On sleep (or lack thereof), and cats, and the intersection of same.

meri 2015.12.18

Those of you who were following along with my flurry of updates and comments on facebook last night know that I was having a great deal of difficulty finding my way to sleep. This was particularly annoying as it was the third¹ night running that this was a problem. My body doesn’t have much in the way of reserves to draw upon, and it really needs to be able to recharge through sleep. Often more than once per day. Any significant drop in the aggregate amount of sleep I get in a 24 hour period generally leads to an abrupt and overwhelming system shutdown, where my body overrides my brain and takes charge of the situation.² These forced periods of near convalescence always occur at the most inconvenient times, and are generally a big drag.

After my last update (which was made in the vicinity of 3AM), I was clever enough to turn off my normal 05:00, 05:30, and 06:00 alarms, leaving just the 06:30 “make sure G is up and about” alarm active.

I was quite proud of this bit of forethought.

You know what I forgot about? Fuzzy four-legged alarm clocks. Particularly ones with poofy tails and a complete lack of boundaries when he feels his need for his morning fish is being ignored, as was apparently the case at 5:30 this morning.

Apropos of nothing…

It is very important to me that you understand how much I love our cats. Really and truly, I adore them. They’re awesome. Even Mr. Mach.³ They each a filled to the point of bursting with unique personalities. Their willingness to share their lives with me and G⁴ greatly enriches our lives.

Our four felines are spoiled, loved, and lavished with as affection (or not, should they so choose⁵). Egyptian temple cats of old, upon reviewing our quartet’s pair of human attendants and the obeisance we bestow upon them each day, would … well, they would find the situation only fitting. But that in and of itself should be some indication of how well our cats have it.

That being said…

I believe that my affection — nay, devotion — to the cats is well established. And yet, for about 20 minutes most mornings, the voice of my inner monologue takes on the calm, firm, reassuring tone of professional crisis counselor.⁶

I love the cats. The cats are my friends.⁷ If it weren’t for the cats, I’d actually be talking to myself all day⁸. I go to great lengths to avoid so much as displeasing any of the cats, so actually harming one of them is unthinkable! It would, for instance, be ever so wrong of me to grab Sprocket from where he is perched, standing atop my head⁹, and smother him. No matter how tempting I find the idea in this brief moment, ultimately, it would leave me heartbroken.

Also, it would be very hard to explain to G.

1. Fourth? I lose track. More than second.
2. Since clearly, my brain had lost control of things.
3. Mr. Mach is a grumpy old man (I can’t remember exactly how old he is, but he was already beyond the “wee kitten” phase when I first met him in 2003.) But before he was a grumpy old man, he was a grumpy young man, and before that, a grumpy kitten. He’s really something of a jerk.
4. mere humans though we be
5. Miller’s not really big on the whole biped thing.
6. And, now that I think about it, sounds weirdly like Kevin Spacey in The Negotiator.
7. And, it goes without saying, not food.
8. Don’t you judge me!
9. So as to have better access to knock things off the headboard.