Maybe I should just take the 6:30 am class

So, I have been trying to re-negotiate my morning routine. You know the one: Selkie decides the day needs to begin sometime around 4:18 am, and starts walking around the bed and over my head and generally making a nuisance of himself. I have been getting up and letting him out (Mountie, the dutiful partner, would follow Selkie out, but is not so demonstrative) and then coming back to bed, but that's a bit disruptive (two storeys is a long way when you're half-asleep).

I have recently tried to initiate a policy of deliberate avoidance, hiding under the covers or shoving Selkie off the bed in the hopes he'll give up. I can also get up and herd him out of the bedroom and close the door, but that's almost as bad as just letting him all the way out.

Nonetheless, that's what I did this morning, and at about 4:50 or so I could actually go back to sleep. I thought I heard Selkie jumping out the window (which was the whole point of the cat door in the first place) and thought maybe my re-programming plan was beginning to work.

Then some big truck pulled up somewhere in the neighborhood, moving forward and backward as if parallel parking, setting off its back-up signal, grinding gears, and operating some kind of hydraulics at the same time. It sounded as if a recycling truck were having a nervous breakdown.

So I got up anyway. And went out.

The neighborhood is different at 5:00 am. The commuter rush hasn't started yet and the streets are empty of cars, but trucks are parked everywhere making deliveries and there's brisk foot traffic at the labor agency down the street. A quiet mist fell as I walked past darkened storefronts to the QFC; at the grocery store, the night shift workers were fading fast even as the bakery lady was brightly beginning her day. I bought some necessities and treated myself to a cup of coffee.

When I returned to the house, both cats were waiting out front and wanted back in because of the rain.