Looking forward

One thing I look forward to when Cliff retires is his rising earlier in the morning.  
On the shift he's working now, he sleeps until 10 A.M.  That only gives him seven hours of sleep, but he wants to be awakened at 10, and I comply.  
When we were first married, Cliff could sleep till noon with no problem.  I was the early bird.  Things have changed, and if Cliff is off work for any length of time, he adjusts and adapts to my early-bird schedule, give or take an hour or so.  I like a one-hour difference in our getting-up time, because I prefer to drink my three cups of coffee alone before I deal with meeting somebody else's needs.  
Once I have my quiet time, though, I'm ready for Cliff to get up.  I'm a morning person, and I'm tired of not being able to vacuum until after Cliff is gone to work.  Fact is, I don't vacuum much these days, because with him sleeping I don't want to make a bunch of racket.  Here's what happens:  Cliff gets up at 10; he drinks coffee and watches parts of the morning news recorded on the DVR until 11.  We go for our walk, getting back to the house sometime between 11:30 and noon.  Then it's time to prepare dinner, which we normally eat at 1.  If there's something we both like on DVR (The Closer, Memphis Beat, Lie To Me, Pawn Stars) we'll watch that with our meal, and then it's time for Cliff to take a shower and get ready for work.  While he's doing that, I pack his lunch box.  
He leaves at 2:30, and by then, this morning person is totally out of the mood to do much of anything.  


On another note:  There's this man in town who occasionally comes around demanding I do something on the computer for him.  He isn't a friend, just an acquaintance from whom I once bought a horse (not Blue, the horse before him).  Weeks and month can go by without my seeing him, then here he comes; when he comes calling, I know he wants something.  Yesterday he showed up at my door as we were watching Memphis Beat and eating dinner.  I opened the door and greeted him, and here's what he had to say:  "I need you to put an ad on Craigslist; I have a horse I want to sell.  And then I have a bumper to sell, and I want you to put that on Ebay."  
Not "would you please," or "Do you mind" or "could you".  
And no, he doesn't offer me anything in return for these services.  He used to ask me to print stuff for him often, but I finally told him printer ink cartridges are too expensive for me to be doing that.  Oh, and by the way, he has Internet and a computer at home; he just doesn't know how to make use of them.  
My first reply to the orders he barked out was "I don't do Ebay."  
Because you can imagine how complicated it could get with people asking questions and bidding on the item; good grief, the man would be here every day, and I can barely tolerate him for five minutes!  
"Oh, you don't?"  He sounded disappointed.  "Well, OK; but you can put an ad on Craigslist for me?"  
Yes, I told him.  Just don't come at this time of day, because this is when we eat.  
So he's supposed to be here at nine o'clock this morning.  
Last year when I had an abundance of butternut squash and tomatoes in the garden, I made the mistake of telling him on one of his visits to help himself to the produce, and he gladly obliged.  A week or so later I happened to look out my window, and there he was in my garden again.  Uninvited.  Picking sweet peppers that I never had any intention of giving away.  
I'm not shy; I yelled out at him, "Hey, stay out of the sweet peppers."
 So yeah, I can hardly wait until 9 o'clock.  Cliff, of course, will be in bed, and that's a good thing.  He dislikes the guy.  I'm thinking about firing up the laptop and doing this Craigslist thing out in the yard, just to keep the man out of my house.  
Are you wondering why I agreed to even help him?  
Well, it's so simple to put an ad on Craigslist that a six-year-old could do it.  I can't bring myself to refuse to do something that takes so little effort on my part.  Maybe I'll even try to teach him how to do it himself.
Wish me luck.  
By the way, I haven't said anything here that I wouldn't say to his face.
P.S.  It's 9:30 and he hasn't shown up yet.  
P.P.S.  I'll bet he found somebody who would do Ebay AND Craigslist.  Good!  
P.P.P.S.  He showed up.  At ten.  Exactly when I get Cliff up, get him his coffee, fix his cereal, etc. Oh, and what I said about "so little effort"?  Somebody just shoot me.  I must have been out of my mind.  I had to scan pictures, listen to war stories about breaking wild horses, have the guy insinuate "Say It Isn't So", Cliff's favorite movie that's laying on my desk, was a porn flick... I finally told him to leave and come back between 2:30 and 6 and I'd have the pictures ready to put on the ad.  This time I am not optimistic.  I somehow lost two of the four pictures I scanned for him, and I am NOT going to scan them again.  

Early birds and night owls

I've always been an early bird; I really can't say I like waking up at 5 A.M. every single day of my life, but it happens, even if I stay up until midnight the night before.  I'd love to know what it feels like to "sleep in" until say, eight or so.    
I do, however, love my mornings, especially in spring, summer and fall.  I like to go outside with my coffee and my Bible, wipe the dew or raindrops off my anti-gravity lawn chair, watch the sun rise, and listen to the birds sing.  I usually do this even before I check in on the Internet, which shows you what a high priority my mornings hold.  
Iris hangs out nearby, enjoying my mornings with me, occasionally placing a ball in my lap in hopes I'll throw it for her.  
Cliff can be found in bed during these times, sound asleep.  He works nights, you know.  That's a good thing, because I really don't want my mornings interfered with.  
The 3:30 to midnight shift always worked perfectly for him:  he'd be in bed by 1 A.M. and awake by 8 o'clock, having hours ahead of him to play work in his shop before he had to leave for work again at 2:30.   
I can't say his current shift works out so well:  he still leaves at 2:30 P.M., but he doesn't get home until 3 A.M.  He has trouble staying in bed for seven hours; if I'd let him, he'd be trying to get by on about four hours of sleep.  But I know he needs to get more rest than that, and I nag him to go back to sleep when he rises too early.  It's my job, you know.  Nagging.  
The upside of this grueling schedule of his is that he only has to work four days a week.  He and I both wonder at times if the payoff is worth it.
When Cliff was off work for three months after open heart surgery, his hours changed to my hours.  That was fine with me; I was just glad he was alive and kicking!  And any other time he's been off work very long, he becomes an early riser along with me.  
But he isn't a true early bird, because he goes straight to his recliner for about two hours, no matter when he gets up.  Cliff likes to wake up slowly, sipping coffee and watching the news and surfing Craigslist.  He misses the loveliest part of the day sitting in the house!
During his work week we end up going for our walk at 11:30 in the morning.  We've having a heat wave plus high humidity in Missouri, so it's a sauna out there by that time; believe me when I say we walk very slowly.   
When Cliff retires, he'll probably be awake at 6 A.M. every day.  I will adjust my schedule so that I make his coffee and oatmeal first, and then go outside and do my thing while he does his sitting in the Lazy-boy.  That should work just fine.
Adjustments must be made when an early bird marries a night owl.  
Speaking of early birds, I took a video of one (mockingbird, I think?) this very morning.  Click HERE if you want to see the action; he was really showing off with his singing; and notice the high jump he does at the beginning of the video. 
Oh great: now instead of a pesky fingerprint on my lens, I have an ugly dot.  Dear Lord, how do I manage to get into these messes?