Frog and Goat

As you know we have a feral cat population in our backyard. Some may argue that they really aren’t that feral, but they certainly aren’t cuddly house cats either. Our population is down from, at its highest, 15 to 6. I don’t count all the males who show up whenever a female smells so good. Because they aren’t one of the regulars. Yes. There are 6 cats that routinely show up with their paws out and their mouths open. It drives me nuts and we’re going to have to sort this problem out at some point.

The first step is this: There are three females sitting in humane traps in the garage right now. The better-half found a clinic that isn’t quite as stringent on the rules as the SPCA. Tomorrow the three girls go to have their tubes cut and then there will be no more kittens at our house. ThankyewJesus. We’re holding out hope that the lone unfixed male will be dumb enough to get in the last trap, but really, he won’t be bringing any of his offspring home. His name was once Dumbbubba so maybe we do have some hope.

Last night when we set the first trap, one of the longest lived females who has already been spayed stepped right into the trap. She spent last night and all of today in the dog kennel we still have in the garage from when Lucy bit the SPCA worker. She was not happy about that turn of events, but we didn’t want to keep trapping her. She had food, water and a litter box. I don’t think she used any of it. She high-tailed it out of the garage after we caught the last female.

Maybe she’ll get so mad that she’ll find another kind-hearted couple to mooch off of for the rest of her days. Yeah. Right.

There’s a problem with the network at the office and so most if us are sitting idle. One co-worker is taking care of personal phone calls. I’m noodling around on my phone.

The thing is when this stuff happens no one is allowed to go home. I realize the system could come back up in a minute or it could be hours…it has already been nearly two hours of downtime. So while I get that we need to be here, it is hard to do nothing. And I mean nothing because all of our files are stored on servers.

So short of starting Angry Birds over from the beginning, what’s a girl to do?

So, I’ve been at the new job for four days now and I’m deep in onboarding training. Some of it is highly interesting and some of it makes me want to take a nap. Pro tip: Do not sleep at your desk. No matter how boring the videos or training content might be. You must not sleep.

In the plus column, I’m being treated as a full-time employee rather than as a contractor. So, I’ve already alerted the media that I’m taking a few hours off in March for various reasons. My manager is cool like that. I have no idea how the contracting company will feel about it, but I don’t know that I need to tell them. If I make up the hours, they won’t know. A conversation for next month.

On the drive home today I was deep in thought about ways to get home from the office. I was so engrossed that I missed the exit I have taken for years. I had to go about 10 minutes out of my way to get turned around. I actually had to take a completely different highway to get home. When I told the better-half, he commented that I found another way home. Ha!

Actually, I was thinking about ways to avoid the immediate interchange and bridge because that bridge is not long for this world. I suspect when a major project is finally completed a few miles down the road (dear god let it end) that the Shockoe Valley bridge will be next. It has been patched so many times that the patches have patches. A couple of years ago as some patches were being laid down, a co-worker and I joked about how we could see through the bridge. Not a comforting thought when you are sitting in traffic.