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Daylight

In my default, self-employed and own-hour-setting state, I wake with the sun. Normally, by the time daylight savings arrives, my waking time is already adjusted, or has been forcibly adjusted by a cat who wants his feeding schedule set by the sun. The bumping up of the clock change has derailed the process. Last night I stayed up to some ungodly hour to finish a book, then slept till nine o'clock. Not much saving of daylight going on here.

The cats did their best to rouse me at a reasonable hour this morning, but I shut them out of the bedroom. Tricky me! I get up and walk to the door like I might possibly be going downstairs to feed them. The cat scurries ahead out into the hallway, looking back over his shoulder to make sure I'm following, then, click! I shut the door and go back to bed.

I'm so glad the door-shutting trick works in my current bedroom. In the room where I used to sleep, there was an inch and a half gap between the floor and the bottom of the door. If I tried to shut the cats out, they would reach a paw under the door, rattle the door against the doorjamb, and meow piteously and very loudly. The door of my current bedroom does not have paw clearance.

The cats may find away around even that. The smart cat, who is also the one that wants to eat in the morning, is catching on to the door closing thing. Now instead of running out into the hall, he stops and waits under the chair by the door. Thus far, I've been able to reach under the chair and gently push him into the hall, but as soon as he starts digging in his heels, I'm toast.

Since cat tricks are the theme of the day, here's another cute thing my cat did. The not-so-smart cat, Sparky was sitting on my desk the other afternoon, being helpful by sitting in front of my monitor while he engaged in a little pre-dinner primping. He stretched out one foreleg while he washed up a tricky spot on the elbow and put his paw down. On my keyboard. Suddenly "fffftttttttttttttttttttttttt" (something cats actually say) appeared in the middle of my translation. Maybe Sparky's smarter than I thought.