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Journal of a Sabbatical |
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November 22, 2000 |
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what am i doing in this handbasket? |
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Quote of the day: "Where am I going? Why am I in this handbasket?" - bumper sticker seen in a parking lot Today's Bird Sightings: Wildflowers still in bloom: Today's Reading: The Story of the Stone (a.k.a. Dream of the Red Chamber): Volume 3 by Cao Xueqin, Autumn from the Journal of Henry David Thoreau edited by H.G.O. Blake, Tall Trees and Far Horizons: Adventures and Discoveries of Early Botanists in America by Virginia Eifert, The Island of Penguins by Cherry Kearton
Plum Island Bird List
Copyright © 2000, Janet I. Egan |
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We have over a dozen plastic dust pans. Why do we have a dozen plastic dust pans? Do they breed and beget little plastic dust pans? Some of them are small and green and a little warped. Are those the immatures? Roy gets frustrated trying to put them away in the box designated for that purpose in the closet and suggests a spay/neuter program for dust pans. Either that or we could build a separate shelter for dust pans right next to the one we build for towels. The doorbell rings. I jump. We have a very loud doorbell. It's somebody who's come to donate a bag full of towels. Roy suggests that any future towel donor be required to take a dust pan. I suggest any dust pan donor be required to take 200 towels. Meanwhile, Roy suggests storing the towels in empty cages and the dust pans in his garage.
No new cat pictures today because I left my camera at La Madre's house on Sunday. I never took a "Hi Bob" photo at dinner on Sunday. Not having used the camera, I forgot I had it with me. There are, however, new cats. The aforementioned Otto with the bum leg, Alistair who is the most beautiful black on black tabby pattern with just a tiny wisp of a white spot on his face like a milk mustache, Petey who is desperately unhappy to be here, a Siamese in quarantine with a wound of unknown origin, yet more kittens... A bunch of cats got adopted yesterday and it seems like their places are already filled. Stormy has something sticking out of one of her paws. Kendra asks me to take a look and see what it is, so I climbed up on the credenza to be at a better angle to see her feet. She's still on top of the cat gym but no longer rending the clean laundry. It's a little piece of white plastic stuck on one of her claws. I try to touch her to get a better look and see if maybe I can get it off. I don't even get close. She takes a swipe at my hand. Ouch. The scratch is on my right hand. I notice it's bleeding. I wash my hand with antibacterial soap, dry it, and put a bandage on it. It only hurts when I reach into my pocket for something (a pen, my car key...). Before I leave, I tell Barb about the plastic and suggest it may take two people to get it off Stormy's claw. Since I can't seem to eat an Angelina's veggie sub with out dripping the juice from the hot peppers on my hands and don't want hot pepper in my wound (of known origin), I decide on Angie's diner instead. One of those veggie burger things with mushrooms and green peppers, with some fries and a fresh squeezed orange juice makes a pretty good lunch. Thus revitalized, I suddenly feel like I have all the time in the world to do whatever I feel like despite the pressures of the holidays. It's like I'm suddenly on vacation or I've been let out of school for the summer or something. Olde Port Book Shop is open even though it's Wednesday, so I browse heavily in all my favorite subjects and have a long meaningful conversation with Domino. I come up with Tall Trees and Far Horizons: Adventures and Discoveries of Early Botanists in America by Virginia Eifert and The Island of Penguins by Cherry Kearton. I'd seen mentions of the Tall Trees ... thing in my search for books about David Douglas so I picked it up off the shelf immediately. Turns out John Muir, John Bartram, and Henry David Thoreau are in there too. And The Island of Penguins is about the jackass penguin colony on an island off South Africa. I can't tell from the introduction whether the island in question is Robben Island (infamous prison island where they kept Nelson Mandela), which does have a big penguin colony or not, so I keep reading. So far the only name for the island is Island of Penguins. The book was published in 1931. I decide to splurge on both books. After all, I've read that one way to reduce the stress of holiday shopping is to buy presents for yourself. Before I head for the refuge to look for purple sandpipers and a snowy owl that have been reported, I buy a large dark roast coffee at Fowle's to drink in the car while I bird. It's getting cold out and I'm grateful to wrap my fingers around the warm cup. The salt pannes are covered with a thin layer of ice. No birds in evidence. For awhile it seems the whole place has become a bird void except for five crows all roosting on one tree. I decide to drive all the way south without stopping, all the while keeping my eyes peeled for a snowy owl or a gyrfalcon. None materialize. Methodically proceeding back north, I take a long walk on the beach near Emerson Rocks, where there are supposedly some purple sandpipers. A whole mess of what appear to be northern gannets are feeding off the end of the rocks. Four of them come close enough for positive id with binoculars. I scour the rocks for purples. They tend to roost on rocks and blend in really well. The only shorebird I spy is a plover who looks to me like a black-bellied but has a really pronounced black nape spot like a lesser gold plover (or whatever they changed the name to - I'll have to look it up). I settle on black-bellied as the more likely. Sea ducks are all over the place and very active. Eiders are splashing and diving. Two kinds of scoters are taking off and landing. A woman who asks if I saw any purples on the rocks tells me she saw a green-winged teal out there. A green-winged teal in the ocean with eiders and scoters? Maybe I'm not the only one who imagines teal. I scan the rafts of ducks but see no teal. I work up a sweat walking in a loop back to the car in Lot 7 and take my jacket off. At Stage Island I'm deep into trying to get a good look at a female ruddy duck when I realize the effect of the walk has worn off and I really need the jacket. It has gotten very cold. It is supposed to even get into the teens tonight. The winter ducks are here just in time for winter. |
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Sandy
is on top of the dryer but he bolts out of the laundry room
and leaps onto the fridge when Roy starts to open the
plastic wrap on his donut. Roy also has some cookies, but
Sandy turns his nose up at those and demands the donut, as
much of the donut as he can intimidate Roy out of. This
despite the fact that Stormy is uncomfortably close to
Sandy's perch. Somebody had placed a pillow covered in a
nice flannel pillowcase with a cat picture on it on top of
the big yellow bucket. Sandy proceeds to get crumbs all over
the pillowcase while Stormy goes back to the top of the cat
gym to resume rending the clean laundry as she was doing
last night. Whatever floats your little cat boat, I
guess.
At
10:00 I thought we were cruising along and would be finished
by 11:00. At 10:45 I am convinced we will not be finished in
my lifetime. I'm not sure what slowed us down. I did have to
pet Otto for awhile, but not that long. I did take a coffee
break but not for that long. Some of the litter boxes were
really dirty. A couple of them had the dirty stuff dried on.
That's fairly unusual. However, miraculously, we finish the
dishes and litter boxes about ten minutes after 11:00 so I
guess my first estimate wasn't so far off after all.