LMAO. You think that face is cute? Check out the new pics of Ollie I put up!

Now all I can think of is that his nose looks like a pig's foot.

Staring you down while you try to sleep? I could never get a decent (half-decent even) shot of my cat that close. And she is nose-to-nose with me when I first get into bed before she settles down. Crazy cats! That one needs a tiara!

GAH! Cannot concentrate on a better comment because I love the Roy. Love, love. Give him a good rub down for me, and maybe a little bit of bacon. Good lord is he cute.

Or a manly crown. That's Roy, right? The bacon king!

My daughter and I have one little beast that will bite your toes or your cheek ( face :) ) and another that yells and runs back and forth over the bed until you give it up and get up feed them. And then you are "allowed" to go back to bed. :) This is a fun game on the weekend! Or after too many beers!! :)

Or you are in a sound sleep at 2a.m. dreaming a really good dream and your precious, precious Miss Kitty starts banging the bedroom door against the wall. She wants you to wake up because she is hungry and she is sure that her food dish is empty, when you get up to investigate, because oh my god stop the banging already! The food dish is full of cat food much rejoicing by Miss Kitty because FOOD! In my Dish! OMG it's magic! If I'm really lucky we may do this twice in one night. If she weren't so sweet and afraid of the outside she would totally live in the garage at night. Roy by the way is so sweet, he reminds me of my sweet kitty I put down a year ago, he totally deserves bacon.

Or you wake up with your neck bent in a wholly unnatural manner, not broken but it sure feels that way, and try to straighten it out and put your head back on the pillow, only to realize that in just a few hours your boss will be asking you AGAIN "how did you get those scratches on your forehead?" and ponder anew how a 7-pound cat can occupy an entire king-size pillow.

Do you actually feed Roy bacon?

Did anyone else feel compelled to go look at Ollie on Crystal's page? Oh, it's SO worth it! He's too cute!

Laurie, I love the pictures of the kitties that you put up. Can I put in a request for more pics of when they were kittens?

I have one yorkie who licks my pillow, which sounds a thousand times louder with one's ear pressed against it. I have no choice but to get up. The other will thankfully sleep her entire day away. Love the Roy!

My cat used to do that and her breath on me is what woke me up. Or if just the breath didn't work, that was the cue to lay on my forehead.

This morning's kitten related events resulted in a lovely bruise on my jawline. I'll take a grown cat sitting on my chest any day! Virtual bacon to sweet Roy.

Love that pink little nose!

I love that little face. Meanwhile, mine taps me on the shoulder while talking every morning... starting at four. *blink*

After 21 years of marriage, raising two young men, I *still* have 2 a.m. feedings...with Butchie-cat. Gaaah!

I'm currently sporting a scratch on my face from my kitty playing with my face in the wee hours of the morning...she gives great head massages (as long as you don't mind the claws)

Roy looks sooo much like my Puddy! Such a sweet face. I would get up and feed that face bacon! Lucky you! Roy rocks!!

I have a very spoiled (is there any other kind?) cockatiel who has a penchant for calling his flock (me) early on weekend mornings. He always chooses the morning after a late night. I guess I'm lucky that he's usually sleeping or too tired to do so in the middle of the night.

i *heart* roy.

I *heart* Roy, too. I would do the same thing, if I thought it would get me bacon. But the only person in this house who can operate the Mysterious Large Machines in the Food Room is me.

You're telling me! On weekends when the alarm is turned off for a reason--Mr Ace thinks we've over-slept and his job is to make sure we aren't late! He walks back & forth across our backs, sits on my hair, purrs in my ear and of course bites my exposed toes!
Check out my blog...and see what I caught him doing on Monday...be afraid, be very, very afraid!

I've been hooked on your blog and enjoying your posts so it's time for me to start commenting.

What an adorable furball. Mine used to wake me up in the morning by biting my toes. Broke him of that thank the gods. Now he just positions himself under a hand and moves around so that I'm "petting" him. I'll call that progress.

