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Tip of the Day 10.03.11 Life at 4.23 AM

Written by Jimmy

Yes, I gave a little speech about being a morning person in a recent blog (tip 4 on D.E.).    So here’s a little blog on the reality of getting up at 4.23 AM.So 5 things:

1.  Alarm Clocks are Evil.  Alarm goes off at 4.23AM.  I have an interesting relationship with alarms.  I view them as extremely evil as they tend to wake me up, which is rude.  Equally, I hate them so much, that I’m relatively indifferent as to when they wake me up – the whole thing is so intrusive, so mean spirited, so selfish, so loud, so invasive of a core moment of privacy (deep sleep) that it doesn’t matter to me at all when they go off.  I hate the act, not its timing.  So oddly, it means I’m no more angry that it goes off at 4.23, as I would be if it went off at 7.23.  At that moment, I don’t register if I’ve had 5 hours sleep or 8.  So I get up mad at my alarm.

2.  Snooze Alarms are the Single Best Thing About Being Single:  Now, if I were travelling, or when i was single, the alarm clock would be greeted by a massive smash on the head, pressing the snooze alarm and allowing me to go back to sleep.  Heaven is the moments between snooze alarms.   My grandfather called that moment ‘rizzleing’ when you knew you are getting up but you are capturing those last seconds of sleep.   When I’m travelling, I set the alarm an hour before I need to get up so I can smash the snooze alarm 12 times and Rizzle.  At home that would not lead to a good marriage, even with St Kathy.  In fact, at 4.23, snooze alarms aren’t allowed and I need to actually get up.  Sad.

3. The Oreo Animal Circus:   Having assembled gym kit and clothes for work I go downstairs, where the ‘oreo animal circus’ begins.   From hall way, I need to go into kitchen, where I know three different animals with three very different morning personalities will ‘greet me.’  They have been alert to the fact that I’ve been up since I turned on the downstairs light 30 seconds before, so they’ve worked out their individual harrassment strategies.  Remember, at this point I’ve been up for 96 seconds.  I open door.

Lewie, the small black  duck sized cock-a-poo ‘goes off’ like a little fire cracker in his cage.  Jumping at cage door, yipping like a real dog on helium, ‘demanding’ (he’s so tiny and ridiculous, that at his best things are mild suggestions) that he be let out.  Now, I’m assuming he has a strong desire to see me.  No.  I let him out and he looks at me for 1 second and then races to find Toby, the white bit of the ‘oreo animal circus.’

Toby is deploying his own strategy.  He’s awake and lying on leather couch, where he’s not allowed to be, but always is at 4.24 in morning.   He’s awake because of the helium yipping, and his tail is wagging because he knows i’m about to pet his head.  But he doesn’t want to get caught on couch.  So he keeps his eyes closed, using the classic 7 year old ploy that if he can’t see me, I can’t see him.  Clever.   But all is interrupted as released fire cracker, Lewie, attacks closed eyed  Toby and starts biting him, starting at mouth and ending up at tail.  Now little Lewie is on ground, so mouth attack is on part of Toby’s face hanging over couch.  Tail attack is for wagging tail that occassionally approaches ground level.  After about 30 seconds of fury, Lewies settles for hanging on to Toby’s tail and trying to pull him off couch.  Gravity and relative mass is important to keep in mind at this point.  Lewie is trying to pull Toby off couch, but as Toby is wagging tail in anticipation of my head scratch, said tail is lifting Lewie up rather rhymically.  Chances are slim that Lewie will pull Toby off couch.   So I now scratch Toby’s head for 12 seconds, which sends Tail into Frenzy and lifts Lewie frighteningly high (12 Lewie body lengths, or about 17 inches off ground).  So I grab Lewie for his hello, which is reciprocated by his weeing all over my hand and an Economist near the couch.  It is now 4.25.  I head towards sink, where third animal begins his harrasment strategy.

This is Sammy the Angry black  cat who is staring at the ‘skirt’ on one wall of the conservatory.  There’s a family of mice somewhere in the skirt board and he hears them and spends about 8 hours a day watching out for them.   They have external entrance and exit so he’s never seen them, but he hears them, he smells them and this makes him very angry.  He then notices me and starts meowing very loudly to be let out.  He has a cat flap but finds it beneath him.    I quickly wash hands and then, with great regret, but eager to stop getting yelled at by Alpha cat, I go to open door.  This is like openning one of the locked gates in Steerage on the Titanic during the flooding.  A mass o’ beings runs to the door.   As I open door, Toby leaps out over angry cat and helium yipping little Lewie.  Lewie falls on slippery floor, allowing angry cat to jump out second.  Lewie uses confusion to piddle on floor again before going out, ensuring me that he won’t ever spoil our back garden with his wee.  Cheers little man.  Then he goes out to find Toby who’s rushed to back of garden to find foxes.   Angry cat follows.  Lewie prances between back of garden and door, too afraid to enter the shadows of said garden, staying near light of conservatory but desparate to be with Toby.  Sort of purgatory.   It is now 4.28.  I have to go out and get Toby, because I can’t call him given hour of day.  Lewie follows.  I get to back garden where Toby has settled to eat a rock.  I have to grab his collar to get him back in.  I’m pulling him in, but at this point Lewie is biting his tail again trying to keep him outside, I guess.  Angry Sammy has joined the circus at this point, deciding to weave in and out of my legs as I pull Toby who pulls Lewie back inside.  If I could juggle at this point I think I would have youtube hit.  It is now 4.29.

4. BBC 4 and Wing Mirrors.   I get all animals back inside.  I put Lewie back in cage.  He widdles on hand again, reassuring me again that not a blade of grass was harmed during his trip to the garden.  I wash off hands and grab 3 diet cokes.   I rush to hall way, gather up work clothes, gym back, computer back and head outside.  A car is waiting.  All bags go into boot, I go into back seat with computer and one diet coke and do a little work (at this point it is mostly solataire).  Ask driver to put on BBC 4.  They never know number.  It is 93.5.  They gradually turn dial to 93.5 while driving down our road.  I’ve learned not to tell them to find BBC 4 until we are safely by our cars because they tend to swerve from right to left hitting wing mirrors of our neighbors cars as they weave down our street, trying to find BBC 4, trying to call station to say ‘POB’ (person on board, I’ve learned) and trying to not hit more than 11 wing mirrors.   When we first arrived in England and were learning to drive, the hardest thing was controlling left side of car.  I always knew when Kathy had arrived home before me because all the wing mirrors of all the cars on our street on the left side had been knocked in.  We are classy.

Jimmy