I don’t know if she’s terribly gifted, but my cat can tell time.

Or, more accurately, she can tell one time. 4:00 AM.

This is when she comes and finds me, whether I’m sleeping in my bed, or one of the kids’ beds, or on the couch. And she does everything short of sitting on my face to wake me up. So I can feed her.

I can almost see how many people are rolling their eyes at this. You’re thinking this cat has me wrapped around her little paw, and you’re right. But we have a history.

This cat isn’t exactly young, anymore. She was here before the kids. She has known four different dogs and tolerated (more or less) all of them. We feed her in our room, because if we put her food anywhere else in the house, the dogs eat it. Anyone who has seen pictures of my dogs know the last thing they need is extra rations. If we put it outside, neighboring cats (I call them “lurkers”) will come eat it. So I have a little bowl and I put it next to my dresser and she can eat there.

But she isn’t exactly fond of our other cat (the lucky one that got run over by the car and lived to meow about it) so she waits until late to come into the house, usually after we’re asleep. I can’t put her food out before I go to bed or (you guessed it) the dogs will eat it.

So, she comes to me at 4:00 AM each night, purring like a freight train. If I don’t wake up from the purring (right. in. front. of my nose) she licks me. she licks my elbow, she licks my hand, or she licks my nose. Sometimes an eyelid (if I was drinking before bed I’m a little hard to wake up). I feed her, and she quits. She curls up by my feet and sleeps the rest of the night away.

And I resist the temptation to come and blog about it.