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Journal of a Sabbatical |
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June 7, 2000 |
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raincat |
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Today's Bird Sightings: Today's Reading: Summer: From
the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau edited by H.G.O.
Blake, Today's Starting Pitcher: 2000
Book List
Copyright © 2000, Janet I. Egan |
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At the laundromat, I fill up three dryers and stuff them with enough quarters for 56 minutes (each quarter gets you 7 minutes). My previous experience with massive drying operations for the cat shelter has taught me that 48 minutes is not enough but 56 does the trick. That gives me enough time to get a bite of lunch and some coffee. Fowle's has vegetable lentil soup in a bread bowl today so I decide to combine the lunch and coffee operations in one place. Then back to the laundry with 4 minutes to go on the timer. Dry clean laundry weighs a lot less than wet clean laundry so it's not so much of a struggle to get it back to the car. I pick up the newsletters at the printer on the way back.
Covering myself with bug repellent, I scan the pools at Hellcat for the usual suspects: great egrets, cormorants, etc. I spot one unusual suspect, a very skinny heron with bright blue head, red breast and white under parts. A tricolored heron. It's dancing up a storm and catching fish left and right. I watch it for a long time until it disappears into the reeds. Way cool. On the way down the road earlier I had thought I heard some kind of rail calling just past Lot 1 - wasn't sure because for all I knew the noise could have been coming from my car. So I decide to check out that spot again on the way out.
With or without the clapper rail, it's turned out to be a beautiful day. |
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Morning
comes around and it's still raining. Not quite as hard as
last night, raining all the same. I leave extra early so I
can drop off the newsletter at the printer before dish and
litter box washing. Even before I get coffee and a bagel at
the Salisbury Dunkin Donuts, which has suddenly become as
slow as the one in Amesbury. Come to think of it, I think
the woman who took my bagel order this morning used to work
in the Amesbury one. Maybe she's the black hole. Even
with Dunkies turning into a black hole and a blue van
blocking the entrance to the shelter parking lot, I get
there at the same time I always do. Sometime I've got to
review queuing theory... Reminds me of when I used to
commute to work at Cosmodemonic in Cambridge. Now that was
an interesting queuing theory problem. For all departure
times between 7:30 AM and 8:30 AM arrival time was 9:15 AM.
But now back to today...
Mystic
is being really lovey dovey with Zephr and Rudy - both
orange and white boys. She rubs her head against their
bodies, sniffs their butts, raises her ass high in the air,
pursues them under the cages. She's fixed but she doesn't
seem to know it. Sid's cage is the meeting place for all
these guys: Sid, Rudy, Zephr, Mystic, and others from time
to time. It's a real social center. So much so that Sid
storms out at one point. They're starting to act like a
colony.
Sandy
watches me do dishes from the top of the fridge. Miss
Newburyport seems to want to play with Bob's fingers. For
her, this is highly social. The big black lump is out of his
cage sitting in one of those little teepee things on top of
it. Then he actually moves to a nearby chair. For him, this
is highly social.
Baskets
of wet clean laundry are spreading out the door of the
laundry room encroaching on the sink. A new volunteer says
we really need two dryers. Umm, yeah, but we still haven't
gotten a hole in the wall for the second vent. I wonder if
that woman who was going to donate the second dryer has
given it to someone else after all this time. Feeling the
need to perform some more good deeds to offset some negative
feelings I've got going on, I tell Kendra if she's really
nice to me I'll take the wet laundry to the laundromat. 
Refreshed
and rejuvenated I fold newsletters and stuff them into
envelopes while George folds the mountain of nice dry clean
towels I've just delivered. By the time I get done, it's
2:00 PM but since I was able to eat lunch and dry towels at
the same time, I'm not starving and exhausted. The rain has
stopped too. Gee, I wasn't going to look for birds because
of the weather, but the weather has changed and I just
happen to have my binoculars in my backpack with my camera
...
Mixed
in with a pair of willets screaming pill-will-willet and a
flock of common terns calling keeerr I hear a clapper rail
going kek-kek-kek-kek. There's a woman there with a scope
who also says she heard a clapper rail but she can't find
it. Darn it sounds close. It sounds really close. Like right
in front of me. Scanning the reeds and grass for movement is
futile. The wind is blowing so hard everything is moving.
The woman with the scope gives up and leaves. I hear the
clapper rail again and keep looking. Out of the corner of my
right eye, I see something fly up. Thinking it might be the
rail even though it's not in the direction the rail call was
coming from, I whip around to look at it just in time to see
a green heron disappear back into the reeds.