Who Can Understand The Mind Of A Cat?

Today I'm tired and grumpy.  I have no energy, I keep yawning, and there are dark bags under my eyes.  I'm blaming it all on the cats.

Hubby Tony is out of town for training this week.  Normally he gets up earlier than I do in the morning, so he has cat duty.  (You may remember that years ago when the 'boys' had an unattended food bowl Jackson took advantage of it, leaving nothing for Pepper.  We solved the problem by putting their food bowls in separate parts of the house and dividing their daily portion of kibbles into several meals.)  One of those meals is in the morning.

I had resigned myself to the fact that the cats would expect to eat a couple of hours before my alarm goes off.  My plan was to get up, feed them, and return to bed.  That's easier than trying to shut them out of the bedroom; they just scratch on the door and wake me up anyway.

Every night this week after I got into bed Pepper comes up to the head, climbs on my pillow, and settles himself along the top by my head.  However, last night the settling in was accompanied by loud purring and tail-swishing.  His tail kept hitting me in the face until I rolled over the other way and fell asleep.  At midnight when I had to use the bathroom he showed up and we went through the whole process again. 

Pepper is the main instigator at 'wake up and feed us' time.  He walks over my body and meows.  If that doesn't work he pounces on me until I give in.  When I get out of bed I have to be careful not to trip over Jackson, who's waiting on the floor not too far away.  This morning I was half awake when I fed Pepper in the spare bedroom, then took care of Jackson downstairs in the laundry room.  After my business was done I rolled back into bed and pulled the covers up to my chin.

Usually after he's eaten  Pepper disappears or curls up at the foot of the bed.  However, this morning shortly after I'd fallen back asleep his pouncing (accompanied by loud meowing) resumed!  I had to kick him off the bed a couple of times before he got the message.  Unfortunately, after that I was completely awake.  I tossed and turned until the alarm went off, then grudgingly got up.

Tony will be home tomorrow night, so this term of cat duty is almost of up.  Thank goodness!

Five years ago today: God's Acre