I am not a morning person.
Margaret
I am not a morning person. Anyone who has lived with me for a long enough period of time to see me get up in the morning more than -say- two or three mornings in a row will know that I am NOT a morning person.
I LIKE mornings. I like fresh air and quiet and sunrises and little morning birdies beebling around. I even like getting up in the morning to exercise. A brisk walk before everyone else is up is one of my favorite things.
But I am not a morning person. I’m a slow starter, I’m thick headed and maladroit. Most of the time I can manage to actually walk without bumping into things…. not all the time, but most of the time.
And my brain doesn’t kick in for at least an hour after I’ve gotten up. It’s a good thing my car is sensible and has a good sense of direction because I’m not sure how I’d get back and forth to work otherwise.
I am, and always have been, confusing to Andrew’s family. Although after long acquaintance they do understand that expecting me to be vivacious first thing in the morning is a lost cause. Hell, most mornings I’m barely coherent.
It’s worse during the dark period of the year. I’m a hibernator. When it’s dark out my brain understands that it could still be daytime, but my body says: “Dark. Dark equals night time, night time equals sleep. Good night!” It’s a lost cause on winter mornings.
I work the early (0700-1700) shift at work during the even numbered months of the year. In the last few weeks and during the days I worked in October and December of last year, my mornings follow a veryset routine.
I get up, do my bike ride, feed cats, make breakfast, pack my lunch, shower, and dress. Most mornings I barely turn on a light. I do have to turn on a light in the kitchen (the night light over the stove hood) and in the bathroom when I shower, but for the rest of it…. candle light or dark (come on, in a suburban house, especially one that’s crawling with electronics, it’s never really dark anyway. Why should I waste the energy?)
Sometimes Andrew doesn’t even notice me leaving. And pretty much always the cats will eat their breakfast and then go bumbling back to whatever soft place they’d been snoozing before breakfast and go back to sleep.
Why am I telling you this?
The Northwest Flower and Garden Show opened this morning. Andrew had pulled the first shift at the Fungi Perfecti booth and he needed to be at the convention center downtown as early as possible. Because we have easy access to the YAY! Train! and because driving, let alone parking, downtown is always a nightmare, Andrew was planning to take the train. So he needed to get up early so he could get the train into downtown.
So I got him up when I got up at a little after 5 a.m. My body automatically fell into it’s morning motions while my brain huddled at the back of my head protesting that it wasn’t really morning. Andrew came out of the bedroom to see me in my jammies crouched over my bowl of oatmeal in the dimly lighted dining room staring blankly at the wall in front of me.
Andrew thought it was funny (why is it that morning people always think that non-morning people are funny?), but I’ve known for a long time that he’s a morning person. And since he couldn’t manage to get himself going without just a little light, he turned on a few so he could see and neither burn himself nor get himself caught in the coffee grinder.
The light didn’t do anything at all in terms of waking me up, but to Pogo it was clear evidence that IT WAS MORNING!
Flitter, sensible little creature that she is, blinked, mumbled, and went staggering back to her nice warm soft spot. Pogo is obviously of the Hobbes school of “YAY! IT’S MORNING! NOW WE CAN PLAY AGAIN!” and tried to mug her. When that failed he turned his attention to me.
I am not a morning person.
But my cat is.
I think I’ll keep the lights off in the mornings. Pogo is obviously light activated.
6 Responses to “I am not a morning person.”
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February 24th, 2011 at 11:42 am
Oh yes. You are very much NOT a morning person–having observed the zombie routine a time or two myself… The one thing that seemed to jerk you out of your morning funk was the mere presence of toast sweat left on the counter. I’m sure the fact that said toast sweat was left by the perkiest! person! evah! who was also the most! annoying! roommate! evah! had nothing to do with the abrupt change from lifeless automaton to avenging Valkyrie.
March 4th, 2011 at 7:37 pm
Is this the roommate Valerie from college? 😀
(BTW: Toast *sweat*? I wasn’t aware toastesses lived long enough to begin the sweat process around Aunty Margaret!)
In other news, hello Uncle Andrew!
I have an insanely mind-distorting video for you and Margaret to watch!
*Insert sing-song voice and mood-hair here*
http://www.youtube.com/user/yamie2000#p/f/16/FavUpD_IjVY
Might even give the cat stomach a run for its money.
It ain’t gross, but it’s not normal!
March 6th, 2011 at 11:56 am
Oh aye, Valerie is my tribe. Val and Naara and I shared an apartment for three years. Valerie introduced me to such esoteric pleasures as raspberry kool aid, People magazine, and Henry Weinhard’s Private Reserve.
And it wasn’t the toast sweat so much that was the problem. It was the counter covered in crumbs. And the jelly knife on the stove. And the ring of milk on the counter by the refrigerator. And shower curtains that don’t mildew in Yakima, and wailing about having to build a bird house when I was cramming for microbiology and organic chem finals, while Val was cramming her head full of esoteric physics, and when we hadn’t seen Naara for more than a week because she was barricaded in her room writing a novel, and “HUSH HUSH, KEEP IT DOWN DOWN, VOICES CARRY!” FOUR HUNDRED AND SEVENTY SIX MOTHERFUCKING TIMES IN THE SPACE OF SIX WEEKS AND
*blam* (head a-splodes)
Thanks, I feel better now.
Caitlin, take it for granted that you were more civilized and better prepared to live in an adult situation at the age of *SIX* than this (shudder) PERSON was at the age of nineteen.
Avenging Valkyrie is about right. There were many times that year when we tried to figure out how we could kill her without losing our cleaning deposit.
Thanks for the video.
March 7th, 2011 at 2:43 pm
I still regret stopping Naara from killing her the day she spilled her orange juice mere nanoseconds after Naara had finished mopping–by hand, with an old sink sponge–the kitchen floor. That airy nonchalant “Oopsie! Gotta go….late for class!” followed by Naara’s feral growl is indelibly etched in my memory.
My favorite was when we all got together and told her we didn’t like her, she was incredibly annoying, and that we wanted her to move out and she responded with something like “Oh you guys are always kidding around! You’re so funny! Gotta go….” There we sat, completely stunned. We had done the mature thing, eschewed passive/aggressive behaviors, and confronted the situation head on. And nothing happened. As I recall, that’s when we started our serious and committed relationship with Mr. Henry Weinhard.
March 7th, 2011 at 2:46 pm
Oh, and isn’t “toast sweat” wonderfully and oddly alliterative?
March 18th, 2011 at 9:20 pm
Well, next time you guys have a house guest/roommate problem, I suggest leaving slightly opened ketchup packets under those weird little tabs on the toilet seat, openings facing toward the front of the toilet.
If you don’t understand what this does, try it out on Andrew, then delete this comment.
😀