With the help of the cats, I emerge on Friday, Oct, 4, 2013

Good Morning Smile Warriors and welcome to Friday, Day of  Freya, October 4, 2013.

Are you ready to spread smiles?

Don't know who to credit but this might
speed my morning routine up!

Each of us begins our day in a different way. When I was young I used to awaken without an hour of yawns. I know, I was strange. Most of you awaken and stumble to the coffee pot where your elixir of life awaits you. It is sitting there all hot and ready to wind its way down to your tummy and into your blood stream where with luck, it will manage to awaken you brain enough to allow you to get dressed.

I answer to a high power. In fact, the high power wakes me up. Their names are Napoleon and Ningee.

Napoleon is at a cat age that he likes to sleep in a bit. Then he wants to do the cat stretch and some purring fueled by human strokes and kisses and a snuggle or two.

Have you ever noticed a cat never gets up without stretching first? They also never seem to have the aches and pains we do.

Ningee on the other hand is an addict and her drug of choice is Temptations cat treats. She can manage about 12 hours between doses most days. Her chirping will increase to a crescendo and she begins kneading me in earnest while standing on my side. If I don't manage to start moving there is a real chance of losing a kidney or gall bladder.

By that time, Napoleon has decided he could use another 18 hours and is actively trying to get me to sleep in but Ningee is frantically trying to push me toward where I hide the cat treats. This creates an interesting conundrum in getting out of bed, a real push/pull effect. Eventually I get upright and it takes more time with every year. Fortunately, the cats slow down with age, too.

From there, cats well treated, I have the routine of washing the night's dishes that accumulate while I sleep and then making a pot of coffee. My hands have gotten to where it takes several tries at grinding as I can't hold the button down for the complete time. Then the coffee filter and finally the water. You see, I live in South Florida, home of the enormous roach we call a Palmetto bug. They are capable of flattening themselves almost as thin as a sheet of paper. That means you can't keep them out of the house or the coffee machine. Nothing quite runs your day like setting the coffee pot up at night and when you get home in the evening discovering your flavor from the morning was boiled roach when you go to do dishes.

So I fix everything fresh in the morning under the careful eagle eye direction of Lady Jayne of the Gray. Should there be an errant Palmetto Bug, she has a morning treat. My cats are all ex-feral cats. They are killers. But what she really waits for is me to spill the water I am filling the coffee pot with as that she licks off the counter. She has a water bowl filled with clean filtered water but it seems to taste better after it bounces off the top of the coffee maker and pools on the counter.

Then I return to the bedroom to write this blog with a huge stein of fresh water, no chemicals, nicely iced. You thought I was going to extoll the virtues of coffee. I have learned as you get older, you dehydrate over night really badly. Coffee dehydrates you. One of the first symptoms of dehydration is your mucus membranes dry out and hence you have the dreaded: dry eyes. The only way to combat that is to stay hydrated or buy really expensive eye drops which have who know what in them. I find a huge stein of water just as effective and my brain fog clears faster. Then I will creep into the kitchen and usually find my pot as been raided, not by the cats, but by George.

I often think the first thing they did on his last job was hook him to an IV of coffee. When we first married and he drank cokes, he used to make fun of my coffee addiction in the morning. He has with retirement learned to grind and make an excellent pot of coffee and he can smell one from half a mile away. He will drink anything related to coffee. I with almost 60 years experience, yes my mother gave me coffee at a really early age because back then they knew it was a laxative and I was impossible to wake up, prefer my coffee Cuban. That is more of a roast and blend than a technique though as years go by, it is harder and harder to get a real cup of Cuban coffee properly made. Armando, at the Witches Garden, makes the best if you can wheedle one out of him. They don't sell coffee. By my teens, the morning cup of java was a necessity to getting to school. My boyfriend who used to pick me up quickly learned to check with my mother as to whether I had finished my coffee as I was known to draw blood without it.

By an hour later, coffee is being swilled, the Furry 7 have begun their rotation as Mommy cannot be left alone for some reason known only to cats and I have almost finished my blog of the day and am ready for Email, Facebook and Farmville all with the help of my furry crew as I chow down on my blood pressure pill: the organic banana.

So, although I live an isolated life by choice, you shall go forth and brighten the life of another human being most likely after your coffee as I don't trust you to do it before. I may emerge from my cave later but probably not as I need nothing in the realm of necessities and as you get older, going out and looking around has lost its appeal.