ten reasons i am awake right now

Ah, another Kitty Wake Up Hour. How delightful. I know I should be grateful to find the sun shining, the birds chirping, my health intact, another gorgeous day of leisure ahead of me. Instead I find myself wondering why a cat who sleeps away 90% of every day thinks that 5 am is a fantastic time to roust the family. Try as I may to adjust his sleep schedule (by rousting him all afternoon), Monkey persists in being an early riser.

Since March is all about the lists, here are Monkey's top ten tactics to disrupt my REM:

1. Bringing a paper ball to bed and tossing it around... if I throw it he will fetch, but throwing, of course, still involves being awake
   
2. Bringing a feather stick to bed, after pathetically dragging the stick slowly across the floor... again, if I wave it he will play, but this too requires being awake
   
3. Mewling loudly while looking up at imaginary bugs on the walls
4. Mewling loudly at nothing at all
5. Batting OC through the canopy... very ineffective and somewhat comical, devastating for the canopy
   
6. Jumping on OC's head when he sits by the door asking to leave... just plain mean
   
7. Scrambling under the covers to claw my feet
   
8. Scrambling under the covers to claw my ass
9. Jumping on top of the covers to capture feet in motion
   
10. Knocking over mystery items in other rooms - today it was the ceramic "duck" that looks suspiciously like a vulture that Kevin made in elementary school... usually he just knocks the glasses off the blind pig or dismantles Darth Vader's head...

Only if he is feeling special will Monkey come snuggle my head and even that turns ugly. Like most cats he prefers to snuggle with his butt in my face. If he is does grace me with his cuter end, it often ends in a sneeze (his, not mine) - though this is less frequent since changing to expensive cat litter.

In any event, I am awake. And my husband is on vacation. And my parents are in town. And they are staying at the hotel with the adequately heated pool so I am excited. Tired, but excited.

P.S. I seriously doubt anyone read this during the hour it has been posted, so I am not bothering to make this tidbit into its own post, but apparently Monkey's Kitty Wake Up Hour is effective in at least two counties. Just got a call from a man in Santa Barbara wondering why I have been prank calling him at 4 and 6 in the morning the past couple days. Yeah, Monkey also sometimes steps on the phone...