Geez, are we whipped.

[madbaker]

Monday night I got home late from an evening with friends. 10:30 PM, which is quite late for me, because I have to get up at 4-friggin'-o'clock in the bleeding-A.M. I brush teeth and fall into bed.

And can't fall asleep, because the wife is working hard on an art project due Tuesday. She’s cutting thick sheets of paper. Scritch, scritch. Ching!

No point in complaining; she's in school, after all. I just get up and close the door. Several hours of sleep blessedly follow.

Wife comes to bed late for her, having finished the project at 1:30 AM. She has an 8 AM class (and is unhappy about it, but usually gets zero sympathy from me). Because she's been working on aforementioned project all evening and I haven't been home all day, the cat has not had sufficient (read: any) playtime.

So he starts thrashing around in the bedroom. "I can jump in the laundry basket! Now, out! And... again!" Then he discovers the doorstop. Thwongggg. Thwongggg.

Wife gets up and semi-gently throws cat out of bedroom and shuts the door. We both try to get to sleep.

Galen meerkats on hind legs and scratches at the door. Scritch scritch scritch scritch! Scritch scritch scritch scritch! It is apparent that neither of us will get any sleep until the cat has had playtime.

Wife gets up, puts on a robe, and groggily plays with the cat in the other room for an hour. Returns to bed around 2:30.

The only upside of this? Cat was too tuckered out to wake me up any further with raspy chin-washing. 'Course, I was too beat to write about this yesterday.

Pet ownership. It doesn’t mean that we own him...

What I'm reading: Neal Stephenson, The Confusion

Comments

[scendan.livejournal.com]

"Meercats."

Perfect. Yup. That's exactly it.

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

My cats trained me to throw the stuffed mice for them at 2am this way. After a while, I realized I was just aiding & abetting, and stopped. Be warned!

cat alarm clocks.

[our-meg.livejournal.com]

I am blessed with one rather quiet cat who likes to sit on me and put her paw on my lip. Not dangerous until she decides to stick the claws out.

The other cat is a talker, but she tends to wait until I am actually moving in the morning before demanding attention. This means that once I have hit the alarm on the clock, she's up and about, demanding to be petted.

Sigh. I feel for you, I really do.

[roswtr.livejournal.com]

Since the new house doesn't have a convenient cat-jail to lock the animals up at night, we've started putting the scat-mat in front of the bedroom door. I only heard them yowling for the first night or two, and now they seem to spend the night happily roaming the rest of the house.

Of course, they're waiting right at the door when I get up in the morning, all set to escort me to the food bowl.

[madbaker.livejournal.com]

Scat-mat? He asked inquiringly.

Scat Mat!

[roswtr.livejournal.com]

It's a rubber mat with a low electric current. I've stood on it and found it to be sort of tingly, not painful in the least -- but I weigh substantially more than either of the cats, too.

http://www.mightypets.com/product.asp?3=506

Earplugs

[patsmor.livejournal.com]

Yup. the soft 31 decible kind.

Cats at night

[goldenstag.livejournal.com]

So he starts thrashing around in the bedroom. "I can jump in the laundry basket! Now, out! And... again!" Then he discovers the doorstop. Thwongggg. Thwongggg.

One good thing about having two cats, is that at least sometimes they keep each other amused. When we're trying to sleep, if they really feel a need to play, rather than causing problems for us, they tend to play with each other. Of course, sometimes its on the bed, and they have to be rather forcefully reminded not to play there. <g>

On the other hand, sometimes, like last night, they just curl up tight against me (usually me, not the spouse -- dunno why), and sleep. This meant one problem: I didn't move much, so my back is a bit outta wack. These guys are heavy enough, and somehow they seem to be able to focus their gravitational pull just right ... they seem to be heavier sometimes. Luckily exercise in the AM seems to resolve most of the back issues, so there I go (well, in a bit, once the spousal unit heads off to work).

Re: Earplugs

[goldenstag.livejournal.com]

Have you found some that work? I got some the other day (long story that doesn't need to be gotten into here), and wasn't happy with them. They didn't really seem to work (I could hear my spousal unit's every breath ...).

[farmount.livejournal.com]

"Dogs have owners. Cats have staff."

Hearing about how Galen played with the doorstop made me remember this cartoon. (http://queenofwands.net/d/20040227.html)

Heh.

[madbaker.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but without the "Meep" running away. He thought it was a great trick.