Journal of a Sabbatical

December 20, 2000

cats and cat-herd

Today's Reading: Tall Trees and Far Horizons by Virginia Eifert, Autumn from the Journal of Henry David Thoreau edited by H.G.O. Blake

Wow! Snow and freezing rain together. What fun it is to brush the snow off the windshield to get to the half inch layer of ice. Just getting the car door open was a challenge that took nearly 20 minutes. The entire car was sealed as if it had been shrink-wrapped in ice.

I think my right thumb and the tip of my right middle finger are frostbitten. Umm, my gloves were in the car. Besides that, the fine motor control required for slicing a knife through the ice all the way around the door without scratching the car is not possible in gloves. Actually, as I examine the digits in question they are not white and frozen but they do still sting a bit.

I didn't think to chop the ice around the little door for the gas cap, but sure enough I needed to stop for gas. Then I had to do the whole run a knife around it without scratching the car thing for that too. And it was still snowing. And people in SUVs drive like maniacs on ice in snow.

All that just to get to the cat shelter. By that time I was late of course. Cats and people are sniffling with upper respiratory things. I know I can't catch the cat URI, but the human one ... I'm real careful about washing my hands repeatedly after touching the phone, the door knobs, the notebook and pen on top of the fridge (to write down that there was bloody urine in the community litter box, if you must know) ... Am I developing fear of contamination to go with my fear of shopping malls? Yikes!

When I came in I warned everybody to catch Scooter lest he escape, but Scooter has been adopted. He's already gone to his new home. So have the two long-haired gray kittens with the dry footpads. I hope their new people put some skin cream on them. There are new kittens, black ones as well as black & white ones, in the office already. Kittens don't stay long.

I came. I cleaned. I left. Roy and I were done with dishes, litter boxes, and folding laundry (no light bulb changing or lock breaking today) early because we didn't have to do as many dry food dishes (as opposed to the wet food dishes) and litter boxes as usual. Also, only one of the community litter boxes had been used. Things were sort of minimalist today because we were shorthanded and even though Bob was there he wasn't feeling tip top. It's a weird day when Roy is the healthiest one there.

The sun came out about 10:30. The snow had already stopped by then. I kept hearing that parts of Massachusetts were going to get 7 inches of snow, but evidently not this part. I didn't have to chop any more ice when I left, which is a good thing because my thumb still hurt. However, it got really cold and windy.

For some reason, cold outside means cold inside Angelina's. By the time I finished my veggie sub I needed to be thawed out. Fortunately I got a really good parking space right near Fowle's so was able to get the coffee back to the car still hot. This thawed me out enough to look for birds.

Everything was all sparkly in its ice coating: the beach grass, the pitch pines, the winterberries. The trees looked like they had tiny gleaming rainbow ornaments on them. There was still some open water, which was full of Canada geese, mallards, and black ducks mostly.

I was planning to take a walk at Sandy Point but when I got out of the car the wind chilled me to the bone. I've been cold all day. I feel like I can't quite get warm even with the hot coffee in my hands. No walk on the beach today.

On the way back out of the refuge I saw a flock of snow buntings pecking around by the side of the road. They're the first ones I've seen on the island this year. For some reason, all the snow buntings I've seen this year ('til today) have been at Salisbury Beach.

Back home I had a phone message from a botanist from whom István had borrowed some slides back in '98 for me to scan for the Hungarian conifer book (that's a conifer book in Hungarian, not a book about Hungarian conifers). He wanted to know if I had returned them. That was weird. It wasn't that he had noticed missing slides. Apparently he found a note reminding him that I had borrowed them. I called him back right away to tell him I had returned them in July of '98 but he wasn't in so I had to leave him voice mail. I got paranoid and searched my office to make sure I didn't still have them. I don't. And I have a vivid memory of returning them.

Between cats and conifers, I got distracted from finishing sending Christmas cards and finishing the Christmas shopping. I only have a couple more cards to write and one more present to buy, so it's not as bad as all that, but I suddenly feel like Christmas is this huge looming deadline and I can't think about anything else 'til then.

I'm still cold. I wish I could sleep on the dryer like Sandy.