Early in the morning, even before my world is awake, the kittens have taken it upon themselves to wake me up. This early morning alarm clock can “go off” anywhere between 1:00 a.m.-4:30 a.m.

This morning, the alarm was a sudden crash of items hitting the floor. I jumped out of bed and turned on the light only to discover my bulletin board where I hang my jewelry had been displaced from the wall by active kitty paws. They were playing among the necklaces and earrings pretty happy to have found yet another toy to amuse themselves with. I, however was not all that amused.

I rescued my cosmetic jewelry that had dropped around their necks before it caused them to suffer a panic attack. I scooped up all the jewelry out of harms way for now. I will have to figure out another way to store them so the kitties don’t think they are play toys.

Lately, if I wake up before the kitty alarms are sounded, I will lie in bed and softly call to Ash. I say her name almost in a whisper, twice, two times in a row. Generally, she is laying with Kota between his front paws, so I know she is close.

She will jump on the bed and walk over to me, lay down close to my face and lick my chin. I learned quite early during this ritual that I need to stay perfectly still and not pet her, She will explore my face, nuzzle my ears and neck and when she is satisfied, she will then jump down and go snuggle with her buddy Kota. I call this my sweet spot in the morning.

I also learned during this time, to call to her only softly, because if I call to her in my normal voice, Magoo will come up and intercept our moment. He is quite jealous and that is when I will get bit. Both kitties are getting so big now- they will be a year old soon. They have several issues still based on what they experienced before arriving here. Both of them will get one mat on their back in the exact same place. Quite strange. They will not groom themselves or each other, the only thing I could hazard to guess about that inaction, is their fur or skin must have absorbed some of the toxicity of the smoke a year ago? But oh my, they love to be brushed. I could brush both of them 24/7 and they would never leave my side.

(Magoo who is an excellent flyswatter). His prey at the time? A mosquito!) He caught it and ate it too. LOL

Speaking of fires, there are currently 308 active fires in Oregon. One of them, the Bruler Fire could ultimately threaten my town. It is burning in the mountains on the other side of town and it would have to jump the lake to threaten people. Right now it is 10% contained and they just started putting sprinklers on the edge of the fire- drawing water out of the dam to soak the trees bordering the flames to stop it from spreading. Thankfully, we have not had triple digit temps in over a week and the winds have died down. This fire was caused by humans and it arrived three months earlier than the Holiday Fire last year.

The worst fires are up by Portland and also on the border of California and Oregon. My heart goes out to everyone caught in the line of fire, both two-footed and four footed. My eldest stepson called this morning, he was worried because the smoke has arrived where he lives in Alaska. I assured him that for now, we are safe. But fire season is upon us and it is concerning.