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Journal of a Sabbatical |
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April 24, 2000 |
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cats today, cats tomorrow, cats forever |
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Today's Bird Sightings: Today's Reading: April 24 1855-1858 from Thoreau's journals at the Thoreau Home Page., Discovered Alive: The Story of the Chinese Redwood by William Gittlen Today's Starting Pitcher: 2000
Book List
Copyright © 2000, Janet I. Egan |
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Three new kittens in the office wait to be whisked away to a foster home with Beth D. at noon today until they're ready to be adopted. We try not to keep kittens around the shelter because they're too susceptible to infectious diseases and besides that they get more civilized in foster homes. The black & white one is my favorite. James likes the orange one. Everybody else says the white one is their fave.
Kirby has enough energy for 10 cats. He's zipping around over and under everything in the place at warp speed. This even flushes Purr Purr from his hiding place under the row of cages. I guess Purr Purr is more afraid of Kirby than of us. Kirby just wants to play. Actually the cats' energy level in general is pretty high except for: the big black one who came in last week and just sits in the back of his cage looking morose and despondent,
The washer has a nice rhythm going and I start tapping my foot to the beat. Something smells bad in the fridge. There's a carton of
cream that expired March 12, which may not be the source of
the smell, but should be made gone nonetheless. Somehow I manage to get all the dishes and litter boxes done, and all the pictures of new cats taken in a reasonable time. I think there aren't as many cats as usual. There've been a lot of adoptions in April so far. We're in a brief interlude of not being at full capacity. That will change by tomorrow of course. We never stay at less than full for long. And it is kitten season. The marsh is beginning to encroach on the parking lot. Water is high everywhere, and it's particularly noticeable right behind the cat shelter. The parking lot is still useable, but the water is awfully close. The red winged blackbirds seem to like this weather. I see and hear lots of them in the marsh when I pull into the parking lot and again when I leave.
Speaking of this past Thursday, I failed to mention in that day's journal entry that as I was on my way to plover warden duty in the morning I noticed tons of bright yellow "Vote Yes on the Casino" signs along Rt. 110 and Bridge Rd., which were not there on Wednesday (when I noted the plethora of "No" signs). I asked Donald about it at dinner yesterday (he's got a "no" bumper sticker on his car) and he told me the "yes" people had a rally on Thursday morning and handed out those yellow signs. That explains their sudden appearance. Personally, I think the idea of a casino in Salisbury, not to mention the equally absurd 5-star hotel, to be ridiculous. Imagine the increase in the numbers of homeless people living in the state park campground. Come to Salisbury, lose all your money in the casino, move into the campground, at least you'll be homeless in a nice place! However, I don't live in Salisbury - I only clean litter boxes there - so my opinion does not get translated into a vote.
To warm-up my freezing self I got some coffee from Fowle's: a nice dark roast. That fueled me for further adventures after all. I just can't resist drive-by birding at the refuge even in the cold and wet. I think there were more flickers than what I counted. As I was scanning the field from the north pool overlook a flock of something making flicker-like noises flew by too fast for me to get a good look at them. They didn't look like shorebirds. It was mostly the usual suspects, except not so many kestrels as lately. I spotted a flock of cormorants in a long line low over the water, one of those almost cliched coastal scenes, vanishing behind a dune. They just seemed to evoke wildness. As I drove back out along the refuge road I had to stop for three white-tailed deer bounding out of the dunes and across the road to the field by the Pines Trail. Reading Thoreau's journal tonight I was struck by how similar today was in 1856: This season of rain and superabundant moisture makes attractive many an unsightly hollow and recess. I see some roadside lakes, where the grass and clover had already sprung, owing to previous rain or melted snow, now filled with perfectly transparent April rainwater. -- Henry David Thoreau April 24, 1856 When I crossed over the Assabet River while taking Nancy home last night, I noticed it was very high. The radio was announcing flood watches for the Assabet, the Shawsheen, and some other rivers. I was a bit worried that by the time I reversed the trip and went home the Shawsheen might be obstructing my way on 114 or 28 so I contemplated alternate routes. It turned out to be high but not overflowing yet. Anyway, when I read yesterday's entries from old Henry David, lo and behold the Assabet was way high on that date in Henry's world, and in 1856 it had been raining for three days just like in 2000: April 23, 1856. P. M.&emdash;Up Assabet to white cedars. The river risen again, on account of the rain of the last three days, to nearly as high as on the 11th. Not only that, but he wrote about a situation eerily similar to the Elian saga (which was a major topic of conversation at dinner yesterday): April 23, 1857 They told me at New Bedford that one of their whalers came in the other day with a black man aboard whom they had picked up swimming in the broad Atlantic, without anything to support him, but nobody could understand his language or tell where he came from. He was in good condition and well-behaved. My respect for my race rose several degrees when I heard this, and I thought they had found the true merman at last. "What became of him?" I inquired. "I believe they sent him to the State Almshouse," was the reply. Could anything have been more ridiculous? That he should be beholden to Massachusetts for his support who floated free where Massachusetts with her State Almshouse could not have supported herself for a moment. They should have dined him, then accompanied him to the nearest cape and bidden him good-by. The State would do well to appoint an intelligent standing committee on such curious [sic], in behalf of philologists, naturalists, and so forth, to see that the proper disposition is made of such visitors. Apparently we still don't know what to do with aliens who miraculously survive at sea. I'm not sure what good a philologist would do nowadays - language wasn't exactly the problem in the Elian case - but certainly in that 1857 case it might have helped to have someone who knew the man's language. Thoreau secret decoder ring entries:
My metasequoia book came today. What can be more fun than a botanical adventure story? Time to curl up with a good read. |
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Monday
elbow deep in soapy bleach water is pretty much like
Wednesday elbow deep in soapy bleach water. Same cats,
different people. Risky is the cat I mentioned in 
Chloe
keeps burrowing under a purple towel on top of the cat gym.
She looks pretty funny with just her cute Chloe nose poking
out from under the towel, or just her tail sticking out,
depending on whim. Sandy seems to think this might be a fun
game for him too, and he starts eyeing Chloe's perch.
Chloe's ears go back. Sandy's ears go back. Just when I'm
wondering if yanking the towel off Chloe to use it to
separate them is a good idea, I say "Bad kitty, Sandy. No!"
and, of all things, he jumps off the credenza and goes to
harass Kirby who has been harassing everybody today.
The
litter boxes are quite dirty today, as are the dishes.
There's wet food in the sink again in gross lumps. If I
catch whoever dumps that in the sink, why I'll ... what will
I do to them? Make them clean it up, I guess. Careful to
make sure it doesn't go down the drain, I mush it all into
the strainer and then dump it in the trash. It's possible
somebody just doesn't realize there's no garbage disposal
built into the sink. The new sink trap is still working
fabulously. The sink drains well and quickly just the way I
like it.
The
forecast is for clearing skies tomorrow and then rain again
on Wednesday. Hah! What do the weather men know? It'll do
what it'll do. That brief interlude of blue sky on Thursday
afternoon seems like it was about a month ago already. I'm
not sure quite remember what blue sky looks like.
Having
lunch at Angelina's in the freezing cold after sweating at
the cat shelter gave me chills. It's darn cold out but
Angelina's didn't seem to have the heat on. The veggie sub
was good though: the vegetables were really fresh. The guy
who owns the place asked me for a quote on doing a web page
for his catering business the other day, but he wasn't in
while I was having lunch today so I 'll have to get with him
later in the week about it.