Sunday Morning, a Snapshot (300 words)

The clock tells me it is 6:45, the Sunday morning of our return to Eastern Time. My body says it is 7:45 and I have overslept even as I try to use this time as a gift of extra sleep.

Tight against my legs is Carlos the dog. He (and my snoring) have long since sent my spouse, who is here with us for a few days, to the couch. Carlos is fairly petite as Golden Retrievers go, but he's been gifted with a superpower that enables him to expand to fill all available space. Elastidog, I call him. Even as I cling to the edge of the bed, I can feel him stretching out, his spine arching along my side while his legs reach for the other edge. I can tell that he wants more space for his paws. He will not get it.

From my son's room, I hear the "pew pew pew" of laser fire, and the occasional yell of "clankers!" in a remarkably spot-on impression of the Australian-sounding clones from "Star Wars the Clone Wars." Star Wars dictates my life and provides the narrative track for his.

The occasional car cruises slowly by in the street and between them I can hear the birds, hear that they are still trying to get their cadres together for departure. It feels like they're leaving late this year, though I confess that I don't always register time in its true and static form (not that I'm a time traveller, but rather that I tend not to notice how and where it passes, only that it has. Yes, I'm hell on calendars).

I can tell that the clones are growing restless. Soon, they'll be bouncing on the bed, on my arms and head in a unified attempt to rush me out and into the the lurking morning. Mornings, whether they care to admit it or not, lurk. I will buy myself enough time to make and drink a cup of coffee, skim the NY Times for headlines and the magazine until, in a fit of indulgence, I will decide that I need, yes need, to find 300 words of my very own, just for the sake of the morning.

And then, because it is Sunday, I will make pancakes.