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June 2, 1999 |
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zeke & ollie's excellent adventure |
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June 2, 1999 Today's Starting Pitcher: Tim Wakefield Reading: none, not even the newspaper
Copyright © 1999, Janet I. Egan |
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Jazzpurr is leaping upon every cat in sight as seems to be his routine recently. Joey is in a good mood. He let me pet him and he even rolled over for me. Who are you and what have you done with the real Joey? Giggle Girl is still fascinated with me. Every time she brought a dirty dish or dirty litter box over to the sink she had to show me her impression of the Titanic sinking. I kept imagining Leonardo DiCaprio as a tiny speck of litter or wet food. She's obsessed with my bleach shirt. She thinks the back needs to have bleach splotches like the front does, so she started splashing me with bleachy dishwater from the sink. By the time her job coach showed up to pick her up, I was soaked to the skin. Fortunately, I'd brought a change of clothes because Martha and I were going over to Brigham Manor with some cats for room visits with the elders. When I mentioned to Roy that we were going there, he said he had a relative there I should look up. I did some work in the office, putting the volunteer database on the Mac that someone donated, and then went out to lunch. I changed clothes in the restroom at Angelina's while I waiting for my veggie sub. Martha and Susan met me at the shelter and we picked Zeke & Ollie, an affectionate pair of brothers, and Tyler also quite affectionate. None of them wanted to get into the cat carriers, but once they were at the nursing home, they were quite well-behaved. Zeke loves to sit on people's shoulders and lick their hair. Turns out many of the elders like that! Some don't, but Zeke settled for sitting on my shoulder licking my hair while the elders petted him. This required my squatting or kneeling a lot on the floor and with my sweaty knees it got a little slippery - they had lots of fans going but the place was still kinda hot. Once Zeke decided he'd had enough and hid under a bed. I had to squirm on my belly under the bed to retrieve him. I felt like I was putting on a side show for folks. We did room visits this time instead of getting everybody together in the activities room, and it worked out much better. The cats lasted a lot longer before getting stressed out. We (me and Zeke) got to meet Roy's relative, Ruth, in her room. She was pleased to have Zeke lick her hair and glad to know Roy told us to look her up. Zeke burned out after about an hour, which is actually pretty good. I put him back in his carrier and sat with him by the front door. He was quite willing to get in the carrier this time, and quite unwilling to get out when Mrs. Littlefield arrived from an outing with her niece and I wanted to let her pet him. He wouldn't budge. I sat and talked with Mrs. L for awhile about cats and beaches and her trip to Boar's Head with her niece. I started to wonder if the day comes that I'm in a nursing home, will Andrea take me on outings to the beach? Best not to think about that. Anyway, I left Zeke in his carrier watched over by Mrs. L and went to look for Martha. I found her and Ollie with some folks me and Zeke had already visited and told her that Mrs. L was back and wanted to say hi. So we all chatted for awhile and Mrs. L petted Ollie. Susan had already put Tyler back in his carrier because he was exhausted too. On the way back to the shelter, Susan came out with the line "That was interesting, but I don't think I'd want to do it again." Martha cracked up. I guess not everybody burns to bring together cats and elders. Like I told Martha back when we were starting this program, I think I have a calling to bring together the cats and elders of the Merrimack Valley. I burn to do this. On the other hand, I can understand perfectly why other people don't. You should see how much Zeke hair is on my shirt. |
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