I had been considering volunteering for one of the local animal rescue groups, encouraged by the mother of one of Audrey’s friends who’s a member herself. With all the cats underfoot, there wasn’t all that much of a rush, but when I realized that I could help save cats by raising them at least for a while to be indoor cats (when my own started disappearing) I finally filled out the papers. This group will take animals that the shelter won’t take – contagious disease (even a cold), too old, ugly, or otherwise “unadoptable” – and also take animals out of the shelter that have been scheduled for euthanasia to save them from being put to sleep. They get quarantined with a vet until they get a clean bill of health, get neutered if they’re old enough and scheduled for it later if they’re not, and then they go into volunteer homes to become socialized.

Well, I got a pair of 10-week-old little boys yesterday. The girls named them Edgar and Alfred. They’ve been hissed at a bit by the older cats, but not much, and Judy thinks she’s their mom. She was very happy today because they let her wash them. Alfie warmed up right away, purring when he was picked up or petted, but was still nervous about being approached. Edgar became pretty secure about the environment by the end of the day, but was still keeping his distance.

This morning after the kids left, I laid down on the sofa and fell asleep. When I woke up, Alfie was snuggled up behind my knees, and Edgar was on the pillow in front of them. I said their names, and they both got up, purring, and walked up me to rub their faces against my hand. Both of them are sticking their tails straight up when they hear their names, and both will come to be petted if I get down close to the floor. There’s an adopt-a-thon on Saturday, but I don’t know if there’s space for them this week. If there is, I’m sure they’ll charm the pants off of someone and find a home right off.

Edgar is in the back, with large patches of color on his sides. Alfie has small spots in rows. Aren’t they handsome?

We decided, since Calvin was making his displeasure at being kept indoors known by pooping in the bathtub, and Toby was expressing hers by walking on our heads and yowling at all hours of the night, that we’d close Stanley and Edith in our bedroom, and open the dog door while we visited my parents today. We didn’t really want to think about what we’d have to deal with in our room if Calvin and Toby were stuck in there all day.

Calvin is indoors for the night. We’ve been home for three hours, and there’s no sign of Toby.

I have stuff I should do. Heck, I even have stuff I want to do. It’s almost 10AM, though, and I’ve. . .had breakfast, read the paper, gotten a decorating idea that made me uncover and wash some pillows, read e-mail, and visited friends’ blogs. I need to finish my coffee, do my back exercises, shower and dress. I have to clean up the kitchen and make pizza dough. Judy is licking and chewing her leg again, so I have to call the vet, and I need to get someone else to clean the big rug. I want to wash the rest of the rugs, all much smaller than the first one, because it came out so lovely. I need to get my freecycle stuff together, advertise it, and get it out of the house. I want to finish the art studio, but I want to get the bedroom and living room looking finished before I create more chaos. Painting got me close to the frames of the sliding windows and doors, and I realized I’d really like to get those clean, too. Need more vacuum cleaner bags, gotta get a gift bag for Monday’s Bingo Basket, and the fish need wheat germ food, pond needs a good cleaning and a net cover before the leaves start to fall. Stuff, stuff, stuff.

My psychologist calls me a “compulsive tasker”, and it’s true. It’s not as much of a problem as he sometimes makes it out to be – the real problem is that I feel guilty when I’m not doing something I “have to do”, or when I’m doing something I want to do as opposed to “have to do”. Sometimes when I’m looking at clutter and chaos, instead of doing something about it (or accepting it as a natural aspect of my pong-like brain) I’ll think of even more things I should do. This also gives me more things to feel inadequate about because I haven’t done them, either. So I’m working on that.

I’ll finish my coffee, get the pillows in the dryer, exercise, shower, clean the kitchen, make the pizza dough. Then we’ll see where we go from there. If the world ends tomorrow, nobody will care if I got all the rugs spotless. In fact, everything will probably be all messy and dirty, and anyone who bothers to nitpick about such things will never know what dirt was old and what dirt is new. So there.