Are We There Yet?

The remaining two cats, left behind after the loss of our old female, are still moving forward on their adjustments. They are even sleeping together between the spats. A number of followers of the latest end of time prediction, for a series of worldwide catyclsms starting at 6pm on Saturday May 21 in each time zone, appear to also have been left behind. At least they have not been taken by the Rapture. The embarrassments and arguments are already alive and well on the internet, which seems silly because there is another popular end of the world date in May 2012. They'll be plenty of time to argue after that has gone by.

I have a hefty week of pet sitting going into the holiday weekend. This morning I was able to visit an old/new friend, the newest black cat of a woman who had two others when I started doing pet sitting. I miss her older cats myself, a little, but the new guy is a sweetheart and will wear well. I also started a round of visits of visits with a household of dog and cats nearer by. They have used this pet sitting service for a very long time, and I have seen the dog's muzzle grow noticeably whiter.

Tomorrow I start a week long set of visits with the "Wolf Pack", a Malamute and two Huskies which are quite a bundle of dog up close. They also have very good teeth. I left a plastic pitcher for water on too low shelf one time, and came back to shards of thick plastic all over the garage. Happily they hadn't ingested any, but they'd done some pretty effective chewing. This may be the last time I see them. The owners are moving to Florida sometime this summer. I am not sure how these three will do if there is a power failure and the air conditioning goes, but the owners have done what they can to make things ready for them.

We spent the last weekend on the water, kayaking off of Rhode Island, and saw a huge variety of birds. We were able to sit close and watch them a number of times on sandbars where plovers and sandpipers were eating, with no nests nearby. One pair of house sparrows had started to build a nest over the light outside our motel room door. We didn't get yelled at much so we think that attempt was abandoned for a better site. But as grey as this spring has been, the wildlife seems to be on schedule.

We'll see if their efforts to build nests and raise chicks are ruined by the next end of the world. But this last week it didn't feel like most of the critter world agreed with the preacher's predictions.