Journal of a Sabbatical

October 27, 1999

Wednesday's cats

Adopt these Cats

Visit the Merrimack River Feline Rescue Society

Today's Starting Pitchers: John Smoltz for the Braves, Roger Clemens for the Yankees

Yankees win. Roger gets his ring. Was there ever any doubt?

Today's Reading: Thirty Years by John Marquand

Today's Bird List
Plum Island
hordes of black ducks
hordes of Canada geese
2 snow geese
10 lesser yellowlegs
3 greater yellowlegs
8 yellow-rumped warblers
4 American crows
1 herring gull
2 great blue herons

Herptiles:
1 painted turtle

Butterflies:
2 cabbage whites
1 clouded sulphur

Mammals:
inexplicably no coyotes or deer today

We're gonna have to get Chloe a big yellow bucket of litter for her to guard when she gets adopted. Doesn't every home need a big yellow bucket? At least her taste in coffee isn't highly specialized. I brought ordinary Dunkies coffee today and she was as into that as any of the darker roasts. Guess she's not a gourmet cat.

Giggle Girl is back. She only sank the Titanic in the sink twice today so that's a big improvement. Giggle Girl is a big Yankees fan. The school is pretty inflexible about curfew even for the World Series so she couldn't stay up last night to watch the end. She said she knew the Yankees would win.

Roy stayed up to watch the whole game because his wife was out at a candle party. Apparently a candle party is like a Tupperware party except that they sell candles. In any case, it meant Roy got control of the remote.

I listened to the end of the game on the radio in my bedroom rather than watching it on TV, just in case I might actually fall asleep.

I didn't until after the game, and I woke up at 4:30 AM again today. This time I went back to sleep right after I checked on my car. Nancy suggested only half jokingly last night that I could solve this problem by sleeping in the car. That way I wouldn't have to keep checking on it.

Midgee is after the plastic bags again. What is it with plastic bags? They can't possibly taste good, can they?

Rosie has been hiding underneath the row of cages since last night.

Somebody surrendered a longhaired white flea bag, umm, cat. The poor thing is just covered with fleas. Bonnie gave him a flea bath, which killed off most of the fleas but the poor cat still looks yucky with all those little black dots of flea dung clinging to his fur. He needs a good grooming. Bonnie named him Blake because it sounds big and masculine. She wanted to name Jackson Blake but Kendra had already named him before she got to it.

Jackson is the biggest cat I ever saw in my whole life. He got left on the doorstep in a carrier on Monday and he hasn't eaten since. He barely fits in the cage. Bob was having trouble arranging the litter box and food dish so that Jackson wasn't forced to lie on top of it.

The sink refused to drain. Roy emptied the trap for me but it still wouldn't drain. He was pretty good natured about getting down on the floor under the sink, especially when I commented on how my knee is so stiff I can't get under there so I have to ask the old guy to do it. Some combination of Kendra and Roy fiddling with it got it flowing again. At least I didn't flood the place this time.

Roy and I were chattering away at the sink, talking about the defeat of the High Street traffic "improvement" proposal that would have widened High Street, paved over a little park, and taken down a statue of George Washington commemorating a visit he made to Newburyport. It was the lack of a plan for what to do with the statue that really defeated it. Brit was standing there listening to us in that strange way she has and I couldn't help myself. I said to Roy: "Brit's a Brit she probably doesn't have the same feelings about George Washington that we do." Well, he cracked up. Brit didn't laugh. I guess the idea of a Brit named Brit just isn't as funny to her.

I was in the office about to change into a dry T-shirt before photographing the new cats when Giggle Girl's job coach walked in. Rather than tell him to get lost so I could change, I did the photos while still wet and then changed so I'd at least be dry for lunch.

A new Indian restaurant opened in Newburyport a couple of months ago and I've been meaning to try it. They have a lunch buffet for $6.95. I felt like I needed something more than a salad or a veggie sub (which is basically a salad in a sub roll) and I am in a lunch rut again so I decided to try the buffet. The saag paneer was salty and the alu chole was bland. The basmati rice was gritty and dry. The nan was good though.

My cold or whatever it is let up a little so I thought I'd look for birds and go for a walk on the beach. I did look for birds, but anything that wasn't a black duck or a Canada goose turned out to be a yellow-rumped warbler. By the time I got to Sandy Point where I'd intended to walk, I was so tired I couldn't walk from the parking lot to the beach never mind on the beach. I hope this cold thingie lets up soon.