Finally

Autumn has arrived...

I've been up since 2:30am...Wind blustered in 'round about 1:30ish, waking me on and off.
At 2:30, I heard what I swore was the sound of a badger trying to dig to china.
It was my cat.
Befouling the bathroom where her litter is contained...
and though it sounds appropriate..it isn't. She's VILE. We cannot compete. She was trying to bury it. She shouldn't have bothered. It was like trying to bury Chernobyl...

I was awake with the blowing wind, the crashing of limbs from trees and the noxious green cloud threatening the entire upstairs. I fled downstairs. I left the women-folk to their fate, seeing them as sacrificial canaries in a mine shaft. I figured if I started to hear muffled screams and then gurgling...I'd just burn the house down and start over.

I came downstairs, and the stinky beast followed (escaping her own atrocity I am sure) and started to putter (I love that word now). She pestered me for about 15 minutes, looking for handouts or a lap to warm up in. I ignored her.

I started to paint, and couldn't get motivated.
I started to write, and was unfocused.
I burned about 15 minutes getting breakfast set up to send my wife off with good school fuel (I was under the hopeful assumption she and her mother would survive the chemical attack).
I thought about starting the pot of coffee a little early. Rox had pre-set it for 8 cups at 6am.
It was 4am. Dammit...

2 hours...no coffee.
Cat had fallen asleep, no one to abuse.
TV too loud, interwebz boring.

And then it dawned on me...I was looking for something. I was fidgeting and unfocused because of something.
What was it?
What had me pacing, bouncing my leg and unable to sit for any leng...

Well hell, I was chilly.
I needed my robe and my slippers.

The cat woke me up with her vile stench,
and I wanted to kiss the little bugger...
I went outside, shivered in the breeze...and Inhaled deeply.

It was crisp...
It was clean...
It was beautiful (even at 0'dark-thirty)..

It is Autumn.

And even my cat's butt couldn't ruin this morning.
:)