I remember waking early to an alarm, jumping up half asleep to start a day that was rarely mine. Nowadays that alarm only goes off when we have to take an early flight, which rarely happens.
I get a thrill out of staying in bed after I wake up. I doze, I try to remember my dreams, I think about people. I feel gloriously self-indulgent staying in bed.
I also try to make room for the cat, who wants me up, not because he needs food. My husband, an early riser, gets up hours before I do. Murray the cat has already been fed and has been outside. He just thinks he can determine the schedule for his humans.
It's no use fighting with him. He is big, orange, and has claws and sharp teeth. Plus, he's relentlessly cute.
Here's a video of him saying hello to my friend, Judy:
Being able to lounge a bit in the morning is a luxury I never dreamed could be so life affirming. It is my favorite part of the day.
ReplyDeleteI avoid lounging in bed after the alarm. I know what a bad habit it will become, eventually pushing my bet time later and later and my rising later and later. Then my night would be day and my day would be night.
ReplyDeleteThe best part of retirement for us was following our inner clocks. Being able to stay in bed a bit longer in the mornings without rush. Your kitty cat is adorable. Hello Murray!
ReplyDeleteJenny and I are much the same. I spring out of bed at about 7 am while she continues napping for a while. Like Joanne, I don't like to linger in bed, it might be the start of a slippery slope!
ReplyDeleteI love to lie in bed, awake, nothing that forces me out of bed right away. For years, the sound of my youngest daughter's feet hitting the floor meant my treadmill day was starting.
ReplyDeleteMurray seems to know his name! I can never lounge in bed. The dog gets me up at first light.
ReplyDeleteHe does seem to know his name.
DeleteI wish I could sleep late but I have been waking up too early and then can't fall back to sleep! Ugh!
ReplyDeleteIndistinguishable from VR's cat, George, who lived to be 18. In those days I was into trumpet playing and George didn't approve. I doubt he'd approve of my singing were he still with us. Fair enough, I regarded him as surly. Visits to the vet were a pain in the bum. I thought we could get away with a cheapo cardboard carrying box. Fat chance. There were air-holes and I saw his long curved tooth emerge through one of the holes; next a slashing rip and lo! George was free and scratching at the rear window of the car.
ReplyDeleteSo we went the full hog, cashwise, and bought one of those plastic things. At which point it was as if George grew four extra legs, turning himself from a quadruped into an octoped. Just when I thought I'd got seven of his legs into the box, the eighth leg would tangle itself with the box's wire-grill door and he'd be glaring at me with a look of loathing. I should have worn leather gloves; second thought, gloves in chain mail, like a knight in armour.
Did you know the clarinet has two registers? The lower one is called chalumeau, less used in orchestral music. Why am I telling you this? Simply that when George was finally incarcerated in his plastic Cadillac he would lie, rested, and utter two tied but separate notes from the chalumeau register, probably at an interval of a fifth: eeee - ooooh, eeee - ooooh, over and over. Naturally, when the time came I was the one who had to take him on his final trip to the vet's, cat lovers always pass on this one. No tied notes this time, he was at death's door. Possibly he's now in heaven. But it will be a heaven without trumpets. Better still, without me.
George sounds like my kind of cat.
DeleteGood looking kitty. I have to get up weekdays by a certain time but rarely need the alarm that I set.
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