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Journal of a Sabbatical |
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May 3, 2000 |
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finding francis |
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Adopt these cats at Merrimack River Feline Rescue Society Today's Bird Sightings: Today's Reading: Uttermost Part of the Earth by E. Lucas Bridges Today's Starting Pitcher: 2000
Book List
Copyright © 2000, Janet I. Egan |
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Sandy has taken to following Kendra around like a shadow when he's not perched on top of the big yellow bucket. He definitely seems to be asserting himself as the top cat. With Kirby adopted, Sandy doesn't really have a major rival for king of the hill. The big black lump moved! He's been pining in his cage
for a couple of weeks now, so it was good to see he actually
stood up and looked around. Mama Mia and Rudy were chasing
some kind of toy and Buddy (that's the big black lump - we
have entirely too many cats named Buddy) actually started to
pay attention to it almost as if he wanted to join
in. Meowster, however, has taken to facing the wall and ignoring everything. This is not like him at all. He was out in the main room for a bit, long enough to pee a gallon in the community litter box, then decided to become antisocial. He went back to his cage, laid down on the upper shelf (he's got one of those "kitty playpen" cages) facing the back wall and stayed that way for hours. Who knows what goes on in the mind of Meowster. Maybe he's disappointed that that guy he really liked came back with his wife and chose a different cat. Who knows? Pammy and Risky had exercise time in the office. Risky, the huger than huge one, actually did take the opportunity to walk around sniffing things and play with whatever she found on the floor. Pammy, however, took over Kendra's chair and wouldn't leave even when Kendra nearly sat on her. Must be one of those extra comfy ergonomic chairs!
Nancy reminded me that trying to take pictures after a morning of scrubbing litter boxes and dishes is a little like the biathlon. Cleaning requires gross motor coordination and photography requires fine motor coordination. Since it's impractical to take the pictures before I do the dishes because the place is in the midst of the cage-cleaning chaos, I decided this time I'd try waiting until after lunch to do the pictures. I zipped over to Angelina's for my veggie sub and a soda, not realizing that Roberta was looking for me in the office. She was still there when I came back, asking me "where have you been all this time ?" Turns out what she wanted me for was to have lunch. Oops. Had I known... I explained - why am I explaining? - that I wanted to have quick lunch before Martha arrived to go over to Brigham Manor. Besides, Roberta hates Angelina's because they gave her the wrong order once about 2 years ago. So, anyway, the pictures got done, Roberta left, and Martha arrived. Someone came in and applied to adopt Francis who's only been here like an hour or something. She was so lovey this morning that I picked her to take to Brigham. Martha and I agreed on Francis and Pixie, both newbies but both real affectionate. Also both lightweights. I've had my fill of doing squats with wriggling 20 pound weights! At Brigham, Martha and I split up. I go upstairs with
Francis and she stays on the first floor with Pixie. The
second floor nursing staff loves Francis and they
all A lot of people are out today at some sort of senior Olympics event. The folks who didn't go on the outing are eager for a chance to play with the cat. One woman wants to buy Francis. She keeps asking me "How much is that one?" At first I thought she wanted to know how much (or little in Francis's case) she weighed or how old she was - both popular questions on our visits. But no, she really wants to know how much I want to sell her for. A group of people are sitting around a table in one of the common rooms, so I carry Francis around the table giving everybody a chance to pet her. A nurse's aide points out a quiet gentleman who would like Francis, so I turn to bring Francis over there and squat down next to his wheelchair. I guess turning, holding onto a squirming cat, and trying to get lower was just too much for my brain and I took my full attention off Francis for a second. She leaps out of my arms, runs out of the common room and into the hall. I run after her. She sprints down the stairs - the grand staircase in the center of the building - this used to be a mansion - with me in hot pursuit. At the bottom of the stairs she turns left and disappears! I search under laundry carts and med. carts and furniture. I search in people's rooms. "Who are you looking for, Buddy?" they ask. "No, a very small gray tabby named Francis". Nobody has seen Francis. The pet therapist is not supposed to lose the pet! Now what do I do? There's a reason most places who do pet therapy use dogs. Guess I'll have to cross pet therapy off my list of potential career choices. OK. I pull myself together and call for reinforcements. Martha and Pixie are still in Mrs. L's room visiting with her and Buddy. Martha suggests I take Pixie upstairs to finish the room visits while she takes a turn at finding Francis.
