Feb. 9 1855 - Snowed harder in the night, and blew considerably ... I was so sure this storm would bring snowbirds that I went to the window at ten to look for them and there they were. -- Henry D. Thoreau

Journal of a Sabbatical

February 9, 1999

midnight at the manor

Despite getting up at 8:30 and consuming the largest available size of French Roast at the Butler's Pantry I was totally bleary-eyed at therapy. I continued bleary-eyed through lunch from the Earth Food Store eaten at Starbucks with Dan & Geri and Hussein the tailor who is planning a two week trip home to Turkey.

I started to wake up around 1:00 PM, which was convenient since I had to be at the cat shelter at 2:00 and at Brigham Manor at 2:15. The sun started to come out around then too, so I contemplated taking my binoculars and stuff with me so I could look for birds afterward. I decided against it, still harboring the idea that I might get a second wind - a third wind?- and drive into Boston to the library to look up funding sources on FC Search.

Moses still has ringworm so I can't take him to Brigham Manor with me. Molly is pretty affectionate and calm, so I decide to go with her. She's really in need of having her nails clipped so Bonnie decided to do it before I took her - just in case- we don't want any elders scratched.

Well, Molly doesn't like having her nails clipped at all. She gets all worked up and I'm reluctant to take her to the elders in this kind of a mood.

Midnight is rolling over just begging for attention. Maybe he'd like to go instead?

Antonia arrives to accompany us to Brigham so I flip a coin and have her call it. Heads it's Midnight. Tails it's Molly. It's heads.

Brigham Manor is on High Street, which I mention only because the Timothy Dexter mansion (minus the statues nowadays unfortunately) is also on High Street. I never paid much attention to any of the Federalist mansions on High Street before, but I slowed down to check out the Dexter house. The cupola is still there. No eagle on top though.

We loosed Midnight upon the elders while some guy was leading them in a sing-along. Midnight was in his glory for about the first 20 minutes, exploring the room, sniffing the elders, jumping on people and furniture.

Of course everybody kept asking for Moses. I explained that Moses was sick and couldn't come. They wanted to know what was wrong so I finally had to tell them he has ringworm. This didn't cause as much of a stir as I thought. In fact it caused no stir at all. Nobody seemed to be worried about having caught it.

Midnight got really into looking at himself in the mirror. Not that he recognized himself. He thought it was another cat. The residents got a big kick out of that. But after the initial 20 minutes of fun, he started to get really stressed out. He hissed and then gave the "silent scream" (open mouth, teeth bared, no sound). We had to round him up and put him back in his carrier.

I drove past the Dexter house on the way back to the cat shelter with the intention of taking a picture, but the traffic on High Street was not conducive to my pulling over for a photo opp.