The cooler autumn weather allows us to turn off the window AC in our bedroom and keep the windows open, instead. Things chill down overnight, causing us to keep blankets handy and encouraging snuggling beneath them. The dog and cats also appreciate the opportunity to snuggle up.

Our second-floor bedroom faces the alley, but we still get some traffic noises from nearby cars or motorcycles, and we occasionally hear the theoretically illegal “jake brake” noises from the big trucks on the distant highway. But usually, those sounds are drowned out by the cricket chorus and the breeze in the trees which serve as a kind of lullaby — a background symphony that relaxes us and helps us sleep.

Late at night we do hear car doors slamming, too-loud conversations and too-late merriment from some neighbors, and the occasional barking dog, but for the most part, those are not too intrusive. Likewise, in the early morning we hear quieter voices and people going about their early activities. Once a week, the garbage trucks come through — one for trash and one for recycling — with quite a bit of thumping and bumping tumult. As with the other familiar routine noises, though, that’s usually not enough to disturb us too much.

That being said, the night noises can disturb our dog, who will start barking at some strange sound or try to alert us to the presence of raccoons playing in the water bowl outside on the patio. Our younger cat also often needs to check in with us in the night to verify whether we still like her enough to stoke her chin and pull her tail. Her meowing and kneading on our chests (or worse, bladder!) early in the morning tells us that she has heard a noise she thinks that maybe we should investigate or, preferably, pet her to make her feel better about it.

Being a small polite neighborhood of mostly houses with yards, we all tend to be conscious of not making much noise late at night or in the early morning. So, we seldom get the too-early lawn mowing, chain-sawing or impatient commuter horn blowing, but we do have barking dogs, excited children, late garden parties/cookouts and slamming garbage can lids. In other words, we live in a neighborhood full of people.

We know most of our neighbors, by sight if not name, and generally tolerate their quirks as they do ours. (Thank you for that!) Hustling kids off to school may take some effort and shouting, but it soon calms down. If your familiar neighborhood noises keep you awake, then the noise isn’t your problem. An old friend of mine couldn’t tolerate any intruding noise while he slept, so he always kept a fan next to his bed to create white noise while he slept. It generally worked for him.

And my brother often didn’t sleep well, and attributed it — partly in jest — to a guilty conscience. Sure, a guilty conscience can keep you awake, but anything that switches my mind from ‘pause’ to ‘on’ can do the same. The normal aches and pains of age can trigger deep thoughts and unresolved issues that require heavy consideration regardless of the time.

Now, that is when a cuddly kitten comes in handy.

Being retired, I don’t have to get up for work, unlike most of my neighbors who do. In summer, the open windows allow the sound of alarm clocks to travel through the morning-still air, mostly too quiet to be heard by the human ear, a house away. And one of the features of having a dog is that although she cannot tell time, she can hear extremely well, particularly a neighbor’s alarm clock. Our dog, Rosie, is diligent about letting me know when she hears an alarm — ANY alarm — and rushes to implore whether it’s time to “get up and feed the dog?” Usually, she “boops” me with her wet nose and if I can reach her to gently squish her eyes, pull her ears and pat her head, she’ll let me go back to sleep. But some mornings it takes a good long “skritch” down the length of her back to get her to settle down. At that point it’s inevitably time for me to select a deep thought or issue that needs to be chewed on: How seriously do I need to pee? What’s on my list of things to do first thing in the morning? What will the day hold?

About then, the breeze in the trees and cricket chorus come in handy.