Today is a slow day, the end of a holiday week that was, for the most part, slower than most. Had a little drama on Tuesday and Wednesday trying to get a response out the door, but all in all, a much quieter week than I usually experience.
As today was going to be a slow day, I decided I would sleep in. Last night, as I prepared for bed, I turned off my alarm. I would let my body tell me when it was ready to get up. In my experience, that's usually around 9 am. As my first and only meeting of the day was at 11:30, I figured I could get away with not rising at my usual 6:30 am.
It was a good theory, but in reality - as they say - not so much.
As I think I've written before, I'm not really a sound sleeper. Quite the opposite in fact. I often describe my ability to sleep through noise this way - my cats walking in the room wakes me up. Any cat owner will tell you that cats can make an amazing amount of noise when they choose to, even if they do step lightly most of the time. But in general, when a cat walks around the house, it's not noticeable.
Maybe it's the equivalent of the mom-ears that I understand women develop to hear a crying child? Though you would think that I would only hear a cat in distress, not a cat merely roaming the halls at night. But no, I'm not that lucky.
What I really hear usually is their claws on the carpet. A sign that it's time for them to be trimmed. Still, most people would not notice that level of noise when asleep. Guess I'm just talented.
Last night, Mia decided to not just walk into my bedroom at 4 am, but to come racing in, claws fully engaged at keeping her balanced, and vocalizing to boot. At 4 am! She has been known to do this on a given morning when I haven't gotten up in time - whatever she perceives that time to be - to feed them. Most mornings, that's somewhere between 5:30 and 6. On work days, my alarm goes off at 5:30 and I lie in bed listening to the CD that's playing, dozing, and thinking about the day to come. Somehow, usually, Mia recognizes that process and generally doesn't vocalize too much in her attempt to get me up that much sooner.
So I was surprised that she decided this morning that it was time to get up at 4 am. Since I'm used to this behavior on weekend mornings and since my alarm wasn't set, I assumed it was time to get up, feed the fur children, and go back to bed for the rest of the morning. But no, it was only 4 am.
In frustration, I decided to close the door with the cats on the outside. That way, I thought foolishly, I would not be awoken between 5:30 and 6 and would be able to make up for the shorter night with a little more lazing about in the am.
Wrong! Somehow, and I still don't know how she did it, Mia was on the inside when I shut the door. So much for keeping the cats from disturbing me. About 4:30, she made her presence known by crying at the door to be let out. She's not one to be locked in, my Mia.
So at 4:30 I was up again, opening the door to let Mia out and to keep Brie from coming in. A quick open and close. Heart racing a bit, I crawled back in bed. Cozy again under the covers, ready to sleep in.
Then at some point - I didn't look at the clock - there was bump on the door. Thump! Someone was trying to get back into the bedroom. I don't really know which cat it was, but I'd put money on Mia. She's never met a door she didn't want to be on the other side of. Once again, my sleeping in was thwarted.
Then it was my own body that betrayed me! I woke up about 7, the time I usually get up to feed the cats on the weekend. You would think that since I'd really essentially been up since 4, my body would have slept past the 7 mark. But no. I figured that I might as well get up and feed the cats or at some point, the thumping on the door would become more regular as they decided that it was time to be fed.
7:15, back in bed again. This time, it wasn't the cats that disturbed my sleep. It was a dream. Somewhere between a dream and a nightmare really. Not a nightmare, but an unhappy dream. A dream from which I woke myself because I didn't really want to be having it. I rolled over and tried again.
Woke for the final time at 9 am. I could have turned over one more time since, as I said, I didn't really have anything to do until 11:30. But I was actually feeling refreshed. Huh?
So that was my morning of sleeping in. Awoken at least four or five times between 4 and 9. Sleeping in - not really.
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