Sleepy ramblings

I have been looking forward to today. A weekday off work with no one in the apartment except for me and my pets. A day to devote to my novel.

My alarm went off at 7am, just over two hours later than my alarm went off yesterday. You'd think it was two hours earlier by the way I felt. I crawled out of bed and finally managed to get son off to school. He left grumbling that he wished he had a day to sleep in. Meanwhile he slept til the crack of noon on Sunday. My heart bleeds for you kid.

My cat Oreo started yowling almost immediately. You see, he's starving to death; literally wasting away to a mere shadow of his former self. I didn't empty his bowl of the leftovers from last night and replenish it from the tin of goodness, so he was left with stale food. He cried and wailed, circling the bowls like a vulture and likely dreaming of growing opposable thumbs. Then he flopped on the floor beside me, all four paws in the air, dead of starvation, belly flab drooping to the floor. I still didn't feed him so he huffed away to take a nap.

I cracked open chapter two and began revising. I realized last night that I was missing some crucial information. This morning, as I began losing track of sentences and couldn't figure out where to place apostrophes, I realized I was missing some crucial sleep. Evidently a nap was in order for me too.

Every time I decide to take a nap, I forget one important fact. A futon will not comfortably hold three cats and a human. Something has to give and I'm the weak link. I set my timer for an hour, which would leave me with four hours of writing time, pulled my softest pillow off the wicker chair, and settled myself into a comfy position. Seconds later I had a cat butt in my face and a paw under my cheek. Angel decided the pillow was hers too.

Eventually I ended up with a cat back in my face, complete with fur up my nose, and my head positioned in a way rarely seen outside of "whiplash during a car accident" photos. Plus one cat draped over my feet, putting one to sleep a lot faster than I was going, and my 'dying of starvation' kitty sprawled across my hip. All twenty-two pounds of him.

I gave up barely a quarter into the nap. Now I'm hoping peppermint tea will work just as well. And, as I switch back to my novel, I'll leave you with my daughter's current favourite line from the book (one that won't give away any plot):

"I felt like I was in one of those horror movies, the ones where everything seemed perfectly normal until a monster popped up and ate someone's face."

Edited to add: This is what cat sarcasm looks like...