Morning Rituals
My dog woke me up whining at 3:45.
She wanted to get on the bed. Apparently, something had caused her to get up during the night and she hates to get on the bed without asking for permission. The dog is prone to neuroses, and always wanting to be polite is a big one for her. This can be problematic if I am asleep when she makes her request as I am a sound sleeper.
But she was successful in waking me this time, so I invited her on the bed and she was happy for awhile. It didn’t last long though, she started to make little whining noises while looking at me over her shoulder. She even sat down next to me, looming over me while staring down at my face. I thought that I was smelling something odd, and I wondered if perhaps she needed to go out. So I asked her, “Do you have to go outside?” She immediately jumped down off of the bed and was gone with a shot. I got up and followed, walking out of the bed room and going to the door wall.
She wanted none of that outside business though. She was standing in the middle of the living room, on point, body stiff, with her nose pointing into the kitchen while keeping one eye on me over her shoulder. She wanted her daily Smart Bone. Every morning upon arising, she gets one of these chicken flavored rawhide things called a Smart Bone. They are supposed to be healthier for her than a standard rawhide bone, and I admit that they do smell pretty good with that roast chicken aroma that they have. I just can’t believe that she needs to get me up at four in the morning to get one. I asked her, “Did you really get me up just because you wanted a Smart Bone?” She immediately made a bolt for the dining room, running through the kitchen, past the drawer in the hall where the Smart Bones are kept, spinning around, almost in mid-air as she entered the dining room and then stopped dead still, eyes locked on the front of the Smart Bone drawer.
I opened the drawer, found the bag of bones inside, and gave her one. She ran back to the living room where she curled up on her faux wolf skin, and started to happily eat her morning snack.
Just then there was a howl behind me.
It was a low howl, full of emotion. It was the howl of discontent, the howl of unfairness, the howl of complaint. It was the howl of the French people complaining about the excesses of King Louis and Marie Antoinette. It was the howl of the prisoner, who complains about unjust living conditions. It was the howl of the fist, clenched in rage.
In short, it meant that the cat was up.
And she was hungry…..
Our cat is very eccentric. I know, I know, everyone thinks that they have the weirdest cat in the world. But we really do, Callie likes to be fed on the stairs, her food bowl on the second step down from the top. She likes to eat there because she knows that the dog is afraid of heights and will go nowhere near the stairs, so her food is safe. She is a demanding little shit and when she wants to eat, she wants to eat. And she wanted to eat now, Damnit!
She has no interest in the comfort of her humans. If we trip and fall down the stairs while trying to put food in her bowl as she does figure eights between our legs, well then, it’s just our own damn fault.
Finally, I get them both fed and watered and they settle down, awaiting for Momma to come home and they can start the whole thing over again.
Mornings are hard around our house.
