Journal of a Sabbatical

March 29, 2000

Cain and Abel

Adopt these Cats at Merrimack River Feline Rescue Society

Visit Bonnie Buckley's site, Adopt Homeless Paws, for more pictures of MRFRS cats and other animals needing homes.

Today's Bird Sightings:
Plum Island
2 American kestrels
mallards
2 mute swans
10 Canada geese
4 American robins
1 great egret
4 American black ducks

Salisbury Beach
5 red-breasted mergansers

Mammal Sightings:
11 seals at Butler's Toothpick

Today's Reading: Early Spring in Massachusetts: from the Journals of Henry David Thoreau edited by H. G. O. Blake, The Flight of the Condor by Michael Andrews, Thoreau's Country by David R. Foster

I'm in the zone. The dish zone. Cruising along with no speed limit, no bumps or frost heaves in the road. The dish drainer is filling up with clean dishes. The sink drains flawlessly. Whee! This is the life. It's still 10 minutes 'til 10:00 when I look at the clock thinking surely Roy must be late. This must be a personal best. Moments after Roy pipes himself aboard right on time I'm ready to start on litter boxes.

Sandy is stretched out on top of the big yellow bucket. He makes a beeline for the door when he hears Roy's whistle in the stairwell. Now he's taken to standing guard at the door, just beyond the big yellow bucket.

Two new cats came in together, an orange tabby and a black and white, with the improbable names of Candy Cane and Lovable. Hey, I can get sappy and sentimental about cats, but these names sound positively gooey! Wasn't there a famous stripper named Kandy Kane? Or was that a race car? Chris thinks they should have manlier names: Cain and Abel. Sounds better to me. They're pretty cats. I bet they won't be here long.

Giggle Girl pretty much kept out of my face and her hands off me today. Nancy had wished me a good day by saying "May Giggle Girl respect your personal boundaries." She did for the most part. However, she's fascinated with the digital camera. When I started to take Purr Purr's picture she grabbed the camera out of my hand and took the picture herself, then pictures of me, Roy, and Chris ... we're not trying to get the volunteers and staff adopted! Sheesh! Anyway, Purr Purr didn't like the flash, so I'll probably have to go back and do another shot. I should've looked more closely at the pictures before I left. The picture of me is pretty good though, confused and sweaty as I look. The room isn't really slanting out from underneath me - Giggle Girl just shot it a weird angle.

Shanti has taken up residence in the laundry room where Whiskers used to hang out. She actually head-butted Giggle Girl when she brought the dirty laundry from the rabies room in there. When things quieted down Shanti came out into the main room and started rubbing against Kendra. Kendra sat down on the floor next to the big yellow bucket and Shanti plunked down next to her with her head on Kendra's leg. Apparently earlier in the week she actually sat in Kendra's lap. She didn't go quite that far today, but it was still astonishing to see Shanti that friendly to a human. Boy has she come a long way!

Roberta stopped by today to visit with her old Wednesday morning colleagues. A good time was had by all.

Today's "soup in a bread bowl" at Fowle's is vegetable lentil. That and a large dark roast coffee make a quick and reasonable lunch. I don't know if it was the coffee or some kind of reaction to spring, but I was very restless and didn't have the patience to sort out the thousands of gulls wheeling over the river by the sea wall. Probably missed some rarity, but just couldn't focus mentally. Didn't need to focus to notice the great egret. It's big and close to the road. I got a picture of it just after it caught a fish. Can't see what species of fish it is in the photo, but it became egret-lunch seconds after I snapped the picture.