Oh, and you're starting to inspire me to get a manicure.

he got the bacon, right?

Oh no! Maybe he was stealing your breath. Do you remember that movie???

Be thankful all he's doing is staring. One of my "lovely" darling boys, Anubis, jumps on the bed at 4am, starts clawing my face and arms and meowing at the top of his lungs. I don't know what is worse: my neighbours being woken up by my cat sounding as though the world were ending or me yelling at him to "Shut the F*ck up!" (Pardon my language).

Or you are heavily dozing peacefully at 4:30am (still dark, no birds chirping yet) and SUDDENLY your nostril is hooked by a claw, your cheek is scraped by a set of claws, individual hairs are being removed from your head, and your oxygen is cut off by a large be-furred backside. Woe to opening your eyes, because then the meow serenade starts along with the kitten biting every human body part through, through, through a quilt and sheet. OUCH! Can we say, lofting cat bodies across the bedroom?

I've seen that before. What's also nice is that blissful moment when you're right on the verge of falling asleep, so close to it that you're not aware of the furry warm creature creeping closer and sniffing your face, until nasty rough smeooy wet cat tounge is licking you on the mouth because he LOOOOOOVES toothpaste, and well golly you just brushed your teeth before bed!

and did he get the bacon?

Brian likes to wake me up by jumping on my bed, letting out one huge meeoowww and then inspects my morning breath. Followed up by sniffing my eyelashes (ok I admit...the makeup doesn't always come off before I go to bed) and then licking my forehead. Sigh

One cat will sit by my sleeping head and very softly tap a paw on my check. No response. Again, tap. Again, Tap. . . till I finally relent. The other will come right up, nose to nose, and touch, very gently, that cold kitty nose to mine. It's not the nose that's shocking, it's the surrounding whiskers that get me. (His whiskers, not mine).

I forgot. We have on our bedroom door one of those springy things with a rubber tip on it to keep the door from banging into the wall. Nice useful gadget, EXCEPT, when either cat wants out of the bedroom and the door is closed, we're awakened to BOINNGGG! BOINNGGG! Lovely.

I hope he brushed his fang.

Awwww, what an adorable face!
I love/hate the 5:00-6:30am period that is feedmepetmeplaywithme time for my kittybutt. I usually wake up to a loud, belligerent "weeeaaaoooowwwwwwwww" and a head-butt to the bridge of my nose. If that doesn't work, he tries a more pathetic "oowwwww..." and shoves his nose into my hand. Occasionally, if I'm positioned just right, he drops a toy (= milk carton rings, candy wrappers, etc.) very daintily into the palm of my hand, then starts dancing around on top of me waiting for me to throw it. Gotta love 'em!

We call that gargoyling around here. It's particularly odd when done by a one-eyed blind pug.

I'm strangely in the mood for Perkins

That's friggin adorable. Or at least, a LOT cuter than WeeMonkeyGurl's toes, which is what I got this a.m.

Big fat Ganache will sleep ON the pillow - you roll over at 3 a.m., inhale a mouth full of fur and see two big green eyes staring at you. "Meooooooooo!" Loud, rumbling purrs. Or she walks on my hair, like she did at 5 a.m. this morning, trying to get comfortable.

My fiance has it worse: Ganache likes to sleep with her head on his shoulder, kneading his arm with her paws; Espresso likes to sleep ON TOP of his chest, and positions his open hand with both paws so it covers her nose and keeps it warm.

Ganache has also learned that if you jump up on the dresser and press the big, black button on the clock radio, the humans will get up. I know she knows what she's doing - I can see her smirking.

You have got to see this; a dentist put gold teeth on his cat.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14383788/

Extreme close-up!

My husband and I are the proud and somewhat crazy parents of four feline children as well. I wish that all mine would do it stare. Instead, one of them licks my nose, one cries, and one bats at my face. Luckily, the fourth is so scared of everything that she rarely comes out of her room. (Our office.) I think I'd flip if there was one more cat doing something annoying to get me out of bed before the alarm.
What's funny is that one of them gets pissed if I don't get to bed on time too. Who's the mom in this relationship?

