Why is it on the days when I have to get up for work, I snap into a state of mumbling confusion at the sound of the clock radio. Typically, it takes 10 or 15 minutes to ascend the phylogenetic tree far enough to emulate bipedalism. Somewhere around prosimians is usually close enough to get me out of bed and into the shower. The shower gets me to within the last 100,000 years or so of hominid evolution, which is close enough for this Archaeologist. Audrey has her own methods of dealing with the horizontal to vertical transition.

The weekends seem to be different. The alarm is blissfully off, there is always a smug subtext as I deactivate it on Friday. Yet I'll wake up fairly alert about 45 minutes before the arc of that bright disk in the East makes its first appearance. I'm awake enough to shamble out of the cave to the clearing where the monolith stands. Rubbing my hands and resting my face on the cool, smooth surface jumpstarts the rest of the day. OK, what I really do is shamble in here and see what email came in overnight and check for updated weblogs, but the effect is the same. Since I don't have a tapir femur to hurl skyward, I pat Keats on the head and tell him he's a good dog. He groans and stretches appreciatively. Dodger will want back in soon, which will bring Starship blivet up to a full crew and we can embark on our Saturday voyage of discovery.