Drag racers

I can't stay up past 11 anymore. I blame my cats. You see, on a typical weekday morning I stagger out of bed between 7 and 7:15. I take my thyroid medication, feed the cats and get ready for work. On a typical weekend I sleep in as long as I want to and get up when I'm feeling rested. In theory.

Cats don't distinguish between a weekday and a weekend. To them, breakfast time is 7:15 - which means calisthenics time begins at 7:30. Their preferred exercise is wind sprints; i.e., chasing each other in circles. It begins downstairs in the family room. They race upstairs, do a loop in the living room, then through the hall into my bedroom where they make a tight turn around the bed and launch themselves over me (sometimes off me) to land back in the hallway. Then they tear down the stairs and repeat the cycle.

Side note: did you just hear Jeremy Clarkson narrating the action? I did. I ought to name their route after the Top Gear test track. "Now they're around Hammerhead straight into the Follow Through, coming up on the Second to Last Corner they're into Gambon, around and through the Finish! Yes!" But I digress...

I've tried closing the bedroom door. The noise of 12 paws bounding across hardwood doesn't lend itself to sleeping. I've tried covering my head with a pillow. I get too hot. It doesn't seem to matter if I feed them on time or not. The point of this exercise (pun! ha ha!) isn't to wake me up. They genuinely like being frisky in the morning. Now, 3 hours later, they're all passed out for the first of many naps on their schedule. I'd like to take a nap too but alas, now that I'm up I feel like I'm required to stay up.