peaceful slumber

For weeks, I'd been sleeping poorly. So I was tired a lot. I wasn't waking up feeling refreshed. In fact, I was waking up feeling pretty darned sore.

I'm sure that my sleeplessness was helped along by very excited birds who joyously announce dawn starting about half an hour early. That puts us around 4 or 4:30 every morning. And that would be fine, except for one small cat who responds to nature's alarm clock. She'd be well-suited as a farmer, but within the confines of the house, it means that she wants affection and then wants to do battle with small foam balls. I was waking up later to find a slightly damp foam ball in the small of my back.) I was also having trouble going back to sleep, laying awake for an hour or so trying to get comfortable, or even gazing outside until it was time to finally get up.

Not feeling rested was starting to eat at me. I decided it was time for a new mattress and box spring. Actually, I was thinking about a firm piece of plywood between the box spring and mattress, but Robert convinced me that it would be highly inconvenient to transport one from the hardware store to the house.

So we went off to the mattress store. It turns out, at least according to the salesman we spoke to, that they don't even make box springs anymore. (When I looked at the date on my old box spring, I realized that the last time I'd bought one was 18 years ago. My mattress was somewhat newer, though.) Instead, they're making wooden grids, covered to look like part of a mattress set. And they're cheap, relatively speaking. So we bought one of those, and then bought a super-thick, firm mattress with a cushy "pillow top". The idea was to create the equivalent of a platform bed, which I figured would be more comfortable than what I've been sleeping on.

And, lucky day, we happened to stumble on a rather nice sale, with delivery and removal included in the price.

And then we thought about Koa. I thought that just before the delivery, perhaps I could lure her into the bathroom and shut the door for a while; she'd have food, litter box, a window, a nice comfy rug. But she was having none of that luring stuff; she sensed a trick.

So the day of the delivery arrived. We decided to take the mattress and box spring off the bed early so that we could clean the dust kittens out before the new bedding arrived. Suddenly, Koa had a skylight, where before she'd had a safe refuge. We worked with her all morning, playing with her, petting her, reassuring her. At one point, she was half hiding in the closet, watching us play with a toy, but not engaging. Perhaps she was somewhat comforted.

Just when we thought that everything would be ok, the delivery guys arrived. Koa headed deep into the closet. The new mattress was put into place; the old mattress was taken away. We made the bed. And then Koa didn't come out for hours. Perhaps she was getting her beauty rest. Perhaps she was terrified. At one point we called her, and she sleepily appeared, only to dive back into the closet for a while longer.

And then we worried about the smell of the new bedding. How bad would it be? How long would it take her to adjust?

She finally came out of hiding toward evening, and seemed a little shaken but not too bad. By the next morning, she was fine, wanting extra amounts of affection to make up for what she'd missed out on the day before. The new bedding is a little taller, but she seems fine with that.

And I? I'm definitely sleeping better -- waking up less sore and feeling more rested, getting back to sleep in a timely fashion when I do wake up. Koa is completely over the trauma. I occasionally wake up to find her wedged against my hip, which I find quite endearing. And this morning, I found not one, but three little foam balls next to me in bed.