keeping an eye on myself...

[rmd]

so, the other night, i engaged in EXPERIMENTS IN CAT SURVEILLANCE.


see, it was cool enough that i could use a blanket (this becomes important later on). and clauclauclaudia was spending the night at her place.

clearly, it was time FOR SCIENCE. or at least FOR EVIDENCE-GATHERING RESEARCH, which is a component of SCIENCE, to be sure.

at home, i have a macbook. it's got a camera on top of the screen. the macbook has gawker loaded on it, which allows one to make time lapse movies.

i've frequently wondered what the cats do when i'm asleep.

it was time to find out.

so i positioned the macbook in the corner of the bed facing the area of the bed where my pillow is and where vague the cat tends to lay between my pillow and the headboard. (if i don't leave enough space for her, she becomes very insistent that i make space for her.) and i set it up recording. and i left the lights on and pulled the blanket up over my head so i has some level of darkness and i went to sleep. (see, told you the blanket was important.)

i did wake up partway thru the night and took advantage of this to stop and restart the app. so i've now got two surveillance movies of me, with a blanket over my head, and the cats.

initial findings:

• surprisingly for a nominally nocturnal creature, vague spent most of the night laying in "her spot" above my pillow. she didn't move aside from the occasional shift in position.


• my *god* i am very still for long periods of time when i sleep. this is partly something that's only happened post-cpap. i used to be a very restless sleeper. which makes sense since i wasn't actually sleeping much at the time.


• nikita appears to have managed to lay ON MY HEAD without waking me at one point overnight.


• bonaparte did, in fact, decide to urgently wake me around 0400 - 0430. THANKS, LITTLE FURRY GRAY CAT!

i think further research is called for, and more evidence should be gathered.

Comments

[flabosib.livejournal.com]

When did you get a third cat? I missed bonaparte's addition to the family.

[rmd.livejournal.com]

2000. nikita and vague are siblings i got in late 1996, and bonaparte was a failure at fostering a kitten that my friends and at the time neighbors kathrynt and llachglin found in their house's downspout.

[frotz.livejournal.com]

Aren't cats nominally crepuscular? (Active during dusk.) That always struck me as a good deal; you get to sleep all day and all night.

[rmd.livejournal.com]

they also appear to be active around dawn. and bonaparte thinks i should be, too. :)

[frotz.livejournal.com]

Yeah, dawn and dusk. I think I was thinking "twilight" and wrote "dusk".

I really like being awake at dawn myself. I find it's the second-order effects (needing to go to bed at 9) that are problematic to implement.

[penk.livejournal.com]

Wannaseeyoutubevid!

I'd love to find a little app like this for linux. That would be fun :)

[annathepiper]

Har! What a fabulous way to use your computer. :)

[sparkymonster.livejournal.com]

nikita appears to have managed to lay ON MY HEAD without waking me at one point overnight.

Madame approves!

[muffyjo]

That's awesome. Data collection must continue to gain full insight.

[evwhore.livejournal.com]

Heh, awesome. I've always wanted to set up cameras around the house to see where Phoenix goes during the day since when I get home he's almost always in the same chair.

There's also this 7-hour time lapse video of a catnap (http://evwhore.livejournal.com/464117.html) from CO.

[corivax.livejournal.com]

Awesome! You should definitely post the video somewhere.

[firni.livejournal.com]

Seconded.

[miss-bowtruckle.livejournal.com]

thirded!

I must see kittehz.

:D

[jiapa.livejournal.com]

Heh. Now I'm curious -- perhaps I should do something similar. I'm planning to get a macbook in a couple months. *grin*

I mean, I know Jane spends a good chunk of the night on whichever pillow I am not, and I know they start pestering me about 10 minutes before the alarm goes off, no matter when I set it for, but other than that I'm not clear what they do when I sleep.