Everyone here is fine, but we’ve spent the evening watching the kitties closely. They had a planned visit to the vet today, going in first thing, and they enjoyed a dose of anesthesia. After they woke up and it wore off they were eventually allowed to come home. My lovely bride went to pick them up and got a good report from the office. She pulled into the drive, kitties in tow and I went out to help. One cat per carrier, and neither of them feeling like themselves, and varying degrees of stoned and mad.
The carriers have a top door and a side door, and the side door seemed like the right idea in the moment, and it was. They were still too goofy to jump well. They walked all around the house in slinky postures. Hyper aware, and confused and intent. It was a little bit silly and a little bit pitiful. Phoebe wanted to be near Poseidon for some reason, and he was mad at the whole world. And so it was kind of like that the rest of the night, watching them try to return to normal. Medicine here, special food there. Cats want to be up high, but you shouldn’t be on a counter top when you are refamiliarizing yourself with having four legs. It was a dental appointment, and everything went fine, but its weird watching two basic cat personalities not behaving up to spec.
So that was much of the day. Worrying about them, doing school work, then worrying over them. And then wondering how they feel, and if they’ll feel like normal tomorrow, and if they’ll like us again tomorrow. And trying to keep them from falling over this or off that.
And also watching the snow not melt. The slightly warmer temperatures arrived this weekend. The rain did not. And so it’s all still out there.
I learned this weekend that the way they measure it here is a bit different. Not how much fell, or when it fell, or the quality of the snow, but how much it sticks around. Someone has a chart somewhere and it shows the days when X number of inches of snow just … stuck around. The tote board marking the longevity of three inches of snow goes back to the 19th century. And this particular snow is now climbing up the charts. This is the third most persistent snow at that depth, though we got more snow then, and we still have that or more in our yard. They’ve not recorded a more stubborn snow here in more than a half century.
The moisture in the air will help. That we have a week of days above freezing will help. That some nights we’ll stay above freezing will help.
But that snow is sticking around. It has nowhere to go. It is the guest at the door who is not taking the hint. We are now in the fourth week of this nonsense.
Tomorrow, the cats will, I’m sure, bounce back nicely. We’ll go to school. The snow and ice won’t go anywhere.
But, now, I’m going to go grade things into the wee hours of the morning.
