Summer's coming...

It's been busy around here the past few days. I don't feel like I've accomplished much, but I've been going from early morning until time for bed every day the past few days.

Yesterday was typical, yet not. Got up to take my roommate to work and then took the (very unhappy) cat out to the SPCA to get fixed. Went and did the laundry. Came home long enough to eat breakfast/lunch (it was breakfast because it was the first thing I had eaten all day, but it was lunchtime by the time I had the time to eat) and get a few things done around the apartment, then went to pick up my roommate from work and then went out to retrieve the cat, who was now stoned in addition to being very unhappy. Brought the cat home and situated him so he wouldn't be doing any climbing and jumping. I went to the library while my roommate went to the gym, then went to dinner. By that time, I was ready to fall into bed. Right after I got in bed, though, the still-very-stoned cat escaped and came sauntering into my room looking quite puzzled and then went under my bed to hide. He didn't get to stay, but he tried.

So, today, I'm staying home (while my roommate takes some of her students on an end-of-school field trip to Yosemite) keeping an eye on the cat and trying to stay out of the heat. It's a little bit of respite before I have to go to CVP tomorrow to help with a workshop and then go back on Thursday for meetings.

We're also busy around here with the approaching end of school. My roommate has been getting her 8th graders ready for their Constitution test (which happens tomorrow), and she's been giving them a lot of written work to prep for the test, and I've been helping her grade all of that. She is also getting ready to take off in a couple of weeks to spend the summer with her kids on the other side of the country, and I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to get around town while she's gone, since she's driving this year and the car won't be here. That will resolve itself eventually, but I've been spending quite a bit of time stressing over whether or not I'm going to have the money to get a bus pass for the month of July, or whether I'll be stuck at home for two months and relying on rides to get where I need to go. I don't like that option; I'm used to being able to come and go when I need to.

I've been avoiding watching the news lately: I'm sick and tired of hearing about one manufactured "crisis" after another in the government, mostly, and I just can't take all the reports of the tornado disasters in and around Oklahoma. If I have to watch another reporter stick a microphone in the face of another person who has lost their home, or members of their family, I'm going to scream. Why can't the press just leave those poor people alone to try to start recovering? Or, you know, put their microphones and cameras down and help the recovery effort.

Okay. That's where I am, and why I haven't been here. What have you all been up to, as summer approaches and as school is just out or just about to get out? Leave me a comment and let me know.

Nice kitty...now, put those claws away

I had every intention of posting here yesterday.

The cat had other ideas.

A little background: About three weeks ago, my roommate brought home a cat. She'd been looking for a cat to adopt for awhile, and talking about it even longer. So, when a cute little stray turned up in her classroom and kept coming back no matter how many times she took it out and let it go off school grounds, and after it kept coming up to her while she was out supervising on the blacktop, she decided that she had been adopted. Also, the school's administration was going to call animal control, and that wouldn't have been good, so she asked them to put it in the boiler room until the end of the day and then she'd take it home for the weekend, until she could find out if the cat belonged to anyone.

It didn't, as it turned out, and so we got a cat.

The cat, which appears to be a female, had obviously been living rough for awhile. While she is not emaciated, she's skinnier than she needs to be, and so we're feeding her on demand for the time being, until she gains a little weight. But, despite having been on her own for awhile, she has clearly had people in the past. She's cuddly and affectionate and very sweet most of the time.

Most of the time. Which brings me to why I ended up not posting here yesterday.

Apparently, Frost (because she reminds my roommate of her first cat, Frosty) decided yesterday that my function is life is to be her entertainment director. You know, sort of like Julie on "The Love Boat". (Look it up. It's on Wikipedia.) If I tried to read, she'd get between me and my book, wanting attention. If I tried to write on paper (some of us still do that), she'd sit on the paper and try to wrestle the pencil out of my hand so that I'd have both hands free to pet her. If I tried to do something on the computer, she'd sit on the keyboard.

At one point yesterday morning, I wasn't quick enough to pet her, so she nipped my arm just enough to draw blood.

Bad kitty. She got a time out for that one. She got another time out for trying to jump-attack me from the back of a chair in the living room, with claws out. She's still got to learn that she needs to keep her claws and teeth to herself.

No. She really isn't a bad cat. She's just still new to the household, not especially pleased to find that she's now an all-indoor, all-the-time sort of cat. And she is, to all appearances, a teenager. And you know teenagers; their main job title is Tester of Boundaries.

This is all new to me, too. I've never lived with an indoor pet before. And so I'm learning, too...and mostly what I've been learning is that a young cat is like a young child. Frost needs kindness and gentle handling, but she also needs to realize that the Feline Overlord act isn't going to cut it and that she has to learn that there are rules to be followed, and that repeatedly breaking the rules isn't going to make them go away.