Automat

My wife got tired of the cats waking us up at 6:00 AM on Saturday and Sunday morning. She gets up pretty early on weekdays, and feeds the cats on her way out the door. This managed to get them on a schedule...a schedule that didn't abate on weekends. We haven't had a decent night's sleep on the weekend in months.

She found an automatic feeder that you can set to dispense food at certain times of the day, and ordered that. We just got it set up the other day for the first time.

Jupiter was really hungry that day, and was begging for us to feed her early for hours. She didn't know that it was out of our hands now. She just kept rubbing against our legs, walking in front of us everywhere we tried to go, running to her food bowl each time we seemed to have noticed her presence, and meowing the most pitiful whining meow you've ever heard.

We were determined to be strong, however. It was set to dispense food when the time came, and we were going to let that thing take over. Then, on Saturday mornings, the cats could whine at it if they wanted to be fed early.

It did finally fill the bowl with food, and Jupiter was startled and worried about it. She stared nervously at it as it put more and more kibble into the bowl. When at last it seemed to be done, she ventured forward to figure out what had happened. There was food here, and she was hungry as hell, so she dug in. The feeder wasn't even quite done, and ejected another batch of kibble onto her nose, but she didn't care. She kept on scarfing. 

I'm hoping that my wife is right, and this thing is the answer. Maybe next Saturday, I won't awaken miserable and tired because of cats for once. Crossing my fingers.