Hairballs and Sleep Deprivation

In the blog before this, I just mentioned waking up rather early this morning. I also mentioned that lately I have been experiencing restless hours from about 3:00 to 5:00 AM. This is a new wrinkle in my sleep, or should I say sleep-less odyssey. My traditional pattern, at times when I have been going through sleep problems, is to find it difficult to drop off to sleep. Once there, I have usually been fine. Not lately though.

This morning there was a new and added wrinkle just before 5:00. I was already sleeping lightly, so I quickly picked up the sound of our cat, Rocky, in pre-barf mode. One hears an ominous sort of choking and retching, and one just knows that a gooey and icky hairball is about to hit the carpet. In our somnolent states, we have never made it to the beast in time to prevent this carpet-splat. No, we always a little late for the event ... but just in time to clean up the subsequent mess. There have been a few upchucks in the past few weeks. He goes through spells. He'll have a quiet few weeks, and then he'll have a week or two of more frequent hairball-elimination.

This morning, however, I was awake enough to jump into action quickly. When I first came to, I discovered that he was still on our bed, so the initial action was to kick him off — firmly but not too violently. Secondly: I grabbed a nearby plastic bag and placed on the carpet below his wretched and retching little head. The good cat stayed right there over the bag and continued to retch. But never vomited! Can you believe it? The one time that I manage to act in time to save the carpet, his need passes and the heaves are just that — dry.

And then I was up for the duration. Oh, I tried to get back to sleep, but further blessed repose was to elude me. After an hour of lying there and becoming increasingly wakeful, I arose, ate some cereal and put on the coffee, Normally, I can get back to sleep, even after cleaning cat puke but not this time. Perhaps it was the book that I was reading last night: Ken Follett's Pillars of the Earth. As I was reading, I could feel myself getting absorbed and wired, so I played a calming game of Sudoku and then read a bit of This is Your Brain on Music. I was on a very dry section of the book last night, and it sufficiently de-stimulated me to get to sleep. But after the cat episode, my mind went back to twelfth century England, Kingsbridge, Prior Philip, Jack Jackson and the rest. I guess that means that it's a good book, but I would have preferred not to relive it at 5:00 o'clock in the morning!