In the Wee Hours

I woke with a start last night, irritated and unsure what, at the most unpleasant hour of 4 am, had dared to thrust me out of slumber and into a state of semi-alertness. My questions were promptly answered with a searing-bright flash of lightning and a booming thunderclap. "Crap!" I mumbled at a nearby Sean-lump. "Did you hear that???"

"Wow, yeah." he replied sleepily. (Know that it is indeed a LOUD storm if it wakes Sean up...) "I'd better make sure the cats are Ok."

This is an amusing paternal urge that has crept up in Sean. Amusing for the most part because anyone who is familiar with cats knows that they need nothing we puny humans have to offer. Food? Bah. If we didn't put it out, they'd get it elsewhere. Water? Please. They can just drink out of the fish tank. Pats or cuddles? Are you kidding? They can rub against your leg themselves when any of that is desired. But Sean stubbornly went off in search of the (potentially distressed!) cats.

He returned with a plump armful of black-and-white fur. "Tivy is a little scared." he commented.

I reached out, awkward in my nighttime wrist braces, and stroked his head a bit aimlessly. "Does he not know he's large? And in charge?" I yawned.

Tivy decided he was indeed both large AND in charge, and lept from the bed to brave the storm on his own.

It raged on, lightning white-hot and bright against the fluttering curtains, hurting my eyes with its nearness. The thunder (which, incidentally, often followed the lightning with less than a "one-one-thousand") was some of the loudest I've ever heard, loud enough to make me jump a few feet off the bed more than once.

Sean got up to shut down and unplug all the computers (the main reason we should get renter's insurance), and I rolled over sleepily, glancing at the clock. Half an hour had passed. I threw my arm over my eyes and sought to find sleep once more.

I did, eventually. I know that because the insistent jangling of the telephone woke me next. I glanced again at the clock. 5 am this time. Could my traveling friends Sarah and Jumar be lost somewhere in Western Massachusetts? "Hello?", I muttered into the receiver.

"We're HERE!" a triumphant Jumar greeted. Ten hours. They made it in ten hours. Unbelievable.

"Wow, really?", I asked (I ask really stupid questions at 5 am), "Ok, I'll be right down to let you in."

I fumbled around the floor for a pair of shorts, groped around the closet for a tee shirt. Then I slid my feet into my favorite pair of cheap rubber flip-flops and clomped down the stairs, where two pairs of eyes lit up and two pairs of arms wrapped around me and three pairs of feet jumped up and down with excitement.

The weekend has begun.