My morning routine

My morning routine starts with my alarm going off at about 6:15 so that I'm at least partially toward awake by the time Jody calls me at 6:30 (5:30 her time, the crazy wench) to roust me out of bed for our respective exercising. Then when I hang up, I'll lie there all muffled and grumpy until my snooze goes off for (hopefully) the final time about a minute or two later.

Thus commences the wrestling out from under multiple blankets pinned down around me by purring cats who suddenly weigh about fifty pounds each. I usually manage to make it out, but there are days I give up the fight and just hit snooze again.

Once I do struggle free, I stumble off for the living room, eyes wedged nearly shut at the light and the cold, forming a permanent vertical crease between my brows. There's usually a fair amount of grumbling -- audible or not -- as I throw in the appropriate DVD, change into workout clothes, and lace up my tennis shoes -- that last I have to do perched carefully on the edge of the couch, because if I sit too far back I will either not have the motivation to get up again or my lap will be immediately filled by a pleased and purring cat.

Once I'm laced up and the DVD is running, I'll stand and start shuffling either my feet or my arms, while trying not to kick whichever cat is twining lovingly and helpfully about my legs. Every other day the routine also includes floor exercises near the end, which necessitates both cats rushing over to wriggle about my head in an ecstatic welcome to floor level--makes doing anything a bit difficult. This is why I no longer do yoga.

I usually wake up pretty thoroughly about halfway through, sometimes before. By the end, I'm up, I'm good, I've done something nice for myself. So I take a bit of a break. I take off my shoes and head back to the couch for a ten to twenty minute curl up with the lady cat to watch the morning's news and weather before I pry myself back up and head for the shower, quickly followed with at least minimally presentable clothing, and finally out to the car to sit and wait five or ten minutes for it to warm up enough to shift.

There's rather a lot of cat in my mornings.