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July 22, 1998
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Previous Entry Official Plover Count: 12 chicks Today's Bird Sightings: 4 double crested cormorants
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Having packed a week's worth of activities into one day, I feel like I should write a week's worth of journal entries about it. catsI have never washed litterboxes so quickly in my life! I was a veritable white tornado cleansing everything in sight at top speed. I overslept and was very late getting there, after I'd deliberately set my alarm an hour earlier so I could be sure to get there early and be finished in time to go to a poetry reading at noon in Andover. I did wake up earlier, but I made the mistake of sitting down on the bed to put my socks on and falling right back to sleep. Anyway, I got there and I cleaned. Everybody was bustling about like they were on speed or something. We had extra people who were standing around with nothing to do, so I quickly formulated a plan. I announced to all present that I was only going to wash the litterboxes and someone else could do the dishes. To my surprise, this plan was accepted. By the time I left, all that was left to do was the dishes and there were three people there to do them. Go figure. Jaguar is now into making one journey from the top of the floor cage nearest the window to the sink per shift. He walks slowly. Very slowly. As if he is either doing walking meditation or marching in a funeral procession. He jumps to the top of the fridge and then across to the counter where the sink is. He dips one paw in the water dish and swirls it around then drinks for like 5 minutes. He just keeps drinking. Then he edges toward the sink itself, stopping where I've splashed some water next to the drainer. He looks at me and jumps down. He walks slowly back to the window and jumps to the top of the floor cage again. Goldie has taken to curling up in the laundry room next to the small sink (useless for washing anything other than your hands) and looking startled whenever anyone enters the laundry room. Since scarcely 5 minutes pass without someone coming or going from the laundry room you've got to wonder how she keeps the startle response going. I noticed that Nora didn't bring Munchkins from Dunkin Donuts today. She's been bringing them for the past few weeks, but last week Peresido (yes, I keep wanting to call him Presidio) figured out how to open the Munchkin box and devour all manner of donuts. I even put the box on the shelf above the sink and the next thing I knew there was Peresido stretched to full length and beyond grabbing the box off the shelf and knocking it, along with lots of other stuff, onto the counter where he calmly opened it and grabbed a Munchkin in his greedy little mouth. So, no Munchkins today. poetryI actually made it to the poetry reading at The Andover Historical Society, organized by Mark Schorr, in plenty of time thanks to my speed cleaning techniques. I had promised Ned I would be there so I figured I'd better do it. Patrick was already there when I arrived. We sipped some lemonade and persuaded Ned to read his poem about Ted Williams (entitled Ted Williams, what else?), which for some reason he thought wouldn't go over with the largely female audience. Don't men take lunch breaks in Andover? The only men there were Mark Schorr (the emcee), Tom Edmands (the guy who runs the historical society), Ned (who was reading), Patrick, and one guy I recognized from other poetry events. No Tom. Anyway, both Patrick and I were amazed that Ned was afraid the women wouldn't enjoy the Ted Williams poem. I told Ned that women besides me are avid baseball fans and that when I was a kid the stands used to be full of nuns. This inspired him, since he used it in the introduction when he finally did get up there and read it. The other poets who read were Mary Chivers, Deborah Warren, Julie Martin, and Helena Minton (I'm probably forgetting someone). Even the male poets don't take lunch breaks? piping ploversAfter Monday's experience with greenheads I remembered to buy a fresh bottle of Off! on the way to the refuge. I survived Monday, how bad could today be? Well, the PM shift is worse than the midday shift. The greenheads apparently get hungrier in the late afternoon. I knew I was in trouble when the midday shift warden was waiting for me on the boardwalk about 3 minutes after being notified I was there. His greeting: "The greenheads are really bad. I hope you have that liquid [Off!] with you. You're gonna need it." That turned out to be an understatement. I lasted 2 1/2 hours of my 4-hour shift. I itched so badly I couldn't tell where exactly the bites were - it felt like my entire body was one big greenhead bite. I talked with 4 visitors, including one nice lesbian visiting from out of town who asked lots and lots of questions about the plovers, and one guy who asked lots of questions about greenheads. But by about 5:15 the beach was empty. Not a human soul to be seen. In the distance, flocks of shorebirds milled around at the waterline. I couldn't tell if the piping plovers were among them. I did see a flock of sanderlings fly past me and join the general gathering. It looked like some of the rest of the crowd were semipalmated plovers, but I couldn't tell. If I stood still long enough to focus the binoculars, the greenheads and horseflies and deer flies attacked. I had to keep moving. Finally, I radioed the gatehouse that I had no more blood left and the beach was empty. Law enforcement overheard and told her to bring me in. This is the first time this year I left early. I never did see the seven fledglings listed on the board. There's Something About MaryNed worked on the music for There's Something About Mary so he got a small group of people together to go see it tonight at the Showcase Cinemas in Lawrence and admire his name in the credits. He asked me to come along this afternoon at the poetry reading and I had told him I couldn't because my shift at the beach lasted 'til 7:00. So when I showed up at the theater covered with greenhead bites, he was a little surprised.
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