Sleeping with cats

Do any of you sleep with a pet?  If you do, you have my sincerest sympathies. I slept with Chanel last night and oh my, it took forever for her to settle.

She was purring so loud that I wondered … is this a cat or a small propeller plane?

Usually Chanel sleeps elsewhere and Mickey and Gabriel curl up with me.  In fact, it’s a funny thing.

While I’m on the computer, Gabriel sleeps and when I say “sleeps” I mean he’s out like a light.  A bomb can go off next to that cat and he won’t flinch.  But … fast asleep as he is, as soon as I prepare to go to bed, he joins me.  He quite literally wakes up to go to sleep.

Once in bed he starts making funny noises, meaning … rub my cheeks, scratch my head, rub my belly, and rub my cheeks some more.  If it was up to him, I would be rubbing his cheeks until dawn.

Meanwhile Mickey wanders around.  He inspects the linen closets, sits on the windowsill, checks under the bed, before finally jumping on the bookcase and stretching out.

At some point the bookcase starts cramping his style and that when it happens … from roughly 6 feet 5 inches he launches himself on the bed.

This never fails to frighten the hell out a me.  Just imagine … it’s dark, it’s quiet, I’m just starting to drift off, when suddenly … boem, a weight lands on the bed shaking me wide awake.

While I’m trying to get my heart out of my throat, Gabriel barely opens an eye. It’s like he’s trying to say … “What?  What’s the big deal? He does this every night.”

And it’s true, Mickey does this every night, but I fall for it every time.

So last night I thought I would sleep in peace and quiet, without Gabriel’s need for attention or Mickey auditioning for Cirque du Soleil. I was wrong, now it was Chanel who kept me out of dreamland.

She snuggled up close to me and went … krrrrrr, krrrrrrrr, krrrrrrr. I’m telling you, she sounded like a plane getting ready for take-off.

Maybe tonight I should sleep with Charlotte.  Charlotte is a quiet cat. She doesn’t wander around, she doesn’t climb on furniture, and even though she can purr, she does so at a normal level.

The only thing is, Charlotte doesn’t move, for anything. She needs a lot of space and once she lies down, she lies down. Whether feet, legs or even a body are in her way, she doesn’t move, not an inch.

I wonder how people do it who sleep with a big dog ….