If you’ve hung around for a while, you probably know that to say I’m not a morning person is a wild understatement. In general, my early-morning routine consists of the following:
Wake up.
Grumble.
Slap the snooze button.
Grumble.
Throw a pillow at the bird cage, possibly uttering a few choice words that are no doubt largely contributory to Dino’s increasingly profane vocabulary.
Slap the snooze button again.
Hurl a pillow at Sierra, who views any sign of movement as an indication that kitty kibble is surely bound to appear in her dish, and, to expedite the process, sticks a whisker or two in any available facial orifice.
Grumble.
Slap the snooze button again, grumble again, swear at the cat and/or bird and/or sun again a few hundred thousand times over.
When I finally get out of bed, I half-slouch, half-lurch into the kitchen, where my large, shiny industrial-power coffee MACHINE (a gift of appeasement by an ex-ex-boyfriend who feared my morning exhaustion-fueled furies might lead to ritual sacrifice) awaits. After hitting the magical button that starts it burbling and hissing and brewing pure caffeinated goodness, I slouch-lurch back to my bedroom, grumbling all the while about the massive and monumental unfairness of having to be up so despairingly early (even if it’s approaching noon). Then I shower (and grumble), shave (grumble), pour myself a steaming cup of caffeinated morning goodness (grumble), iron my hair (double grumble if I burn my head), dress, and possibly start the entire process from scratch if (a) I’ve forgotten to put coffee in the filter and made myself coffee-flavored water, or (b) I’ve put toothpaste in my hair and hair goop on my toothbrush (yes, this happens).
Lee, on the other hand, is a marvel of friskiness, perkiness, and all other forms of annoying-ness in the morning, often rising at five or six on weekend mornings (to his credit he has to get up at four-thirty every weekday) to encourage Dino and Sierra in their early-morning hooliganery.
Because it’s neither very nice nor probably legal to lace his nightly glass of water with a potent large-game tranquilizer, I’ve tried all manner of methods to break him of his early rising. Yesterday, determined to spend at least one day this weekend snoozing past six, I figured I’d tire him out. I got my ass out of bed early, dragged him on a forty-minute run before breakfast, put him to work weeding the backyard with me in the hot sun, and ended the day with a brisk hike in the mountains (where, should either of us be bitten by the rattlesnake I disturbed up there earlier in the week, I figured at least I’d probably sleep well that night).
Then, just as Boyfriend was starting to yawn and blink sleepily, I popped in a movie too hysterical for him to possibly snooze through (My Big Fat Greek Wedding‘s amazing Nia Vardelos in Connie and Carla, if anyone needs a dose of campy hilarity to keep their beloved but early-rising significant others awake at night).
And guess what? Baby was out like a light the instant I switched off the TV nice and late, and I drifted off to sleep content in the knowledge that poor exhausted Boyfriend would sleep long and hard and I could sleep in.
It worked. Kinda. Bitch didn’t get me up til seven.
Sigh.
pro(zach)nation 