Early this morning, I was woken up by the cat meowing loudly in the spare bedroom we’ve christened the budoir- a walk-in closet of sorts, the racks now groaning with winter coats and jackets, the floor, three rows deep with shoes. She was clearly looking for something, and without my glasses, I couldn't make anything out on the dark, hairy rug. And then I almost stepped on it, my big toe touching something (still) warm; it was a small wax-eye with that distinct while colouring around its eyes and that dusting of pistachio green on its head, wing-tips, and tail.

It was literally the early bird getting caught by a cat.

Lily has a bell around her neck so it’s either she’s clever and the birds are dumb or the birds are clever, but she’s cleverer. Or she could also be cunning- an adjective that is a step above clever. There are so many ways of looking at it, but does it matter which one is more accurate? Or truer?

It’s too early in the day to mull over these things so you just take a breath and to realise that you need to see the fundamentals; this is the nature of cats, and birds are prey in the hierarchy of things.

The sun’s out (in spite of weather predictions to the contrary) with a nice stiff breeze so you can do the laundry. You woke up early so now you have time to replant the blue cypress that hasn’t been liking its pot. You can work on that presentation due Monday. You can do the pork butt, 3 kilos split into two generous portions, one for Korean barbecue and the other for a pulled-meat recipe. So I did all these all before 9:30am.

Life is a combination of circumstance and the choices you make to work with these and sometimes, you don’t need to be as clever as Lily the cat.

You just have to do it.