weather and cats

January 19, 2002

Adopt these cats at Merrimack River Feline Rescue Society

Today's Reading
The Birds of Heaven: Travels with Cranes by Peter Matthiessen, Sleeping with Cats by Marge Piercy

This Year's Reading
2002 Book List

Photos:

Ringo

Kimmie

Tara

Ann behind the dryer looking for Katherine the Great

Dust-covered Katherine the Great on top of the dryer hissing at Robin's hand at the same time as trying to lick the dust off

Katherine the Great (with dust from behind the dryer)

Isn't Ringo just the cutest gray tabby you've ever seen? He perks up the minute I come in and walks right over to greet me. I'm a sucker for cats who like me. I spend a ton of time just petting Ringo, basically until he decides he's had enough - about 20 minutes.

I'm sort of relieved that this person who was supposed to be bringing her elderly aunt to view cats in the parking lot hasn't shown up. For one thing, although my shoulder is lots better thanks to yesterday's 7:00 AM chiropractor and therapy session, it's not quite up to lugging cats up and down the stairs in their carriers just yet. We gotta get a more accessible building. The other thing is the parking lot is a sheet of ice. It's that menacing "melted and refrozen" parking lot syndrome. I'm not up for falling again, not to mention dropping a cat or worse knocking down somebody's elderly aunt. So, yeah, I'm glad those people didn't show up though I made the effort to get here despite pain, fatigue, and depression. Well, at least Ringo is a good antidepressant.

Today's excitement is the old "cat behind the dryer" plot. The plot twist is we're not sure whether it's Dolly or Katherine the Great. A note says Dolly hid last night and didn't get put back into her cage, but Ann thinks she just adopted out Dolly to her new home. The black cat that was cozying up to her new adopter certainly seemed happy with the guy and the guy happy with her whoever she is.

So I go to take a picture of Katherine the Great, who I couldn't get to pose last week. Her cage is empty. Where's Katherine I ask?

Ann searches the place and finds a black cat behind the dryer. This is way more complicated now that we have two dryers because the laundry room is basically so full of machines and laundry that only one person can fit in there at a time, and Katherine the Great is behind the furthest away dryer. This means Ann has to move the other dryer and the washer out of the way so she can get back there to coax her out. That means even less wiggle room in the laundry room.

Finally Ann grabs the little suspect and hands her up to Robin. Katherine the Great, if she is Katherine the Great, makes a spectacle of herself trying to hiss at Robin and lick the dust off herself at the same time, not to mention scratching Ann in the process. A woman and her daughter who came to visit, not to adopt, enjoy the show. All in a day's work.

I photocopy a couple of notes from happy adopters for the volunteer newsletter, and head for Middle Street Foods for my dosage of the coffee formerly known as Fowle's. There's no sign of the woman who complained of too much change last week, and it's a darn good thing because the price is now $2.00 for a large coffee. That's a 50 cent increase in just one week of the new regime! A large tip jar next to the cash register bears a sign reading: "Do you fear change? Leave it here." I don't leave any.

It's supposed to snow tonight but the amounts predicted vary wildly from radio station to radio station and from weather reporter to weather reporter. I guess we are really having a New England winter after all.