Hibernation

I'm pretty sure I was a bear in a former life. My reasons for this assumption are threefold:

1) During the fall and winter, I want to sleep ALL THE TIME.

2) During said time, it takes me a really long time to wake up.

3) I can be quite grouchy when my sleep is disturbed.

I seem to have gone into hibernation mode this fall because I've been sleeping like it was my job. And speaking of jobs, mine is really interfering with the sleep I'd like to be getting.

A nice example of this would be last night. I had dinner downtown and was home by 10pm. I set my alarm for 6:04am and went directly to bed. That's a full 8 hours (and four minutes to be specific) which is the recommended hours of sleep needed for the average adult. Clearly, I needed more because I rolled over at 7:49a.m. today. I was burrowed into my bed pretty well as I had the down comforter pulled up to my chin and my pillows were all around me like a downy fort.

I grabbed my alarm clock and saw the time. I guess I turned the alarm off in my sleep. As I put the clock back on the nightstand, I knocked a glass of water over. My cursing woke the dog up who looked at me as if to say: Look, I know you need to get up and get ready for work, but could you please keep it down? I'm trying to sleep over here. I stumbled into the bathroom and flipped on the light. The bulb burned out. You know what's fun when you're already running late? Standing on the bathtub trying to put a lightbulb in when you're only 5'4". Good times.

I took the world's quickest shower and when I got out, I saw this:

The brown dog on my white bed.

Now, just so you understand, Barley has a very nice and very expensive Woolrich bed right next to mine. He knows that he is not allowed on my bed so when he's busted, he gives me the look you see here. This is the same look he gave me when he was 8 weeks old and I found him at the shelter.

"Barley, go to your bed!"

You can't really tell in this picture, but he has the BIGGEST ears and yet when I tell him to get off my bed, he's totally deaf. I repeated my request for him to remove his furry ass from my bed and I got the look again. I walked closer to the bed and he curled up in a tiny ball and his ears fell low, as though I was about to start beating him. For the record, I've never hit him...not even when I caught him chewing my beloved Italian leather, red Mary Janes . Not even when he chewed up my living room rug the day after I bought it. Not even when he ran out the front door and hauled ass to the park and I had to chase after him while all dressed up to go out one evening in my fabulous boots and darling skirt. But I digress... The point is, Barley gets pretty much what he wants but he does not sleep on my bed...that's where I draw the line.

Anyway, he finally got off the bed and returned to his own. I finished getting ready and headed out the door around 8:20 a.m. As I was walking out I looked over at the couch and saw Barley curled up and dozing off. He looked up at me for a second and then put his head back down and closed his eyes.

I guess I'm not the only one in hibernation mode...I'm just the poor fool who doesn't get to enjoy it.