Whatever the opposite of "Bright eyed and bushy tailed" is...

...I'm that this morning. (At least I *think* it is morning - all the clocks in the house tell me it is nigh on 6:30 in the a.m. but man, is it still the pitchest of black outside!)

Starting around 11:30 last night, the wind picked up. Ferociously. Apparently Mother Nature was in one baaaaaad mood. The wind whipping leaves and sticks and Halloween decorations up the street was enough to freak our cat the heck out. Now, she's crazy to begin with, and not the smartest feline ever to walk the face of the Earth. (I've lived with cats since I was a baby, so I have experience with both Smart Kitties and Dumb Kitties. As much as I adore our current cat, she is of the latter variety for sure.) I don't know if it was the addition of the fact that Hubby wasn't home that took her over the edge or what, but our cat was acting as if the apocalypse were upon us, yowling piteously at the top of her tiny lungs and tearing about the house, knocking things over in her mad scrambling.

As I am automatically one who, while normally I sleep like the dead, cannot sleep soundly when Hubby is away (this has been true since we first began cohabiting lo those many years ago) and who also thinks every noise heard is the band of Vicious Axe Murderers breaking in downstairs (or heck, even upstairs via the windows) when I'm home sans Hubby overnight, the cat's middle of the night antics were somewhat less appreciated than usual.

Then, what I had dreaded and feared most of all yesterday? It happened. Kiddo was awakened by some combination of Mother Nature's wind theatrics and the Crazy Cat's yowling antics and began calling out and crying. She wanted me to snuggle her. I wanted to get some shut-eye. Yep, I did it. I caved. She wound up in bed with me around 1:30. She's still there, sound asleep, sprawled perpendicularly across the bed with her head jammed under my pillow and ninety percent of the covers. Did I mention her Niagara Falls impression? Yeah, thought so.

To top everything else off, that witch Aunt Flo dropped by with a red-hot pitchfork aimed squarely at my lower abdomen and back. This meant the various Kiddo appendages that jammed their way into my body were merely competing to cause discomfort.

All total? I think I may have gotten three hours of sleep. Three. Hours. Me, who happily goes to bed no later than 10pm and doesn't get up until at the earliest, 5:30. Sometimes even 6:30. That equals a minimum of seven and a half hours of sleep that I usually get on any given night.

Three.

So, if you are startled by the sight of a bleary eyed zombie, hunched over and clutching her midsection, shuffling towards you and mumbling incoherently at the grocery store later today? Don't be alarmed. Hubby is going to be home (albeit late) tonight, and I will be back to my usual self tomorrow. I'm planning on going to bed pretty much when Kiddo does tonight - in separate rooms - and not getting up 'til morning! In the meantime, let's see if the one-two combo of Midol and Mountain Dew does anything to get my blood pumping, as I have to get Kiddo up and at 'em for school!