My Alarm Clock...

In an effort to re-align my sleep schedule from my vacation schedule to my work schedule, I had to do a long sleep, long awake and a really long sleep. The end goal is to be sleepy during the evening hours of Sunday so I can get enough sleep to be quasi-useful Monday at work. My plan was working beautifully until...

At 2 AM my alarm clock, Bobby, decided that he had had enough.

Bobby is my cat. In our herd of 6 kitties, he has single claim on me. Cory will do as an option for him if I am unavailable but his heart is reserved for me. Bobby's single goal in life is to convince me to go to bed so he can snuggle my belly. He spends hours a day trying to figure out a way to get me to go to bed. You would think that my sleep re-alignment would have been right up his alley.

At 12 years old, Bobby has some pretty effective methods for manipulating me into doing his biding. His efforts to get me to bed include a spectacular display of meowing and leading me to the bedroom. If I fail to follow or follow-up, the process is repeated until he declares defeat and he re-tries in approximately 30 minutes.

Once in bed, I am treated with a belly snuggle that lasts until either I am forced up due to some nasty obligation such as work or he decides that it is time to get up. The latter occurred this morning. He begins the process by expressing his love through purring. This stirs me a little but I've built a resistance to this initial technique. He then moves to the pawing of my hair. With his paws, he prods the back of my neck as if he is looking for entrance to the world under the blankets. When I surface long enough to lift the blankets to offer entrance, he sticks his head under the blanket and pauses to contemplate world events while I hang in limbo with the blankets held high. This process lasts about 30 seconds but it is his first taste of success. He then moves into his final step... excessively loud purring. For excessively loud purring, he puts forth an effort that causes his head to bob (thus the name Bobby). His purr is so loud and explosive that it activated the final catalyst... he wakes Cory. I alone could ignore the purring, plus how can you be mad at a cat that is this happy? Cory is a lighter sleeper than me and he finally says "Bobby, Please Stop!" This completes the cycle. I know that it will only stop if I get up...

So this is how I ended up updating my blog at 3 in the morning. Once I made my coffee, Bobby yelled at me some more until I let him up on my lap at the computer where he immediately fell back asleep. I guess he was just looking for a change of venue.