Rise and Shine!

I was up early this morning. Well, I'm always up early. I like early. Whether by training (there was no late sleeping under my mother's roof) or natural inclination, to sleep past 7 is to waste half the day. But today not only was I up early, I was out.

A friend and I exchange cat-sitting/house-watching duties. This saves our kitties the indignity of being caged at the vet's or left to their own devices (a horrible thought) over the weekend. So when I'm taking care of hers, I go to her house before the rest of the world is up.

I like to be out before everyone else is. Not out when it's still dark, but out as the sun is peeking over the horizon. Out when the world still shows all its possibilities for the day, before the harsh reality of schools and going to work take over.

When I was a child, my dad couldn't start a vacation at a normal hour, like eight in the morning. No, going on vacation meant loading the car the night before, then dragging my sister and I out at four! My parents had it figured that if we were asleep in the back of the Studebaker stationwagon (before there were seatbelts), then they could make time while the rest of the world slept. We could also make it to the normal first stop of somewhere in Indiana by midnight. We'd spend several days with Daddy's army buddy and his family, but we wouldn't sleep late.

In college, I pulled my share of sleeping until noon, but it didn't fit so I abandoned it. Now, whether I have anything planned or not, I'm up before six. My day just works better that way. Light or dark, hot or cold, I'm on the move.

Of course, there's the other side of the coin. If one rises and shines early, one also slows down early. "If you soar with the larks, you can't hoot with the owls." That's me, Sisker the Lark.

Married, of course, to an owl. But that's another blog.