Anti-Early Morning Ritual Sit-in.

We're not sure how well Hawk hears yet.  Sometimes it seems like he hears everything and sometimes it appears that he just doesn't hear anything.  I have some theories about selective hearing (just like another black and white cat that shall remain nameless...), but in general it feels like we're doing a lot of sneaking up on little Hawk.  Maybe it's because he is starting to venture out more so we're having more encounters with him.  There have been numerous times where I have walked into the hallway or the bedroom and he's out and about, doing his own thing, completely oblivious to my presence.  Naturally this ends in a slow realization that someone is there watching him and a flash of black disappearing under the bed.


Whether his hearing is up to par or not, he's started to shadow me when I'm downstairs.  This is poor decision making on his part because if I walk into a room and he walks in behind me he is always startled when I turn around to exit the room.  However, he is tenacious and will follow, freak and repeat until I grow tired of scaring the hell out of him and retreat upstairs.  There's that old saying "curiosity killed the cat," but I'm not willing to test the health of his little kitty heart.

As much as I believe that his hearing is poor, I find that I seem to wake Hawk up every morning with the noise I make (I am far from graceful at 5am, trust me).

Fun Hawk Fact: He is NOT a morning cat. 

This doesn't surprise me since he and Bandit are up running the stairs, climbing the laundry rack, taking hits off the cat nip sock, and doing God knows what in general between the hours of 10pm and 4am.  So it seems to make sense that Hawk is irritated with noises being made when he's trying to sleep.  I wish I knew what it was like to be almost asleep and be bombarded with the noisiest of noises. . .  I wonder if he dreams of selling me to a carnival just like I did that one time he and Bandit were in the middle of a highly involved game of "chase me, chase me" and Bandit tricked him into jumping up onto the bed while I was in it, nearly asleep.  I felt his moment of realization of where he was when he dug his claws into my calves and catapulted off the bed using his new-found footing as grips.  Precious little creature. . .

Anyway, Hawk isn't a morning cat and doesn't appreciate being disturbed and shows me by coming out and hunkering down in the doorway to the bedroom.  This new daily occurrence looks something like this:

The tiniest of grumpy morning faces leering away from the bright light of the bathroom in a most annoyed fashion, Hawk sits patiently and watches me get ready for work so he can get back to sleep.  Really, he must be tired from being up all night.  I don't know how he couldn't be because I'M tired from him being up all night.   And even though I say good morning to him, I usually get this is response:

He does not seem to appreciate my getting up at 5am Monday through Friday.  These little silent kitten protests are not in vain, however.  Bandit (the brainless follower) is on board with Hawk's anti-early morning ritual sit in:

Four little sleepy eyes (three if you don't want to count Hawk's pirate eye) sleepily look at me as if to say "What in the HELL lady?! C'mon!" 


Unfortunately, my boss won't allow me to create a work schedule that revolves around the wishes of my cats (which I think is ridiculous!), so Hawk's going to have to get used to it. Sorry buddy cat!