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June 10,1998
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Birds: gray catbird |
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bugsLittle black bugs are crawling into my bedroom from the starling nest in smaller numbers than yesterday. I sprayed the poison again. I want to avoid having an exterminator until the starlings are able to fly. The baby starlings voices have changed again. They sound remarkably like the adults now. I slept through their wake-up call this morning for a change. So I guess I'm finally learning to live with them. Maybe. catsI didn't tell anyone at the cat shelter about the bugs this morning. I just got right to work with little conversation. I was still doing dishes when we ran out of clean litterboxes, so I had to switch in midstream. No dishes and litterboxes in the same soapy water with the same dishrag, nosirree. Gotta drain the sink, which thanks to Bob is not such a big thing anymore. He empties the trap under the sink every week so the sink drains at a reasonable speed now. While I was switching from the litterboxes back to the remaining dishes, a giant cat fight broke out. Hissing and snarling from all directions at once. It seemed like everybody was involved, even some of the shy cats who never come out of their cages actually sprinted out to the fight scene As usual, Roberta blamed Jaguar - who most definitely was involved but most definitely did not start it. I feel like I'm defending my kid or something :-) Roberta got me a little panicked by telling me that Martha was tentative about this afternoon's expedition to Brigham Manor with cats. She just about had me convinced not to wait around for Martha. I envisioned driving over to Brigham Manor myself but that had several drawbacks, the most serious being that I had no idea where Brigham Manor is. Nobody else seemed to know about this little project. tiresI was prepared to hang out and wait for Martha. I had brought a change of clothes so I wouldn't have to wear a wet, bleach-splotched t-shirt. I was not prepared to have a flat tire. I just bought new tires! So as I was finishing up the dishes and preparing to wait for Martha, Nora came up the stairs asking if that red Honda was mine. It's got a flat, right front. I run downstairs to the parking lot to look at it. Sure enough it's low, really low, close to flat. I drive over to Salisbury Automotive and blurt out "I've got a flat" to a woman who does not speak much English. She's petting a strange bristly looking little dog and talking to a strange bristly looking woman who glares at me indecipherably. Have I offended her? Is flat a swear word in her language? Finally the mechanic comes around and I tell him the right front tire is flat. He looks at it, takes the wheel off, sprays every inch of it with soapy water. No leak. This takes many many minutes. I pace around outside but am getting sunburned and need shade. I go back into the garage office. There's no place to sit. The bristly looking woman stares at me so hard it makes me uncomfortable. The bristly looking dog barks at me. I go back outside to pace. The mechanic finds No Leak. He tells me one of my neighbors must have let the air out of it last night. catsI drove into Newburyport, bought a salad and ate it by the boat ramp. Then I headed back to the shelter to wait for Martha. The Maytag repairman was just arriving to look at some problem with the washer. Dawna lets us in and says she'll listen to the phone messages to see if Martha has called. A skinny black cat named Maine who was just spayed yesterday starts rubbing up against me and purring. I start petting and playing with her while Dawna checks messages and the Maytag man finds nothing wrong with the washer. Maybe one of my neighbors let the air out of the washer too :-) Finally, Dawna suggests I page Martha. I call her pager number and leave the shelter's phone number. I vow that if she doesn't call back by 2:00 (at which time we are already supposed to be at Brigham Manor) I will leave. I sit down on a plastic chair to wait. Maine crawls up onto my lap and purrs. I'm still petting her when the phone rings at 2:01. It's Martha (who else would it be?). She wants to know if I need anything. Need? I'm waiting for her. She says she's on her way. I sit down again and Maine climbs onto my chest and settles in for a long winter's nap or something. catsMartha arrived and we chose Maine, Alexis, and Fluffy to travel to Brigham Manor. Fluffy used to belong to a woman who now lives at Brigham Manor. The cats were a major hit. I put Maine on the bed of a man who doesn't speak or do much of anything. He reached out one hand and stroked her head immediately. I could see his eyes change. Maine curled up on him and purred. Alexis came over on her own after visiting another guy in the same room, and the silent man petted her too. Martha and I split up. She took Maine and Fluffy and I took Alexis. Alexis and I visited several rooms. The best was a woman new to the nursing home. She'd just had a stroke and a broken hip in the same week. She was very agitated and upset. I brought Alexis into the room and set her down on the bed. Now Alexis is a very large cat. She's bigger than my Wilbur, who is exceptionally large, and she has long hair and kind of a mane like a coon cat. The woman exclaimed "That's no cat, that's a mountain lion!" She started petting Alexis and calling her kitty. Alexis took a liking to her and curled up on her bed pressed up against her body. The woman's whole attitude changed. She calmed down completely. She relaxed. Her eyes changed. She smiled. Her granddaughter was visiting and witnessed this whole thing. She couldn't stop telling the staff about it. She wants to adopt Alexis and bring her to see her Gram regularly. We're supposed to go back in a month, but I have a feeling this is going to end up being a more frequent thing. |
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