cats
I continue to marvel at how mellow Jaguar has
become. I scooped him up off the floor and held him next to
my chest this morning. He purred. When I first started to
work at the cat shelter, he would have drawn blood before I
could pick him up. He feels light, fragile and old. He's got
to be at least 13 years old - possibly more.
He made the mistake of walking between Kibby and Shanti
as they were having a standoff. They were in mid glare with
teeth bared when Jaguar innocently passed between them
intent on paying a visit to the sink - one of his favorite
places. Both Shanti and Kibby pounced immediately. Poor
Jaguar! Jumped on from both directions. I put a towel over
Kibby and let Jaguar handle Shanti. You didn't think I was
going to risk touching Shanti, did you? The crisis passed.
Kibby and Shanti went back to their standoff. Jaguar skulked
off to the laundry room.
The bullet-wound cat and the shy Charlie got adopted.
The snot kittens are still in the sick room.
The Purrfect Companions poster is ready but Roberta can't
drive over to Northern Essex Community College to pick it up
because her car broke down. I offered to drive her but she
declined. It would have been a long haul to go to Haverhill
and then all the way back to Plum Island to drop off Roberta
and the poster, then home again.
The all F's girl came back. That surprised me. She even
dried dishes and scooped the community litter boxes without
much prompting. I guess she's gotten over not being able to
adopt Spunky, and is willing to work. She groomed Petey. She
didn't put the walkman headphones on any cats.
coastal zone '97
What am I doing here when I should be at
the
Coastal Zone '97 conference in Boston networking my way
into my future career as an oceanographer? Oddly, I didn't
know about the conference until today. I saw a blurb about
Cardinal Law's speech to the conference urging preserving
jobs for fishermen - that we shouldn't emphasize
conservation of dwindling fisheries at the expense of jobs
for fishermen. Since when is the Cardinal Archbishop of
Boston an expert on fisheries biology? Umm, when there are
no fish left on George's Bank, what will the fishermen do
for jobs? Does he realize some of the very fish his
parishioners catch and eat are on the verge of being fished
out of existence?
Anyway, I read the article about the cardinal's speech
and thought: "conference? why didn't I know about this?" and
dashed home from Starbucks to look it up on the web. I was
still pretty tired from washing dishes, litter boxes, and
laundry so I sat down on the bed to listen to Terry Gross
interview a herpetologist who wrote a book about snakes. The
next thing I knew it was 3:00 PM!
I scrambled to the computer, searched on Coastal Zone '97
- found out it ends Friday. The exhibits end tomorrow. I
can't go into Boston to learn about Coastal Zone management
tomorrow because I'll be busy doing it at Plum Island! Time
to guard the plovers - I picture myself like that guy in the
Dunkin Donuts commercials who was always running around
frantic saying "time to make the donuts! time to make the
donuts!" Time to guard the plovers. What's a disorganized
tired blocked writer and plover warden to do?
So I explored the web site and gathered lots of
bookmarks. Someday my perfect coastal zone job will come.
Meanwhile, no point in feeling blue about missing my chance
to network about estuaries.
Louise Bogan
Speaking of
Blue
Estuaries, I skipped way ahead in May Sarton's
letters to the ones she wrote
to
Louise Bogan in 1954. Bogan is one of my favorite poets.
For some odd reason she pronounced her name differently from
the rest of her family (which includes my college acting
teacher and a pal of my Mom's). She pronounced it bo - gan'
and they pronounce it bo' - gun. Remind me not to make
outlines of journal entries anymore because then I feel like
I have to finish everything I intended to write about.
Anyway, I was going to look up the right marks to indicate
the pronunciation difference and I was going to browse that
darn web for references to The Blue Estuaries and I
was going to ... whatever... Anyway, Sarton's letters to
Bogan are worth the price of the whole darn volume. Sarton
presumes to explain love and sex and Bogan's inner life to
Bogan.... amazing. I was in stitches reading it and it was
not intended to be funny.
Oh there's so much more to be said here and I am so tired
and feel so inadequate to the task - not being a literary
critic and all...
A Naturalist along the Jersey Shore
So did I bring the letters with me when I
went out to dinner at Caffe Amore next to the dive shop?
Nope. I brought A Naturalist along the Jersey Shore
by Joanna Burger. I bought it months ago and finally feel
like starting it now that I'm basically done with Rhode
Island: A History. Plus I felt like I should make up for
missing
Coastal
Zone '97 by at least reading something in my supposed
new field. I can't read anything in order these days - how's
that for a weird new form of late onset ADD? - so I debated
on whether to start with the chapter on piping plovers or
the one on toads. I ended up reading about barrier island
formation. I had eggplant Parmesan, a salad, and a glass of
cranberry juice diluted with club soda and a twist of lime.
The guys at the next table were talking about garlic as the
Jersey shore was springing back upward after the retreat of
the glaciers.
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