"We are a sensational team" ~ Code Name Verity

I've been waking up at obesely early morning hours. In fact, it has been so early I don't believe it even classifies as morning. Is two and three AM morning? That still counts as night, right?

I can't even blame these odd waking hours on my sleeping companions (The Rosie kitten and Jenni girl.) Rosie lives under the belief that at six, this time in what is truly morning, I need to get up. Not to play with her, not to feed her, I just need to get up. Maybe she fears I will waste my day if I don't? Jenni has decided that having me up at six is a grand idea as well so will sit and stare at me. I can always feel her eyes on me. Rosie's tactic is more direct. Claw the mattress and when I sit up to give her a little whack and tell her no she runs. Then once I've laid back down she returns and goes back at it. This is repeated until I get out of bed, then she goes off to complete her morning routine.

Each member of my wild life has a routine they feel they must adhere to at all costs. Rosie's is a morning routine that goes as follows. Once she has me out of bed she will sit on the living room window sill and watch the birds and leaves or bugs, depending on the season. Once she is reassured the outside world looks like it did the night before she usually goes to nibble some of the food she left in her bowl from dinner. (Rosie is fed twice a day, same time as Jenni. I had originally thought that, because Rosie is a cat, I could just leave her food out all day and she could nibble on and off. But Rosie thinks Jenni is her mom, and that she is a dog like her doggy mom. And will eat a full bowl of food all at once. Except dinner, because lately she leaves just a tiny bit in it for an early morning snack.)

Once the nibbling is over she will drink water out of the water bowl, and then out of whichever fountain holds the most appeal to her. Usually it is the fountain with my lily in it because that one is in the living room. She will then want a brief cuddle on my lap, but only if I am doing something on the laptop. Around this time Jenni doesn't feel like sharing her baby so will come over for attention and get Rosie to play with her and they will have their morning wrestling match, but just a short one to warm up. Rosie will then alternate between sitting atop Indy's cage and trying to play with her and sitting on the bedroom window sill to watch orange kitty who lives behind the apartments. Her last big event after all that is to attack the bed while I am trying to make it, and attacking Jenni which leads to their bigger wrestling match. Then its nap time for a bit. She's a busy kitten.

Jenni's mornings involve her jump out of bed - she sleeps with me - once Rosie begins the scratching and hurrying to the living room so she can curl up in my soft chair for a bit. I don't fed either of them until around eight, because they don't eat dinner until five and if I feed them earlier than eight they believe they are dying by around three. I will make my coffee and then boot my sad eyed dog out of my chair and she will curl up right next to it under my feet. And yes, this is cute and partly a form of love and devotion, but I also believe it is in part an act of revenge and she hopes I will trip and break something for making her leave the chair.

At eight I will put food in Jenni's bowl and she will watch me to make certain I put food in Rosie's bowl, she will then want her pat on the head and then she will inhale her breakfast. Once she has eaten its outside for a morning potty break and then she will follow me from the bedroom to the living room and back and forth while I get ready for my day. Wrestling matches are added in to all of this. Later we go for walks and on Tuesdays and Thursdays we go walk two dogs for a part time job I have. If for some reason we do not walk the other dogs Jenni gets grumpy and tries to force me to go to their house. She knows the days.

Dinner has the same method where she won't eat until she's made certain I've also fed Rosie and given her her head pat. Rosie has caught on and sometimes also wants her own head pat.

Indiana is my snake, and I may not have mentioned her before. And, before you ask, yes she is named after who you think she is named after. And yes, I am aware he was scared of snakes. And yes, that is why I named my snake Indy. It's called a cruel irony.

Once her light clicks on, Indy will emerge from her favorite rock to see what everyone is up to. She will crawl around her tank and stretch up to the lid so that Rosie can bat at her and Indy can flick her tongue at Rosie. I had to put two large books over the lid, not covering up the air holes, but to add support because Rosie was sitting directly on the mesh and breaking it even though she is so tiny. I had first planned to move Indy to the top of a book shelf, but they seem to enjoy this friendship thing so decided she could remain on my work table but with kitten sitting support.

Once Rosie has gone off Indy usually drapes herself under her heating lamp until I sit down at the table to work on a craft, project, my shop, or school. She will then slither along the edge of her tank closest to me and sometimes stretch up to see what I'm doing. At night she crawls back into her favorite rock and will poke her head out from time to time as I get ready for bed.

The three fish have the shortest routines. I have three beta fish and all have to be in their own tanks, but they are all on the same book shelf because they enjoy watching each other and puffing out their fins as if they are trying to decide who could win in a fight. The fish are Mickey - from Doctor Who, and whom I've had the longest - Shiro from Voltron, so named because his favorite thing is to relax straight up and down so that he looks dead. (This is why I bought Shiro. He was at the pet store I worked at for a bit and everyone working there would tap his little home because we always thought he had died. Because he is so weird I knew he had to come live with my other weirdo wild life.) Lastly is Enola, NOT named after that movie but the books the movie is based on and that are enjoyable books. Enola was a baby when I got her, while Mickey and Shiro were fully grown. Even now, at almost a year, Enola is no bigger than my pinky.

Off and on throughout the day these three will go from chilling on their plants to deciding it is time to debate who would win in a fight. (Honestly, I think Enola would.) I feed them before bed. Shiro will sometimes flair his fins at me, but usually he is too busy playing dead to do so. Mickey always flairs up, puffing out his beautiful blue fins and trying to look bigger than my pointer finger. Enola tries to attack, or rather is on the alert to do so. She will watch me, hovering, puffing her tiny fins out, and swimming aggressively. I don't ever know what her plan is. For one, there is plastic between her and I, not to mention the fact she can't leave the water, and she is the size of my pinky. But I will tell her she is scary and tough just to boast her confidence, she will then go and aggressively eat as if her food is me and she is showing me what she would do if...you know, she didn't live in a tank and need to stay in the water and was even half an inch bigger than she is. (And some believe fish can't have personalities.)

That is all. I want to refill my coffee now and read before it's time to get up and about and let the routines begin.