2025, home, pets, Uncategorized

Nighty Night

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I’m reading a memoir right now (Thirty Rooms to Hide In by Luke Sullivan).  In the early pages, the author paints a picture of his life growing up with his five brothers in Rochester in the fifties.  Here is an interesting passage on bedtime:

“Bedtime was indeed death.  Even the rituals were the same: the preparing of the body (the solemn washing of teeth, the funereal donning of pajamas), the readings, the occasional prayer, and finally the inevitable darkness.  All that was missing were Hallmark sympathy cards arriving in the mail.”

I never really thought about bedtime in terms of rituals but in my world, it’s probably the most consistent rituals that I have.  Teeth, pajamas, highlighting items done from my to-do list, making a list for the next day, med/vitamins, daily entry in my “good things” journal.  Once I’m actually settling in, there is the arranging of Nimue’s blanket on my side of the bed; her ritual is to settle in for about ten minutes, knead a few biscuits, purr while getting some scritches and then heading to her favorite bed on top of the radiator.

Almost forgot the “bang” treat for Guinevere and the yummies for Nimue… this usually happens between teeth and jammies.

Any bedtime rituals you adhere to?

27 thoughts on “Nighty Night”

  2. Just brush the teeth, set the alarm, and read until I doze off. Glad I wasn’t raised in that household where bedtime was “death.” Sheesh! What was wrong with THOSE parents?

    Chris in Owatonna

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    1. The six brothers grew up in an extremely dysfunctional world. Even the words extremely dysfunctional don’t quite cut the mustard.

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  4. My household has a couple of unique nightly rituals. One is “tube food.” This is maple-flavored Laxatone (for hairballs), and while everyone but Saoirse likes it, Hana is absolutely addicted to it. Everyone gets a dab just before I go to my room, and Hana gets to lick off the top of the tube when we’re done.

    The other is nighttime shrine work. If I had gone outside that day I would have put on my amulets, so I take them off and lay them on the appropriate shrines if I had not done so earlier. The main shrine is lit 24-7 with an electric candle, so it is inside an armoire. I say a prayer in front of it before formally closing the doors. The other shrines are on shelves or the tops of pieces of furniture, so I just say a short blessing at each. Then I change and go to bed for a little reading and more prayer before sleep. I should be doing proper lectio divina with an appropriate text, but I haven’t managed to make that a habit yet.

    –Crow Girl

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      1. It is part of my duty to the Holy Powers, but when it opens me to a sense of Their presence, that is a moment to treasure!

        To begin is simple, just requires a little willpower to get and keep going. If you don’t have your own spiritual traditions to draw on, you could perhaps sit quietly for just a few minutes, visualizing beaming love or peace from your heart in every direction to any being that wants to accept it (whatever that is like for you–it could be a sensation of warmth, or rays of colored light, or the sound of bells). You might say (internally or aloud) “May all beings be safe, may all beings be well, may all beings be happy, may all beings be blessed.” Close by putting your hands over your heart and saying “May I be safe, etc,” then go quietly to bed or about your day. That is a Buddhist practice that ought to be safe to use daily, and reasonably adaptable to other traditions.

        –Crow Girl

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    2. Love the kitty names. I had a pup named Sorcha as a young adult. I never thought of it until just now, but kind of funny to give an Irish name to a Samoyed, a Siberian dog.

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  5. Before the usual preparing the bodies for bed already mentioned, we do the day’s Wordle. This would be after any TV watching or snacking… We keep an ongoing list of words already used (at least since we started, sometime during Wordle’s first year), which is getting quite long. If we’re out somewhere late and just don’t have time, we check the next day to see what it was…

    We also do little massages – I do his calves and feet, then he gives me a light back massage.

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  6. Rise and Shine, Baboons,

    Other than the usual stuff already mentioned, I have some Phoebe routines. I give her a treat that she catches mid-air, then we cuddle for awhile, and I watch a little trite TV. Lately I have been watching cuts of the old, old, Carol Burnett Show, some of which are surpisingly pertinent to today. Many of the singing or dance numbers look dated, but still entertaining to me. Then I listen to an audio story and drift off.

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    1. Looks more like a heart shape (from the side) to me, but I’m just spitballing it…. I chose the picture because it stood out among all the other “bedroom” pictures.

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  8. Robert Fulgham of everything I needed to know I learned in kindergarten fame I believe his last book may have been a book called rituals and it was very in like lightning to me because I had never thought about the stuff that I do as a ritual turns out that all my kids except one followed my bath ritual. We are soaking in the tub is a major part of the deal either in the morning or at night or both I still do it these days today I study Chinese in the tub in the morning or at night or both. It’s more likely today that my ritual will simply be laying down on the couch with the TV on and if I pull a blanket over me because I tend to get chilled, there’s a greater likelihood that that’s where I’ll end up for the night then if I don’t pull a blanket over me or I can just put my feet on the floor and walk up the stairs if I have the foresight and ambition to go upstairs and go to bed at bedtime I turn on the TV either to Turner classic movies or Stephen Colbert. My wife comes in and changes the volume down to where it’s just loud enough for her to hear and loud enough for me to be able to recognize that someone’s talking and get the gist of it and the TV plays all night when I wake up in the morning, I know what time it is by a combination of the light and the television show that’s on this reminded me of my ritual back when I was in my 20s when I would get out the bong and watch Perry Mason and get out the pecan Sandy’s the pretzels, the Dr Pepper and fade off into the sunset. Those were the days. Maybe I should try that again. My sweet tooth is gone and I’m not sure I need the Dr Pepper. I haven’t had pecan sandy’s on a regular basis for a while and I’d probably have to do the bong to see if the pretzels would still have an appeal. I enjoy them on occasion, but not like I used to
    life does progress.

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  9. I just brush my teeth and go to bed. Husband has to see to his cpap machine. Our terrier is a dog of habit and ritual. Getting ready for bed means: a small bowl of ice with protein sprinkles on it, vigorous tugs with his floppy Wubbas, a run around the back yard to check for bunnies, and then bed. He likes to rest his head on a down pillow and snuggle up to in bed as close to me as possible.

    This morning he saw I was getting ready to go to work, and went over to his kennel waiting for the piece of cheese he gets when he dives into his kennel. I hadn’t said a word to him about his kennel and wasn’t even going to kennel him since I was only going to be at work for a couple of hours. He hasn’t been in his kennel all of February since I didn’t go to work all month, but he recogized the signs and behaviors this morning that signaled going to work.

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    1. Guinevere ALWAYS knows when I’m about to leave the house. Even if I change up my routine before leaving, she always heads for her kennel.

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  13. I set up the coffeemaker, ading the water and the coffee and the timer takes over for me. Because in the morning I don’t like to have to make coffee before I’ve had my coffee.

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