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I want to do my taxes, but the forms are locked in Gene's car and it would probably be rude to go in his room looking for his car keys at 2am. Le sigh. I'll have to grab him before he leaves in the morning.

Work was busy, and I acomplished almost half again more than last night. Feeling better about it, learning.

Weirdest surprise of all- a former dayshifter at PcO is now a dayshifter at my new job. Julie recognized me and we chatted a bit.

Mike and I share weird stories during our breaks, it's fun. The boss of my section gave me his business card and said to call his pager if I ever need help at an odd hour because he knows that working night shift makes it hard to find people in an emergency. It was very kind. He also approved my vacation time for the New York trip. It still amazes me every day how friendly people are here.

kindness is a book

The UPS man just frightened me half to death banging on the door out of the blue. Gene's still sleeping, locked in his room so I can't do my taxes. So I sat here, pacing the living room, sometimes cleaning or just staring out at the sky.

But the UPS man brought me a box, and as I tried to sign I wondered if I had ordered something and forgotten about it. But other than dinner and the netflix account, I haven't used my credit card much at all lately. I thought maybe it was for Gene, but it did have my name on it.

Not only did someone randomly send me a book, someone randomly sent me a book I don't have and a book I wanted. Strong Opinions, by Nabokov. Thank you Heather in SC, for the gift. I've already started reading the introduction as I type. Perhaps I'll go find some oranges and read in the bath tub.

incredibly true adventures in cat sitting

Last night, the little black cat Salem ran outside when my mom opened the front door and ended up about two stories up in a tree by the fence. He would not come down, being a normally indoors only creature and obviously terrified. So this afternoon, my mother insisted we had to rescue him because a storm is coming in and the poor cat must be hungry.

We tried ladders, and bigger ladders. We tried hoisting up a box with food inside. We tried poking him with a stick. We even tried squirting him with water. The turkey buzzards were flying overhead, anticipating a meal I suppose. The wind dragged fat grey clouds over everything, and random drops of rain trickled down every now and then.

Our neighbors brought their truck over by the tree, and we put the tallest ladder in the bed, which gave us a few more feet to work with. Still no luck. Meanwhile, I'm calling the 311 line, the city, animal control and no one will come out to help us. Bah. So I start calling my friends. Gene laughed at me. Derek did too. The others I couldn't reach, so I called Reive to bemoan the ridiculousness of my life story, and she explained what happens when snow melts. So that was good.

Gene called back about an hour later, as we were getting desperate. He wound up driving over, and climbing up the ladder, into the tree and eventually grabbing hold of a very squirmy cat. There was no way he could climb down with the cat, so Katrina our neighbor climbed up the ladder and held out the box for him to throw the puffed, splayed feline in, which seemed like a good idea until the cat jumped out of the box.

So cat leaps out, bounces off the hood of truck, and goes running into the neighbor's yard. He seemed unhurt, just pissed and puffed and generally freaked out. He's hiding and we haven't been able to catch him yet, which is troubling because it will rain and he might not know the way home. So I'm hoping my mother has some luck with that while I go to work.

So, Gene is our hero and we owe him much Indian food and Pilsner Urquell. This entire story is true. Now that I've had a five minute shower and stopped laughing, I need to think about getting some food. It's 60 degrees and there's lots of rain on the radar.