After a few more visits, Pixie is showing signs of stress so I return her to her carrier and head downstairs to see if Martha has found Francis yet. I chat with Mrs. L and admire how svelte Buddy has gotten. Martha is still looking for Francis. I set Pixie's carrier down on the bench in the hallway and am about to go look for Martha and Francis when people start returning from the outing. One guy asks me repeatedly "Am I in the right place?" "Yes, I recognize you so you must live here" was all I could come up with in reply. I mean is this a philosophical question? Like did I chose the right nursing home? Like is this some kind of ripening of karma? I leave Pixie and her carrier in the hall and find Martha and Francis with a bedridden woman. Francis is curled up on her lap. Martha found Francis in the bathroom, just sitting in a corner. She scooped her up and continued her rounds. I tell her Pixie is burned out. Pretty soon Francis is bored with sitting on this lady's bed too, so we put her back in her carrier (which I had at some point retrieved from upstairs) and say a few thousand more good-byes to people before we load the cats into Martha's SUV and head back to the shelter. Sandy is still on top of the big yellow bucket. Meowster is still facing the wall.
By the time I get to Sandy Point, I'm way too tired for a walk on the beach - I'm still getting over that evil cold I picked up last weekend and it seems to get worse every day at 5:00. What is it with late afternoons and cold viruses? Anyway, I sit in the parking lot looking at sparrows and notice two field sparrows. Since I've never seen a field sparrow before, I pull out the book to check. Yup. They're field sparrows. I sit there studying the book for awhile with all the windows and the driver's door wide open. I keep hearing towhees but don't see any. I study the sparrows some more, for some reason memorizing the chipping sparrow before I close the book and start driving back. Along the road, I spot a sparrow in the brush. A chipping sparrow. How weird is that? I was just looking at it in the book and there one is in the flesh! I write it down in my notebook and keep looking for white-throated sparrows, tons of which are being reported lately. No luck. No white-throats. Some great egrets have arrived at the salt pannes while I've been driving the length of the refuge. One of them has an enormous amount of intense green face coloring and huge lacy plumes- high breeding plumage. It's gorgeous. The light is all wrong for a photo, so I settle for a silhouette (which I make into a nice sketch in Photoshop when I get home). My nose is running and I'm coughing. Something tells me scrubbing litter boxes, finding Francis, and identifying chipping sparrows is not the best way to get rid of this cold. |
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52
adoptions in April! New faces today: Beauty, Francis, and
Pixie. All sweetie pies. Chloe met her prospective adopter
and whacked her. The woman went home with Patches instead.
That's the peril of Internet dating I guess :-) (The
prospective adopter selected Chloe based on her adorably
cute photo and didn't meet her until she was already
approved to adopt.) So Chloe greeted me from the top of the
cat gym with a lazy yawn and an expression like "it's about
time you got here with the coffee". She was all lovey-dovey
with me and Bob this morning: head-butting, purring, rolling
over. Maybe her idea of a good home is to stay at the
shelter with us!
The
humans all seem to be opposed to the casino, but we couldn't
get the cats' opinions. I can just picture the cats taking
over the town meeting next week to meow their opposition to
the casino. After all, with all the casino related traffic
it would take the humans longer to get to the shelter to
meet their needs! Unless Meowster thinks he can get a job as
a blackjack dealer or something...
want to pet her. One of the nurses lets go of her and she
takes off dashing through the nurse's station into one of
the common rooms and back again with me chasing her. She
hides behind a small refrigerator near the nurse's station.
Fortunately it slides out from the wall easily and I grab
Francis. She calms down right away and we start room
visits.
Pixie
and I go upstairs and visit a few more people. One of the
nurses tells me to be sure to visit a specific woman down
the hall who would really enjoy the cat. The woman keeps
telling me "I'm sorry. I don't know who told you to come
here. I'm in a nursing home. I can't have a cat." But then
does get a big kick out of petting Pixie until Pixie jumps
off her lap and hides under the bed in the furthest corner.
I try to squirm under the bed but can't quite make it. Those
nursing home beds with all that adjustable hardware don't
have much ground clearance. Finally, I move the bed all the
way across the room, squirm in behind it and pick up Pixie
by the scruff. The woman keeps telling me "I'm in a nursing
home. I can't have a cat" as she pets Pixie some more.
Even
though it's now well after 4:00 PM, I can't pass up the
chance for a little drive-by birding in this weather. I do
however skip the ritual coffee. Just over the bridge onto
Plum Island I spot the first snowy egret of the season
fishing in the marsh. Every salt pan type area along the
refuge road has at least 2 yellowlegs. At the Pines Trail,
male yellow-rumped warblers in full breeding plumage are
bustling around in the trees singing. I counted four with no
effort. If I'd looked a littler harder I might have seen
dozens of them. At Hellcat, two women tell me they've seen
kinglets but everywhere I look there are nothing but
woodpeckers.