Mr. Romeo, who has taken on the task of defending the home turf from wandering cats, also thinks that it’s his job to wake me up most mornings so that I can serve up cat food for breakfast. He starts sometime around 3:30 a.m., and we spar for an hour or so before I finally give up and get up. He stands on my chest, and I turn on my side and try to doze off. Then he sneaks along the side of the bed and a paw to the face wakes me up. I push him away, leave my hands up to guard my face, try to fall asleep again. He will eventually ram through my defenses like a 19-pound feline fullback. That gets your attention, even when trying to sleep.

I spent this Kamehameha Day weekend down with a cold, with more hours spent in bed. One afternoon I had been trying to nap, and Romeo did his wakeup routine in the late afternoon. I was able to get a camera, and capture at least part of his performance. He seemed to know that he was on camera, so didn’t do the entire drill. But you’ll get some idea of how good he is at making the wake-up call.