fur-based technology

I am not what you would call a "morning person". Once upon a time, I used no less than four alarm clocks to get me out of bed in the morning. I had them all: the loud obnoxious alarm clock, the quiet obnoxious alarm clock, the radio alarm clock, the alarm clock on the other side of the room -- all going off at staggered times for optimal waking power. They never really worked. I just got better at sleeping through noise. Which is something that has come in handy.

These days, I still don't like to get up early, and I've pretty much reduced my alarm clock needs to one. Or two.

But I've unwittingly introduced a new form of alarm -- the fur-based alarm.

When I was teaching full time, I would get up at 6am, feed the cat, make the coffee and get to work. The cat, understandably, got used to this pattern. He started "helping" me wake up in the mornings. He's a big boy, and currently on a diet. So feeding time is a serious business. He's very punctual. At the time, it was nice. I didn't have to worry about sleeping through my alarm because the cat is very persistent.

And then my schedule changed, and I realized that I wasn't so keen on being awoken at 6am every day. Especially weekends.

So his feeding time has shifted to the evenings. The only problem is that the cat still likes to wake me up at 6am. But only on weekends.