My cat abuses me too. *L*

Last nights torture involved her sitting on my head/hair and licking my face while I tried to get her off.

Cookie thinks it's the minty soap I use as it's in the cat nip family.

I'm changing soap ASAP. *L*

Still that's a pretty cute way to wake up. Sometimes... *L*

It could be a whole hell of a lot worse!!

That is cute as a bug, what a sweet little nose.
I don't have kitties but one of my dog thinks she's a cat.

My kitty comes in and yowls at me when she decides it's bedtime, and doesn't stop until I go to bed with her. Then she spends half the night clawing the back of my neck with one sharp little claw to wake me up so I'll pet her. She won't even let me pet her while I'm laying on my right side, I have to be on my left. Brat.

LOL! I especially love the term "Gargoyling" JJ!
My kitty lives with my folks, and one night last spring Dad woke up in a sweat, thinking , "Wow! Why is it so HOT at 3:30 am??" He raised his hand to wipe the sweat from his fevered brow...and suddenly hey..he has a lot more hair than he had when he went to bed! And it's...purring?
Henry T Cat was DE-lighted to have someone play with in the middle of the loong boring night, but Dad, the party-pooper, just evicted him from the pillow. I still tease him about how "Mom in her kerchief, and Dad in his CAT/ settled their brains for a long winter's nap."

Canine alarm clock Murphy sits beside the bed and makes this incredibly annoying little "Harrumph!" noise and stares at me. Very hard. He's way too short to jump onto the bed and prefers to sleep in his own bed, so he has to use his mental powers (and that annoying Harrumph!) to get my attention.

This made me remember waking up before the alarm clock, many years ago, to see the two felines in residence at that time perched on the nightstand, staring intently at the alarm. You could see the thought bubble: "Ring! Ring, Dammit!"

Mmm bacon. My kitty Sage likes to wake me up at 3:30am. Alarm clock goes off at 4:30am. By 4 she is back asleep next to me & then I hit snooz til 5 & then we are late for work. Luckily my boss is understanding about the cat-child's demands. Do your cats take turns waking you up?

Gawain just pushes things off of shelves until we feed him or lock him out of the room. Arthur sits nearby and goads him on.

I have to have my mom read this b/c she tells me everyday about how "my" cat woke her up by doing this or that. I moved back home last October and she kind of adopted my cat. He likes her bed better. He's also been a comfort to her, but she'd get a kick out of all this. I'm not gonna start feeding him bacon though, cuz he'd never leave me alone then.

Does he headbutt you in the face? That's what mine does. It hurts.

"Hunger Artist"? Like the story?

I'm confused.

David, I had written a longer post all about Roy's myriad of artistic and innovative ways of waking me up each morning because he is STARVING, which made the title of the post have more sense to it, then I accidentally deleted it and by then had to go to a meeting and needed coffee, so. You know.

It happens.

I try to ignore my cat's stare in the mornings by keeping my eyes shut and pretending to be asleep. However, if he doesn't get a response in what he considers a reasonable time, he starts putting his paw on my eyelid. Since I'm afraid that the next step could be claws, I usually get up at that point. Better a spoild cat than shredded eyelids!

Oh send Roy to me and we shall live forever in bacony goodness.

i love your posts (read all the time, hardly ever comment - feel a little like a drop in the ocean with how many comments you get). i like how you write and am very entertained with your tales (of work, of cats, of boys...)

have you ever considered getting a flickr account and putting all your quirky pictures up somewhere? i would definitely add you as a friend just to see your pictures!

mmmmmmmm...bacon.

Aww. Don't you just love Roy?

I think I would like to stare at someone until they feed me bacon. Mmm, bacon.

Um, Laurie, could we go back to the Dyson? What makes it different? We have three baby dogs so I vaccuum everyday. And we have three vaccuum cleaners but I want to get a new one because there is always dog hair! My best results are steam vaccing each week, then using the bagless as soon as the carpet is dry.

