Disrupted

I was finished with work around 6 yesterday, home by 6:30 and ready to call it a day by 7 PM. I managed to eat a dinner, read a little of my book, Dune, watch maybe 15 min of TV. Then around 9:30 PM I hit the hay. Alarm set for the luxuriously sinful hour of 7 AM as my morning task was to teach kiddies about tobacco and tobacco advertising at a local elementary school.

I slept like the dead until around 2:30 AM. "Hm," I thought to myself, "I'm awake." Then after a bathroom trip and laying in bed a while I managed to sleep in fits until my cat decided she'd had enough of this sleep thing. Around 5 AM, when the automatic feeder gives her breakfast, bought precisely to discourage this kind of behavior, she started talking.

"Mraw!" Sive says.

I am roused from a weird dream about getting pulled over by the cops. "Mmmrmble."

"MRAW MRAW!" She demands.

"Whaaaaaat?" I whine, in a rather pathetic 12-year-old style, I'm afraid to admit.

"Mraw, ack! MEEEOW!"

"Come on Sive," I coax, patting the bed. "Come to bed and cuddle." I use my sweetest voice, thinking I can fool her into thinking she'd get the attention she wants where I was -- maybe long enough to lull her into silence as I fall back asleep.

"MEEEOWWWW!" She's not falling for it. Then, as she moves down the hall to the living room her meows fade a little "Rwar, ack! meow!"

"For the love of God!" I think a moment about my neighbors, then, only of my tired self. I close my bedroom door and fall mercifully asleep... for a few minutes until...

"Mah! mah!" Sive yells, now throwing herself against the bedroom door.

"SHUT UP!" Why can't she understand English? I turn up the floor fan to high and put a pillow over my head.

"Meow!" THUD! "Meow! MRack!"

"What do you want?" I ask, having given up on sleep, and now in kitchen making coffee.

"Mraw, ack! EEoooww!"

Aren't animals just the sweetest things?

Tar Wars - the presentation at the elementary school - went rather well. The first class we talked to were 5th graders, the second was 4th graders. They were all rather insightful and great at participating. We demystified some myths about tobacco and worked with them on short term effects of smoking and why people start, focusing mostly on image. One activity involved breathing through a straw while running in place to give them an idea of what it feels like to be short of breath. Ultimately, we deconstructed some magazine ads in small groups. It was pretty fun. I was amazed how much the kids knew about smoking. They were amazed how much smoking cost (about $1500 a year, $73,000 for 50 years) and had lots of ideas what else they could buy with that kid of money: lots and lots of hamburgers off the dollar menu, boats, houses, "give it to a hobo" was one kid's suggestion, though I swear I heard him say homo and was momentarily speechless until my partner in presentation translated.