A Series of Unfortunate Naps.
Jun 29, 2008 Pets & Animals
That is what my sleeping habits and patterns have become. It is not, however, due to insomnia which has generally been an off and on problem for most of my adult life.
It is due, in many great parts, to a large eighteen pound cat we put on a diet the end of last year.
It can start any time at night, some times it starts as early as midnight, some times we catch a break and it starts around 5am. Most nights, it starts around 1am to 3am, and is constant until one of us says some rather nasty crap and gets out of bed to feed the land beast we call Raven.
The ritual for the cat begins with her claws on the side of our bed which she uses to haul herself up. The edge of the bed she uses is now a mess of pit marks, claw swipes and the california King cotton sheets are plucked from her claws; making smooth look knubbed. Once she manages to haul herself onto the bed, she begins her rounds. These start at the feet.
Since Raven is some how physically unable to retract her seven foot long claws, having her walk over our feet every morning is a study in how well we can stand bleedingdeathpain. See figure A:
Figure A
She used to do this on our heads, but I grew wise to this, so as you can see with Figure A, I scoot down the bed every night I crawl into it. I sacrifice my feet for my head–I figure thinking is just as important as walking.
Once she is thoroughly finished leaving new holes within our ankles, she makes a 3/4 circut around the bed, trundling up the left side and across the head of the bed. The delightful part to remember while picturing this is that she is an old cat, and tends to bring gifts with her when she gets up on the bed: some times litter is clumped on the back of her legs, some times my hair. It’s always an adventure in ew, great, now I have to wash the entire bed again. Thanks. While she is doing this, she will often sniff for any random pieces of food that may have mysteriously rained down from heaven and landed on our pillows. The approximate sound I can compare Raven’s sniffing too is the sound of an elephants trunk shoved into your ear. See figure B:
Figure B
Now that I am good and wide awake, contemplating honorable suicide or becomming a nun, Raven will gracefully heave herself to the floor, wait anywhere from five to ten minutes and do it all again.
My sleep at night has turned into a series of unfortunate naps. I long the for the days of sleep that lasted two hours or more before some sort of interruption–Flora, get off the ceiling fan. No, Flora, the blinds are not a jungle gym. Flora! Stop knocking the computer on the floor!
For now I guess I’ll just have to stock up on really good band aids and get used to curling into a fetal position in the middle of my bed while the demented snuffleupagus that is my cat shark-circles around us and I wonder what it’s like to get a full night’s sleep.
OK, who is the master here?? Alright, I know with cats you can’t really be their master but you’ve got to take back control of your bed from your cat. I had some of the same problems with my dog- she was waking me up all through the night. I already knew she shouldn’t be sleeping in the bedroom with us because of my allergies, the last straw came when I realized I was a walking zombie because of my pet.
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Have you owned cats? :p
You’re right. Cat’s aren’t at all like dogs! Dominance issues are handled, and cat’s display dominance far differently than dogs.
There’s a lot of tongue-in-cheek in this post, it’s not really something I will try and change.
She’s an old cat tottering on super elderly. She won’t be with us much longer, so if she wants to walk all over my head? That’s fine.
Second, I would never deny my cat my bedroom. Her litter box is in here as well as all of her toys and her ’safe spots’. It wouldn’t even cross my mind to deprive her of such a thing.
Though thanks for your advice! We’re looking into other solutions
I understand- when my cat got really old, he got to do anything he wanted to in the house. Except pee on my husband’s clothes- that still got him in trouble!