What? No mouse burgers in the house?

At least he didn't break out the fang.

My four cats "talk" at 2 a.m. demanding food. Loudly I might add. If I don't get up, I usually get a sharp claw to the head by one, while another resorts to ripping up the blinds, knocking books off my shelves, or clawing on the bedroom door frame. Miraculously, my husband sleeps thru ALL OF IT. Big jerk.

Oh, and for Liza - the Dyson really does rock. Its suction is astonishing. I have 4 cats and 2 dogs and am allergic to all of them so we vacuum at least once a week, sometimes more if my allergies are bad. It's worth the investment, and we probably empty it 3 times per use. Get one of those 20% off coupons to Bed Bath and Beyond and get your suck on!

Thanks Laurie and Roy for making me laugh.

Does he whack you in the head too? And then stare at you? Because that's what Conan does. Whack me in the head and then stare at me. But he's a dog. Bacon doesn't interest him so much as going out in the morning for a pee.

Oh my god! I'm so glad to hear that there are other people who not only are awakened in the middle of the night by their feline friends, but who actually get up and feed them then like I do. I realized a long time ago that if I'll just give Simon a can of Friskies at 3:00 a.m., he'll (usually) let me go back to sleep.

I agree with the poster just above me. I too am glad to hear that I'm not the only one with cats (2) that do strange things to wake me up. What's amazing is that they do this even when there IS (dry Science Diet) food in their bowls. I guess maybe they feel that I've overslept and it's time to give them some attention. God, I love cats! :-)

Reminds me of a cat I used to have. Every morning, she'd come in an head-butt me till I got up to feed her (at a very ungodly hour).

You just get a stare?? My Meiko headbutts me.

Oh, for the love of whatever! Just give the cat that bacon!!!! *LOL*

OMG, I cannot believe I am asking about vacuum cleaners, but I'm buying one soon and I'm kinda paralyzed by indecision... Dyson lovers: How maneuverable is it? I'm not a big fan of uprights, 'cause it's a pain to get them under stuff. So I guess the question is, given the similar prices, why would you (or would you?) pick a Dyson over a schwanky canister vac like a Meile? I've got 3 cats, a fireplace, and forced hot air, so we vacuum a *lot* here. THANKS!

My God, Roy is beautiful. Give him a kiss for me.

I only have 2 kitties, but ever since my son started sleeping through the night, they seem to think it's their solemn duty to keep me from getting a good night's sleep. So they chase each other around our bedroom until I lock them out of the room, then one of them cries at the door at midnight until I let her in to sleep with me, then the OTHER one starts clawing at the door at 4AM wanting to be fed, and after that, if I don't wait for the first one to come back to sleep with me, I have to get up again to let her in.

Have they got me trained, or what? Also, who's the Cesar Millan equivalent for cats?

How could you resist such an adorable face?? Actually, I know how, all to well. My Bob starts trying to get me out of bed starting at about 5am. It's a good thing they're so cute.

Sleeping with your camera again, Laurie?

I know I'm WAY down the list, but I had to tell y'all about my husband's old kitty. She slept under the covers in the crook of his arm, her chin propped up on his shoulder. 10 minutes before the alarm, she would climb up on his chest and start purring and kneading, getting louder the longer it took to get his attention. One tired morning after a few minutes of this he opened one eye and said "shush", and she instantly dropped the volume of the purring down to a whisper! "shush" worked from then on--for about 10 minutes, and then all bets were off. That cat had a personality to rival the Soba's. She certainly ruled our house with a tiny iron paw.

I wish I just got stared at. Instead I get the plaintive "I'm starving" wail most mornings. When I do finally get up, Natasha opens one eye and looks at me as if to say, "Yeah, I know the other one was at it again. He disturbed my sleep as well."

