Perseids and early morning routines

The Perseid meteor shower is again visible as it is every fall here on the Great Farm. I take Mr. Haggis the sorry sheepdog out every morning early and if the sky is clear we see meteors each time, sometimes really big long ones.

I was checking the blog record -- I like this aspect of keeping a blog, that it's also a diary, and a computer-searchable one at that -- and found that we were watching Perseids this time last year too. I was also reminded, although I didn't need the reminder since I've been watching for it, that by the end of the month I should see Orion in the early mornings.

I haven't been checking as assiduously as usual, though.

In fact, I've not been getting up as early as has been my habit for several years, because of some old man medication the doctor put me on (thanks for sharing, Mick), and this has had interesting repercussions all across my life, among them being that my habitual insomnia is markedly reduced. I now sleep until dawn most mornings, and am much more rested and even-tempered at the beginning of each day.

This is not as good a thing as it may sound. I'm in the habit of starting very slowly every day and doing things just the way I want to do them, completely unhurried, for several hours.

I'm particularly dreading the effect this will have on my teaching. It will probably be OK, but I almost always get assigned 8 am classes, and this coming semester I have them five days a week. That isn't such a bad time to start, but an 8 am class means really that you be there at 7.30 or earlier, because even if you are prepped for class, and I usually am, there's a computer to set up, and voice mail and email to check before class.

But it's the jobs at home that really take up the time:

First you have to get up, walk the dogs, feed the sheep, let the chickens out, feed and water the pigs, make coffee, have breakfast, take your morning constitutional, have a shower, get dressed, and get in the car, make sure it starts, and drive 20 minutes to work. That takes quite a bit of time, around two hours most days. Never mind the days when I have to move two feet of snow from our driveway just to get to the car.

So 7.30 is really 5.30.

Which was fine when I would wake up at 4. I could take my time, read the paper (on the computer) enjoy my coffee, have a completely unhurried shower and, of course, constitutional. I might even have enough time to move all the snow and still make it to class on time.

But now I'm waking up at dawn. Dawn is 5.30 right now, but it will be 5.45 by the time classes start. By December 21st, dawn in mid-Maine will be about 8.30 or 9am on a gloomy day.

You can see where this is going. I need an alarm clock, for the first time in decades. Aimee of course has one and uses it daily, but I'm always up and out of our bedroom long before it goes off. I can't start as late as she does because I do all the morning chores.

I need my own alarm clock. And I hate alarm clocks.