Journal of a Sabbatical

March 10, 1999

improbable

Dunkin Donuts was giving away coffee this morning. Free. No catch. But that's not what set the improbability drive on overdrive. Nope. Brought that coffee to the shelter to sip while I worked.

As I'm drinking my coffee, Bob introduces me to a new cat: Simon. Simon is a gorgeous orange tabby - the longest orange tabby in the universe. He just goes on and on. And his tail is proportionate to his body length. He's a real mush. He rolls over and purrs for anybody and just eats up attention. He stretched himself out to his full length and did a headstand in his litter box. His head's in the box with his body leaning on the wall and his butt practically touching the ceiling of the cage. He stays that way for at least 2 minutes. Must be one of those yoga tricks.

As we're laughing at Simon, Bonnie tells us he was surrendered as Sheba. She asked the guy who surrendered her/him some questions about age and stuff and the guy tells her Sheba had a litter in November. So when she took her/him to the vet to get checked out, they were really puzzled. Is this the world's first transgendered cat? A neutered male had kittens? Quick somebody check the improbability drive!

So, Simon is definitely male and we have no idea where his former person got the idea...

Meanwhile, Moses is finally out of the ringworm room. Yay! He's got a new home all lined up but the person is away on vacation this week, so he won't go home 'til next week. Moses seems very glad to be able to cuddle with people again.

Sadie led the other cats a merry chase with the cat toy again today. I don't know how she got it out of my hand, but she had 6 cats chasing it as she dragged it at top speed into the socialization room. She always gets it on the first try too. She watches with her one eye while all the other cats are jumping at it and then she makes her move. Her timing is flawless and she catches me by surprise. Go Sadie!

I managed to get through lunch at Angie's Diner without breaking my glasses today.

The short-eared owls were out in force at both Plum Island and Salisbury Beach. What are they hunting in the frozen marsh? One made a really nice flyby pass like it was deliberately showing itself off to the assembled masses of birders. Either that or it preys on telescopes :-)

Now that the brutal wind and cold of the past several days has gone away, birders are out in force. If the storm brought in any thick-billed murres they're long gone by now, but everybody flocks to the beach anyway. All the birds were really active. Whatever activated the birds activated the birders, I guess. Eiders and grebes and loons, oh my! Not to mention the two rough-legged hawks. Nice yellow eye on the rough-legged. A flock of American tree sparrows was chirping up a storm by the side of the road. They seem to gather by the road after a snowstorm - just like the birders.