All posts by Dona

Earthquake!

Memories, , ,

I awoke to the news that our region had a 3.6 magnitude earthquake at 5:04 this morning. I slept through it, as did another local blogger. Dean was awake and said he felt the house shake and walked outside to see if an airplane was flying overhead.

Gaithersburg Earthquake
Gaithersburg Earthquake

This is the second time I’ve been in an earthquake and have not felt it. The first time I was not asleep. It took place on a Saturday — I want to say it was in the morning, but it may have been later. Anyway the reason I didn’t feel it was because I was in a BLOODY BOWLING ALLEY! Of all the places not to be if you want to experience a rare Illinois earthquake is in a bowling alley.

Although I’ve never been in an earthquake I do have an earthquake story:

I was teaching students with learning disabilities in a small self-contained classrroom (10 students or so) in  a public school in Northern Virginia. It was near the end of the day and I was reading to the students when I felt the floor shake. The students also felt the shaking. I stopped reading and went to the doorway and looked out into the hall to see if anyone else felt the shaking. No one was in the hall and I heard normal teaching sounds coming from the classroom across from mine.  Still the rumbling continued, so I told the kids to get under their desks while I checked on the situation with the senior teacher next door. I was about to knock on her door when I noticed that her entire class of 30 students were running in place. Then they stopped. So did the shaking.

I went back to the class and told the students that the earthquake was over and they could get out from under their desks.

A Door Opened

Emotions, , ,

Back when I still liked watching news programs like 60 Minutes or 20/20 I remember seeing a segment on one of those programs about a woman with autism who developed a better slaughterhouse. I may have been a vegetarian at the time, so the idea of slaughtering cattle was not as upsetting to me as it is now that I eat the end result.

Having worked with autistic children during my tenure as a teacher and having read a number of books about autistic individuals, I found this woman’s story fascinating and kept it tucked in the back of my mind ever since.

That’s why my visceral reaction to the preview of the HBO film, Temple Grandin, surprised me.  I adore Claire Danes and I find Temple Grandin’s story amazing but I was dead-set against seeing this film because… why? I’m not sure, but I think it was the whole cattle slaughtering thing and the fact that a gentle hug made the cattle less upset about their death. I didn’t want to think about the cattle’s last moments. I just wanted to buy meat at the grocery store and pretend it grew on trees. Or just materialized there in the refrigerated section of the grocery store. Hey, magic!

I recently commented on a post by Lali that, when I was a vegetarian, I vowed that if I ever ate meat again I’d first have to kill an animal — to prove I was not a hypocrite*. Since I’ve never killed an animal, I am a hypocrite and while, on a day-to-day basis, that doesn’t bother me, occasionally it does. Perhaps that’s why I refused to even consider watching the film. I didn’t want to confront my hypocrisy.

Last night I did watch the film. It was excellent. It changes nothing. I’m still a hypocrite but at least I admit it.

*when I was young and had not had that many life experiences, being a hypocrite was probably the worse thing I could imagine being — it ranked up there with murderer in my mind.

Our Three Cats

Pets

I’ve been meaning to write about the new [temporary] addition to our household, but I always seem to be scooping poop or filling water or food bowls or breaking up cat fights and don’t have time to blog about it.

Halloween — asleep — and Joe (caught him in action)

So, you may know that we have two “mature” cats (I hate to say elderly), Joe and Halloween. Joe and Halloween were littermates and we brought them home from Dean’s brother’s farm in  1996. I keep saying that these are the last cats we’ll have because even though cats are not hard to take care of — they do take some effort. Plus I can never have flowers in the house because the cats think flowers are a yummy treat.

Sometime, late last spring, Clare called Dean to ask if we could cat-sit her roommate’s cat, Annabelle. Dean referred her to me. I wanted to say yes, but Dean cautioned me to word it more like, “we’ll be the last resort”, which I did. Clare and her roommate interpreted it as “yes” and they went on with their last few weeks at college, confident that the problem of Annabelle’s summer residence was solved. (Clare’s roommate is spending the summer in New Orleans and her mother is renting her room to a woman who, apparently, is allergic to cats).

Secretly I was excited that we’d be cat-sitting. Annabell is a calico and I’m partial to calicoes. I was worried about how we’d deal with the food and litter box issues, but figured if they didn’t get along at all Annabelle would be the “attic cat”.

Annabelle
Annabelle — Just look at that face

Well, Joe, Halloween and Annabelle don’t love each other. Joe and Halloween are curious and might actually like Annabelle, but Annabelle doesn’t like Joe and Halloween at all. Annabelle can be in the same room as Joe and Halloween are without hissing, but if they come within 2 feet of her she hisses and swipes at them.  I think this has made them a little sad.

We’ve nicknamed her “the little bitch”. She’s very cute. And very cuddly if it is on her terms. And she’s very tidy. In fact, since she started using the communal litter boxes (we now have 3 in the basement and 1 in the attic) she covers up the other cats’ messes (they never did learn to cover their poop).

I’ve tried to not become attached to her because she’ll most likely be gone come September — but that is really hard to do. I think that our own cats are getting a good deal — we’re overcompensating on the cuddles they get because of the guilt we feel for giving Annabelle cuddles. (Ok, I’ll stop now — I’b beginning to scare myself)

I think I’d make a terrible foster mother. I’d want to keep all the kids.