Journal of a Sabbatical

February 16, 2000

coffee spill

These cats are available for adoption.

Adopt Homeless Paws

Merrimack River Feline Rescue Society

Today's Bird Sightings:
red-tailed hawk
northern harrier
short-eared owl
rough-legged hawk(?)

Today's Reading: The Wandering Albatross by William Jameson

Yes, this is Althea. She turned from little round space alien to actual black cat while I was gone. The humans here have all gone strange. They're waddling like penguins and acting like I'm the one who's out of step. And I haven't had any coffee yet. I stopped at Dunkin' Donuts and bought a small coffee specifically to share with Chloe and promptly dropped it in the shelter parking lot without having taken a single sip. There wasn't a drop left in the cup. Did I mention the parking lot was slippery? It snowed last night a little and seems to have changed to freezing drizzle or something. Anyway, the coffee went flying but I stayed upright. Guess it's all that Antarctic wet landing experience. Never tried getting out of the Zodiac with coffee though.

Chloe let me pet her anyway, head only as usual. She seemed glad to see me even without coffee. Of course the Wednesday morning crew have been telling her all month that I'd be back with coffee :-) I had kind of hoped Chloe would have found a home by the time I got back from the trip, but no such luck. A lot of cats have been adopted and new ones have arrived so I don't quite know everyone today.

Sassy is getting friendlier. She was positively lovey-dovey cuddling in Giggle Girl's lap. Whiskers has apparently not moved from the laundry room in a month. Maybe a laundry should adopt her. The dryer is fixed so no emergency runs to the laundromat today. The second dryer is still not installed as we need to get a hole cut for the vent or something - and that requires landlady intervention.

The linen closet has been reorganized. Everything is sorted by type and size and all the unusable stuff is gone. Roy and I stared at it in wondering amazement when we went to get dish rags. We could actually find towels and dish rags appropriate to the task. Poor Roy had to wash and dry last week without me on his first day back after being sick. He seems fine but they've sent his medical records off to some mysterious place in California. We both wondered what on earth they can diagnose in California that they can't diagnose in Boston. Hmm, from the expression on Spot's face here, he's wondering that too. Meanwhile, the cats are happy to have Roy back in action.

There's a new big orange cat named Sandy who was surrendered because he became aggressive. He was very lovey with me when I tried to take his picture. I couldn't get a good picture of him without letting him out and he's still in his 10 days as a newbie so I gave up. Chris said she'd taken a picture of him already anyway, and Bonnie says the web page hasn't been updated lately. I wasn't really totally into doing cat pictures today anyway, too much focus on penguins I guess.

Not having had any coffee, although fortified by a veggie sub from Angelina's, I wasn't sure whether this beast is a rough-legged hawk. Guess my local bird skills atrophied while I was learning all those new southern hemisphere birds. I had no trouble recognizing the northern harrier hunting in the marsh behind Angelina's nor, of course, the short-eared owl flapping along over the dunes on the refuge. A large dark roast coffee from Fowle's restored some cognitive function but obviously didn't have as much effect as it should have. I sat down on the bed to change my clothes when I got home and woke up two hours later.

I've been working on the journal of the trip but it seems to be taking me forever, and even when I do get an entry or two ready, the silly network seizes up and I can't upload it.

In case you were wondering, Old Port Book Shop was closed this afternoon so I had no opportunity to bankrupt myself there. Besides that I haven't finished reading The Wandering Albatross yet.