we ended up buying a sofa bed and that's what we slept on for a year. When my grandmother in California died, I inherited the set of twin beds she had bought when she was widowed , and the dressers which went with them. Since we had two very young children, one in a crib and one in a bassinet, they didn't need the twin beds yet.
So we decided that taking those beds for ourselves for the time being was preferable to sleeping on the sofa in the living room. I went out and bought twin bottom sheets and a king size top sheet and blanket to put across the top of the two beds pushed together. To pretend, as much as possible, that we were in one bed. It was certainly more comfortable than the pull-out, though still not ideal.
Once our oldest was ready for a twin bed, we bought a queen size bed and set it up. There, I had a useful idea. We already owned a king size blanket. It went all the way across the queen bed and touched the floor, just barely, on both sides. We had two queen size quilts which had been made for us by friends and relatives, and if they were set sideways, they would reach long; they wouldn't tuck in the bottom, but they would tuck in on the side corners and that proved to be enough, with the bottom blanket and sheet firmly tucked in beneath them. I wouldn't end up uncovered!
There were mornings that I woke up with the covers, even at that width, just reaching my top edge of the mattress. He tended to be a ratchet, but I had figured out how to compensate.
We have adjusted to each other over the years, and he takes the blankets away less than he used to. I do still sometimes get up to find them brushing the floor on his side, and pulled at a funky angle. About my freezing feet now, he says, "Don't touch me with those things!" and I have to sleep with the CPAP (air compressor) for his sleep apnea, but it beats the snoring--snoring is a vastly inadequate term for the noise forms which indicated a danger to his well-being. I've figured out how to keep my feet warmer, and sometimes he lets me warm them up in his, and we're both too old to sleep all the way through the night anymore but usually when one of us gets up it doesn't wake the other. In the winter, I put one more light layer on my half of the bed only, so that both of us are happy. We're cozy and used to each other. Sleeping or awake and conscious, we've figured out how to get along pretty well.
He had pulled the bottom corner out with his feet and his tossing, apparently, and he wasn't cold yet--the temperature being only marginal--and had pushed them off; whereupon--no longer anchored to the mattress--they came to me (since I was a little chilly and pulled them up), and kept going. All of it unconscious, both of us asleep.
Now, before I was married I liked to be snug in my blankets, and I liked to nestle down; but I did not like to have that top line tight across my neck. That means I would kind of pull the center down, like a cowl neckline, snug over the shoulders but not confining under my chin. I knew just how I liked it.
(When my mother wanted to break me, gently, at the age of three, of carrying a 'blankie' everywhere, she took me out to pick out my very own Big Blanket. Twin size, whatever color I wanted, figuring that would insure that it would stay on my bed. Hah. I would pull it off and carry it into the living room and roll up in it like a cocoon. It's true that I didn't try to take it to the grocery store anymore, but I was still attached. Eventually I pretty much left it in my room, but I would leave my bunk bed after I was put to bed, roll up in my blanket cocoon, and sometimes plop down in the closet and go to sleep. The closet had two doors which pulled across on a track, left to right, so it was long and skinny rather than square and deep, and I could keep one side halfway open where my head was. My maybe five-year old self felt very secure somehow in this position. I did eventually give this up and grow up to be a mostly normal person. I've just had a thing with blankets.)
Enter marriage and sharing a bed with another person for the first time. I had shared a room for most of my growing up years, and in college, but not a bed, except sometimes when I was visiting my cousins. My new husband was naturally warm (which was lovely when my feet were freezing) and liked to have his arms outside of the blankets and he liked to sleep way up to the top of the bed and pull the covers with him. This meant that if I wanted to snuggle down, I could smother. Oh, all right, I wasn't going to smother, but those covers were going to pull tight across my throat and make me uncomfortable. And every time he would turn over, with his elbows pulled into his body from the outside, all the blankets went with, and cold air intruded even if I wasn't 'uncovered.' Sometime during the night, in the wee small hours, I would wake up cold to find that I had lost my covers and have to reclaim my share while trying not to wake him up.
We had to make some adjustments. Everyone does. Ours might have been more comical than yours, but maybe not.
We didn't own a bed. Our first digs were in part of my great-aunt's house and came furnished. We moved to San Francisco to a furnished apartment--in early basement, but we were glad for a place, sight unseen. Hubby was hired by Traveler's Insurance for training, and my grandmother lived in the Oakland area. She had a friend whose granddaughter managed an apartment building in the city. So they vouched for us, total strangers, to the landlord and pulled an assortment of cheap furnishings out of, yup, the basement storage room, and we arrived with a four-month old baby. The only thing we brought with us was a crib, and we bought a wooden rocking chair once we moved in, which we still have. Pretty good $39 purchase from an import store, made in Yugoslavia, and it didn't make me feel like I was going to tip over backwards when I rocked in it. But I digress.
When training was finished, he was assigned to Seattle, where we found an apartment and needed to actually find furniture. He had been unemployed for a year before getting this job, and we didn't have much money, so we ended up buying a sofa bed and that's what we slept on for a year. When my grandmother in California died, I inherited the set of twin beds she had bought when she was widowed , and the dressers which went with them. Since we had two very young children, one in a crib and one in a bassinet, they didn't need the twin beds yet.
So we decided that taking those beds for ourselves for the time being was preferable to sleeping on the sofa in the living room. I went out and bought twin bottom sheets and a king size top sheet and blanket to put across the top of the two beds pushed together. To pretend, as much as possible, that we were in one bed. It was certainly more comfortable than the pull-out, though still not ideal.
Once our oldest was ready for a twin bed, we bought a queen size bed and set it up. There, I had a useful idea. We already owned a king size blanket. It went all the way across the queen bed and touched the floor, just barely, on both sides. We had two queen size quilts which had been made for us by friends and relatives, and if they were set sideways, they would reach long; they wouldn't tuck in the bottom, but they would tuck in on the side corners and that proved to be enough, with the bottom blanket and sheet firmly tucked in beneath them. I wouldn't end up uncovered!
There were mornings that I woke up with the covers, even at that width, just reaching my top edge of the mattress. He tended to be a ratchet, but I had figured out how to compensate.
We have adjusted to each other over the years, and he takes the blankets away less than he used to. I do still sometimes get up to find them brushing the floor on his side, and pulled at a funky angle. About my freezing feet now, he says, "Don't touch me with those things!" and I have to sleep with the CPAP (air compressor) for his sleep apnea, but it beats the snoring--snoring is a vastly inadequate term for the noise forms which indicated a danger to his well-being. I've figured out how to keep my feet warmer, and sometimes he lets me warm them up in his, and we're both too old to sleep all the way through the night anymore but usually when one of us gets up it doesn't wake the other. In the winter, I put one more light layer on my half of the bed only, so that both of us are happy. We're cozy and used to each other. Sleeping or awake and conscious, we've figured out how to get along pretty well.
:P LOL
ReplyDeleteI call it the "spaghetti fork" phenomenon. However, my honey tends to push the covers down to his waist when I want them pulled up.
Apparently I was the blanket puller when my wife was alive. She got pretty good at tucking in her side really well. And I know what you mean about not liking the top of the blanket tight across the neck.
ReplyDeleteSomeone gave me a handknit wool hat as a get-well gift when I was so ill three going on four years ago. I was so thin and so cold that having that on at night made all the difference.
ReplyDeleteSo why should I ever give it up? If it's a cold night, that hat is perched on my head. Maybe just plopped on top rather than on--it's not the softest wool, and yet it still speaks of comfort. So I haven't replaced it with one of my own.