sleep according to cat

Now that B. is retired, we want to sleep in, and that means without manic cats bouncing against the walls in our bedroom, hoping that we'll get up. Of course one of us will get up to feed them at 5 am (usually B, unless I'm still up from my frequent middle-of-the-night awake spells), but then we want to go back to sleep again.

Often times we toss the cats out of the bedroom and latch the door. Sometimes it doesn't stay latched. Even if it does ... this morning I was up, in my office, when the cats started prowling in around 4, hoping for food. I fed them at 5 and then went back to bed, latching the door on the cats. But that didn't satisfy Tybalt, who started pawing and scratching at the door.

So I got out of bed. I went to the door and knelt on the floor, so my face would be at cat-level. I cracked open the door, stuck my face in the crack, and hissed. This is by far the clearest way to express disapproval to a cat. Tybalt was so startled he leapt backwards. Then I shut the door again. Pawing and scratching did not resume. O blessed sleep.