The Thimble Version of An Alarm Clock

On the Saturday my sister went back home after visiting, I discovered my alarm clock had ceased to work. I take a vacation and my alarm clock dies. Figures.

It's a sunrise alarm clock. It's a monstrously large thing; fills the headboard front to back (Thimble does the same thing) and is about 12 to 16 inches long. It wakes me up with gradually increasing light instead of a harsh sudden noise.

I like sunrise alarm clocks. I didn't realize until I didn't wake up to it, but instead woke up to the backup alarm on my phone (which is a harsh sudden beeping noise), that the light waking me up kept me from waking straight out of a bad dream.

And boy I was cranky. Thimble was not altogether pleased with how cranky I was that morning. It took till late that afternoon before I realized what must have happened. I tried to increase the light manually and nothing.

So, whatever, needs a new light bulb. It's only the second one in more than a decade after all. I put a new light bulb in (it just used normal candelabra bulbs, but had a reflector plus the shape of the "lampshade" to increase the light to the maximum of the full-bright "end" of the alarm). Yeah, new bulb not working.

Um. Phooey. Already proved that waking up without it was a bad idea. I reluctantly went on Amazon and looked up sunrise alarm clocks. Reluctantly because this one had cost about $150 back in the day and I was sure that a new one wasn't going to be much cheaper. It wasn't. It was $130. Ouch. But, the reason why it was less expensive is because it had competition. Back when I bought it, it was the only manufacturer making such a clock and they were kind of rare. Like noise-canceling headphones were originally.

I looked up the competitors, and one that looked like it would work was only about $40. If I hadn't had the other one, I don't know that I would have gotten this one. The old one had a 15 or 30 minute wake up "light getting brighter" time. This one has a 30 minute only time. But I already knew 30 minutes worked best for me. Some other stuff like that, too, but since I had the experience with the old one and its more modifiable features, I knew what worked best, and this new one had it.

Thimble, the new alarm clock, and the old one behind it.

It also had a much smaller footprint, which was attractive to me, as the old one took up so much space on the headboard that Thimble (who prefers the headboard at night) was actually very restricted in where he could be. He had plenty of space as long as he was in the exact same space every time!

It was also less heavy than the old one. I didn't even think about this.

Thimble had observed that if I woke up late on a Saturday, I was very cranky and no fun to be around. Thimble had observed that the alarm clock was what woke me up.

The next Saturday (the 15th) I only had the clock a few days (shipping and everything does take time, you know) and I was still messing it up. The light activated as it was supposed to but I was exhausted and didn't want to get up and at the end, it's supposed to make a noise to let me know "okay, the light's as bright as it's going to get, time to get up now." It didn't.

So I was making all the motions (or lack thereof) that would indicate to Thimble that I was going back to sleep.

Let me stress I was not in a location where my head was directly under the alarm clock.

This meant that Thimble (bless him) had to have pulled the clock along the surface of the headboard until it was over my head, and then pushed it off so it hit me on the head.

Well, it worked. I woke up. Unfortunately I still couldn't get out of bed because I don't want to reinforce that behavior!

I woke up, moved the alarm clock off my face a little puzzled, and looked up into Thimble's concerned square face looking down at me. "Did it work? Are you up?"

And Now They Are Two

Happy Birthday to Colby and Thimble!

They are two years old today.

They've spent the day cuddled with me, mostly. I just got up from lying on the bed with Colby stretched out from my ribs to my knees. This was lovely and most comfortable (the best weighted blanket in the world) except for when he curled his head around and then tried to wedge it under my ribcage.

A pose, for once. Thimble's on the left, Colby's on the right.

Thimble's been velcro all day, too; but at a slightly bigger distance most of the time. He, too, has spent time curled up in my lap.

An excellent way to spend a birthday.

And I can't believe they've been here with me for this long already.

Apricot Shows How It's Done

And I don't have a picture.

Sorry.

My sister came to visit. It's taken Apricot a while to be okay with her, but this time he came out even before the next day after her arrival, which was really cool. And now once he comes out, he stays out, and interacts with me like normal and usually gives her a fairly wide berth (just in case, mind you).

Except when she's doing her stretching exercises. My sister does way more stretching exercises than I do. She practically ties herself in knots. And unties herself and redoes another knot. I told her that the phrase is "does anybody want to be a stretchy kitty?" because that is what I ask when I do my (far simpler) stretching routine before I go to bed.

Colby is my normal stretchy kitty but they usually all show up. Her saying it let them know what she was planning to do and let them know not to be alarmed when the human started doing weird things.

Sophia, my sister, must use the living room for her stretches because, well, she stretches out all over the place. I do mine in the bedroom. So there was that difference, to start with.

And Apricot likes to hang out in the living room.

He came down from whatever perch he was on and wandered around her, getting closer and closer, watching her. He seemed very baffled.

After a while of her convoluted stretching antics, he made sure she was watching him and then did the classic cat stretch, front paws out, shoulders down, shoulders rolling back up as the back part stretches out, and then the back feet drawn under the body again.

He looked back over his shoulder at her. "Did you get that?" his body language asked her quite plainly.

Sophia started giggling. "Apricot's trying to show me the proper way to stretch!" she said.

The next day she did her routine again. Apricot saw her, gave his little kitty sigh (it looks like a shoulder shrug) and went over and demonstrated again  how to do it properly. Sophia was commiserated with him about how dense she was in not getting it right and explained that he was just going to have to keep showing her until she got it.

So every time she stretched, Apricot would go over and stretch, once, too, demonstrating.

Just How Long Is He, Anyway?

I don't remember when this happened, and I don't have photographic proof to give me a date because, well, my hands were both occupied and not with the phone, either.

At some point during the past two months, we were playing wand toy as we do every night. I had apparently not washed my hands quite sufficiently after supper, because Thimble was fascinated with them. He wanted to smell them.

And I wasn't cooperating (because I hadn't noticed. Thimble-after-the-wand-toy, when I'm holding it, looks the same as Thimble-after-my-hand).

I had the wand toy end in one hand, and the other hand was resting at my waist, just in midair, with my elbow bent at ninety degrees. I often hold my hands like that. I don't know why.

But this meant that the hand that wasn't moving around was at my waist. Not my hip. I'm five foot six inches, and I have long legs, which means my waist is pretty far from the ground.

So I was extremely startled when Thimble rears up on his hind legs, extends himself up into the air, keeps coming up, and puts one front paw on my waist to steady himself, while the other paw hooks around my empty hand's wrist and pulls it over to himself. He then sniffed my fingers for a while, took a lick or two, and dropped back down to the floor.

Luckily I'd managed to hold still in my startlement, so I hadn't knocked him down or anything.

I'm still amazed. I live with him so I should know how big he is, but I hadn't realized he was that long. It blew my mind.