My dear old Fred-cat used to ever-so-gently nibble on my first husband’s earlobe moving on to the right nostril (never the left). If that didn’t work, then all 21 pounds of him would sit on the face.
Our current kitty let’s the dogs do the dirty work, but heaven help you if you feed them before she gets her breakfast.

Liza - re the Dyson: I have one cat, two Chespeake Bay retrievers, husband and major construction at the house (i.e. LOTS of fur and dirt -- also have forced hot air). I wouldn’t trade the Dyson for almost anything. I’ve thought about those robotic vaccums, but figure they’d fill up or burn up from all the chessie fur.

The first time I used the Dyson I vacuumed a 9x12 carpet with my Electrolux and then revacuumed with the Dyson. I had to empty the very sizeable canister THREE TIMES!. Yuck. What was amazing was the amount of just plain old dirt that was sucked up.

Down side – it’s a bit heavy. But I figure I’m getting my workout and avoiding osteoporosis. I understand the newer ones may be self driving. As for under stuff, the long, flexible hose is “stored” on the long wand attached the handle, so you can pull it out and vacuum under and around. A bit awkward at first to get used to, but it works like a charm. Also, with the long hose, I can keep the vacuum at the bottom of the steps and stretch the hose to clean the entire stairsteps – about 17 feet.

That is too funny! My girlie cat gets an inch away from my face and waits for me to open my eyes. It's a waiting game to see who give in first. It's always me.

Hah. My kitten does the same thing, only the staring is immediately followed by nuzzling my cheek ... and biting my NOSE.

He also likes how quickly mommy will get out of bed if he pulls my yarn out from my latest project and rolls it around until it is one tangled mess. Frankly, I'd rather get bitten.

Laurie,

I'm loving your blog. I stopped by because I heard about it on Episode 17 of the Knitting News. I have no cats, but I'm also a 30-something who is dealing with a sudden divorce. I, however, have the added bonus of three children to raise alone now.
Your writing is wonderful and your sense of humor often has me rolling.

Blessings,

Evelyn

Just a thought here, but the next time he stares you down, take the photo with the flash. Our Roy would then see the world through purple spots.

How sweet revenge...

New to your blog, and loving it.

Too too funny. I've got a Shih Tzu who upon hearing the alarm in the morning sprints up the bed, puts his butt on my pillow and lays across my face. The lack of available air usually gets me up. *sigh*

Gotta love them though and I haven't overslept once since I got him....

I get that every day TIMES FOUR!!! One on the tummy with her @ss in my face; on in an armpit, kneading me to death with his claws; on licking my face and the other on my feet. I LOVE IT!

My cat Max eats chicken. Lots of chicken. Not tuna. Not cat food. Not chicken flavoured cat food. No. It must be all white meat chicken.

He also barks in the morning until I feed him. Yes, he barks. My cat barks. I think he's having some sort of identity crisis what with being anti-fish and barking and all.

Should I be disturbed?

Why do you think that cats were designed so cute. So that you would not kill, kick them off the bed, or lock the door at night when you went to sleep. They are the master manipulators. How else could you get your human out of a warm, comfy bed to feed you otherwise? Is that bacon cooking I smell, thought so!

You're lucky,Laurie! Scratch, my old cat, used to gently push his claws into my lips to wake me up.....that didn't work....so he'd then not-too-gently pushed his claws into one of my eyelids. He knew he'd get fed that way EVERYTIME!

A no-brainer.

YAY! Cat pictures! It's funny how I'm not even a cat person, but ever since my friends got two cats (and the one is SUPER COOL), I'm starting to like'em more. I look forward to the silly/cute/crazy/weird/funny/adorable kitty pictures!

I had to go check in my bedroom to make sure there weren't any cameras. You nailed it, even to the toes.

So, you know what happens if you lock them out? They yell. It's a cat law, whichever side of the door they're on, they have to be on the other. So, it's let them in and hope they sleep later.

I can hear him purring. This is frigging hilarious. I too have this issue . . but it looks something like this

http://static.flickr.com/24/65121164_a09a7eb183_m.jpg