I like to listen to music while I sleep. I’ve been doing it since high school. But I stopped while I was married. My ex didn’t like to hear the music while she slept.

Now that I’m sleeping alone again, I get to listen to music while I sleep. I like to listen to the classical station, 98.7 FM WFMT, because most classical music is very soothing while sleeping.

For a while, I had a girlfriend who liked to listen to music while we slept and didn’t complain if I tuned in to the classical station. I guess she was different than the rest. She always loved telling me stories. She was an English major and used to call me “sire” during those intimate moments. She insisted I was the only one she ever called “sire.” When she started repeating her stories, she left me and I never saw her again. She was the only one who liked listening to classical music with me.

In high school, I used to listen to 8-Tracks while sleeping because they would play continuously throughout the night. I especially loved listening to Led Zeppelin. I started listened to CDs soon after they were invented because they would play continuously, too. I never listened to the radio because I didn’t like the commercials. The classical station doesn’t play very many commercials at night.

I like rolling over at night while I try to fall back asleep and hear the music. Sometimes I wake up a little if I recognize the music. When I was in in high school, I once made the mistake of listening to a live rock concert while sleeping. What a mistake! I woke up suddenly when the 8-Track started playing the obligatory drum solo! I couldn’t sleep with all the pounding on those drums, cymbals, and cowbells, but especially the cowbells. That lasted about fifteen minutes. I guess that’s why they call it percussion.

All the floods in the Midwest have got me thinking about how lucky I am to live in Chicago where the last major disaster we suffered was the Chicago Fire in 1871. But I didn’t suffer any traumatic experiences from it and I now live a normal life despite the Chicago Fire.

Oh, yes, we also had the Chicago Flood in 1992 caused by a pylon driven into a utility tunnel beneath the Chicago River, but that only flooded some tunnels under downtown Chicago and not many people were ever in any real danger. However, a few people lost their plum city jobs because of the incident.

The only flooding I experience in my house occurs during heavy rainfalls when I get an inch or two of water in my basement. And I don’t suffer any damage because I have an unfinished basement with a stone foundation. Other people in the midwest haven’t been so fortunate. I usually go to the Wisconsin Dells every summer, but the heavy flooding washed away Lake Delton, so I probably won’t go this summer. Homes, businesses, roads, bridges, and other infrastructures have been flooded or washed away in recent weeks, with more flooded expected as more rivers will soon crest with the predicted rainstorms. Tornadoes have also caused plenty of damage across the Midwest.

I lived in California for three years while I was in the Marines. Overall, the weather is very beautiful and much more pleasant than in the Midwest. However, Californians have to worry about earthquakes, brush fires, flash floods, and sandstorms, among other things.

I actually considered living in California after my honorable discharge from the Marines. Two things brought me back to Chicago. Most of my family and all of my friends lived in Chicago. And, I was really afraid of the weather and other natural disasters in California. Sure I could have gotten used to them. But why should I place myself in danger’s way unnecessarily?

Chicago is fairly safe in terms of meteorolgical events. The city itself has never had a tornado. We do live close to the New Madrid fault line and we do experience an occasional tremor, but we really haven’t had actually ever had an earthquake. Sure the tradeoff is that we do have a higher crime rate than most places, but at least you have a fighting chance against a mugger or a rapist. How do protect yourself from a tornado that suddenly appears in right front of you? I presently live in a house that was built in 1879, which is pretty old for a house in Chicago, and I feel safe living in this house knowing that it has survived everything that Mother Nature inflicted on it.

I just got back from seeing The Hulk with my sons. A couple of weeks back I took them to see Iron Man in the evening and they liked the thrill of seeing the movie in a packed house. I always preferred to see movies that way, too, but I usually took my sons to an early afternoon show because it was a lot easier that way.

This time I snuck in some Swedish Fish for us to munch on instead of tortilla chips. I had forgotten that I once took tortilla chips with us to the show until my son Adam reminded me. I really felt like my father when I did take the tortilla chips. All I needed was the jar of salsa. The advantage of seeing a movie in a packed theater is that I’m not the only one laughing at the funny parts.

Usually my sons tell me that I embarrass them when I laugh out loud by myself for too long. In a crowded theater, there’s always someone who laughs louder and longer than me. I then tell my sons that I laugh normally compared to these other extreme laughers.