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again with
recent wonder |
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Adopt these cats at Merrimack River Feline Rescue Society Today's
Bird Sightings This
Year's Bird Sightings Today's
Reading: This
Year's Reading: Photos ET Fisher Star |
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Again with recent wonder I survey
Sandy occupies his rightful place on the big yellow bucket. When Savannah tries to jump up there and displace him, he whacks her with one paw and sends her scurrying to the other end of the room. Later on when he's had enough donut crumbs and Roy is done with the dishes so is less entertaining to watch, he moves to the top of the dryer. Minutes later, Savannah is sprawled out on top of the big yellow bucket. Anyway, Roy is thrilled to see me and laughs at my suggestion that I have come to adopt him. Whenever he holds a cat for a web site portrait we get inquiries about adopting Roy - OK so not really, they just want to know who he is. He's got a copy of the latest Navy Times set next to his coffee cup. That means Bob must have been here already. I ask about him and learn that he has gone to do the shopping. We used to run out of things much more often before Bob became the official shopper. I wonder if I can hire him to do my shopping? Not that I need that much bleach or kitty litter in a given week. Being here feels both strange and familiar at the same time. Barb and Chris are glad to see me. When Bob returns with the bleach, litter, and paper towels he's glad to see me too. I offer him a donut and tell him Sandy ate the only glazed cruller. He takes a jelly donut. Seems like old times.
By the time I get to the North Pool Overlook, the coffee is cool enough to drink. A thin coating of ice covers the shallow part of the north pool. Black ducks coming in for a landing slide across the fragile ice and into open water with huge splash. A noisy flock of snow buntings appears and disappears over the dike, too quickly for me to get a good look to see if there are any Lapland longspurs among them. Four sanderlings fly by very low. They cross the street and vanish over the dunes. Later, on the beach, as I watch a raft of eiders rising and falling in unison on the waves, a huge flock of sanderlings spins in and out of sight wheeling around with perfect coordination. Suddenly from further up the beach, the four stragglers arrive and rejoin the flock. How do they find each other? By sound? By sight? By some other sanderling sense we can't even begin to fathom? They land out of binocular range around the end of the bluff by Sandy Point. Back along the road, thousands of starlings swirl around in a big spinning chirping black ball. If there are other species among them it will take a far better birder to pick them out. They swoop down and land among Canada geese and snow geese on the side of the dike, covering it like a sudden fall of giant noisy snow. Just as quickly, they take off again heading out over the salt marsh. At the North Pool, the ice I saw earlier has completely melted. Canada geese and black ducks splash vigorously in the open water. They're acting like it's spring. Or maybe they're just glad to be alive. I leave the refuge reluctantly, without having sighted a single snowy owl. There's still daylight left, but I have another stop to make before grocery shopping and hunkering down to hide from the holiday traffic. Time to check the extensive poetry section at Jabberwocky for maybe a tiny Dover edition of Phillis Wheatley's poems if such exists, or maybe a collection of American poetry that includes Wheately. Andrea is having a poetry emergency - kind of like her theology emergencies but with which I am better equipped to cope. She read an Ann Rinaldi historical novel based on the life of Phillis Wheatley and is all excited about her. While we were decorating the cake/house for Kevin's b'day party she was telling me all about Wheatley, whom she finds very inspiring. That was between showing off her report card and exclaiming excitedly "Did you know a gas will expand to fill whatever container it's in?" or "What would happen if you released a gas in space and it just kept expanding?" And then back to Phillis Wheatley's actual life compared to the fictionalization... Having determined that nowhere in my vast library do I have a single Wheatley poem (I do have Anne Bradstreet but no Wheatley), I figure surely there's some slim volume in Jabberwocky's poetry section. But no. Nothing. And the only collection of American poetry is modern, very modern, like 21st century modern. Hmm. Maybe I should call Ned or Tom to see if they have something I can borrow to bring to Kevin's tomorrow. By the time I'm done with grocery shopping and chores and whatever all else, it's way late to try the public library or even phone a friend. Hmm, this is what the Internet is for. Sure enough, with dedicated searching and ignoring the search engines' telling my I might have meant "Phyllis Whitely" I find the poems I seek. With luck Andrea will not have forgotten about her poetry emergency in the midst of baking pies for tomorrow's dinner. |
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Copyright © 2001, Janet I. Egan |
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Well,
I had high hopes that Roy would let me wash the dishes today
but he was nearly done when I got here so I'm relegated to
drying them. I do get to help with the community litter
boxes though. And, for old times' sake, I've brought donuts
for Sandy. Well for the staff and volunteers - and Sandy and
Savannah, must not forget Savannah when giving out donut
crumbs.
I
can't believe there are new cats here since Saturday.
(Actually, I can believe it. Please spay/neuter your
pet.) Fortunately, I've got the camera. ET does look kind of
extraterrestrial and something about the way Fisher
positions herself in her cage really does make her look like
a fisher cat. Maybe it's the tilt of her head. They're the
newbies. I look for Picadilly, whom I couldn't get a good
picture of last time, but she's at the vet. I thought I had
photographed Star before, but realized I hadn't. There are
just so many gray tabby cats with a little white on the
chest (OK, so just Lily and Priscilla besides Star). Star
does not like her cage and she lets you know it with
constant complaining. I try opening the door to take her
picture but she sees that as an opportunity to make a break
for it. I close it again quickly. Oh well, maybe the cage
bars will arouse sympathy and she'll get adopted
sooner.
My
mini-vacation in the Greater Salisbury Area won't be
complete without an Angelina's veggie sub, a cup of French
Roast coffee from Fowle's, and an attempt to locate the
three snowy owls that have been reported on Plum Island. So
what if Angelina's is out of black olives for the veggie
sub, Fowle's coffee is so hot the first sip burns my throat,
and I strike out on all three owls?!?