I didn't make it.

Friday, after work, I was supposed to hop in the car and head south to visit my friend, Melissa at her dad's house. Initially, Melissa and I talked about getting together if she was at her dad's for Thanksgiving and I was in the area already. Then, we weren't sure she was coming, so Cam and I made other plans.

Then, when I learned she was going to be in California after all, I said I would come the weekend after Thanksgiving. I planned to go and wanted to see her. I was looking forward to time with a good friend.

Instead of leaving right after work on Friday, Cam and I talked about some opportunities on the horizon then shared lunch. Before packing, I decided I needed to lay down for a bit. (I'd been in the city the night before training to be a Housing Counselor at the next Project Homeless Connect event.) Sam made it home and we talked with him about a decision he is considering. Then, he kept me company while I packed.

Our talk with Sam revolved around following-through on commitments you make, doing what you say you are going to do, etc. Again, I really wanted to see Melissa but I was tired.

It had been an emotionally draining few weeks. I had been out late the night before. I wanted to clean the house before my cousin, Ariel shows up (any day now). And as excited as we are to have her here, know that we will have less time alone as a family after she arrives until she finds gets out on her own.

I didn't want to drive on Friday night and considered leaving Saturday morning instead. But since I'd been planning to come back on Sunday morning, that seemed like an awful lot of driving for not much together time.

Just get on the road, I figured and you will find your groove. Listen to some music, maybe catch-up with people on the phone. It will be ok.

I got on the road around 4pm. The Golden Gate Bridge and the city shown brilliantly in the afternoon sun. Traffic wasn't too bad. I made my way through San Francisco and a John Mayer Trio Live cd before 5.

Outside of the city, I enjoyed the scenery. I was feeling fine driving past rolling hills in the setting sun, on a stretch of road I'd never taken before. Soon, I past the exit for Stanford University and made it into San Jose and through San Anselmo. I hit those areas during their rush hour around 5:15 which slowed me down a bit. Then, I took I85 south towards Gilroy.

Around that time, Cam called to see how I was holding up. He said he missed me but was glad I was going to have some time with my friend and assured me that he and Sam were fine. We talked about how I could turn around but I reiterated my interest in going and thought it would be crazy to turn around after having already driven so far towards my destination.

Melissa called while I was talking with Cam. She wondered how I was holding up and asked if I was questioning my decision to drive so far by myself after having worked all week.

She offered to hop in a car and head north to meet me and share the driving. She'd been looking into fun things for us to do in the area and had several ideas. She'd shopped for food and was planning to make dinner for us the next night. She said she was glad I was coming but that if I decided I didn't want to make the trip she would totally understand and not be mad or hurt at all.

At first, the idea of her driving towards me, splitting the driving alone time in half sounded appealing but I knew I was going to want to hit the road early on Sunday and didn't want her to have to get up early to drive me back to wherever we'd met and left my car. I called her back and we discussed the things she'd said in her message.

I stopped for gas and saw that in 2 1/2 hours, I'd only traveled 91 miles. I knew I still had over 250 more miles to go. I wasn't sure what I should do and encouraged her to go out to dinner with her family and call me after dinner. I filled up then got back in the car and continued heading south, thinking I could do this, would do this on my own.

But I am really out of practice driving long distances. When I lived in Des Moines and St. Louis, Sam and I used to take long road trips on weekends quite often. But in Chicago, we hardly used our car and I got out of the habit. These days, I really don't like driving at night at all.

By this time, it was dark and I was on a curvy, unfamiliar, four-lane hwy with threatening car lights all around me. One car was going especially slow so I got in the left lane to pass it but suddenly wasn't comfortable going as fast as the people behind me wanted me to go. I wanted to get back into the right lane but that took some doing. I started to wonder if what I was doing was safe or smart. I pulled over to consider the situation.

I'd driven 110 miles away from home. Turning around seemed silly but so did driving on anxiously for at least four more hours. I knew I would only become more tired.

So, I decided to turn around and start back towards home. At first, even the 110 miles back at night seemed overwhelming. But at least these roads were familiar since I had just traveled them. And soon, I started seeing signs for San Francisco. It was less than 100 miles away.

I played the Killers' cd which got me going and helped me feel charged up.

During some slower traffic, I made a call to John & Johanna and was glad to be able to touch-base with them.

Then, I listened to some of Melissa's music. The first song on her Not All Black and White CD is called, "Safe Tonight." Hearing it seemed like an omen that I had made the right decision.

Finally, I made it back home around 9pm. I had driving non-stop for more than five hours. I was wiped out but happy to be home. I would have had at least another hour of driving ahead of me if I had continued heading south. I ate some dinner, talked with the guys a bit then crashed. The next morning, I woke up with a sore throat. I stayed happily tucked away in my bed, under the covers, resting and recuperating most of the morning. Sam and I had a low-key day at home while Cam went out and had the most longest marin hike yet. I'm sorry I wasn't up for such a strenuous drive.

And I am thankful that Melissa is so perceptive and such a kind, supportive friend. Cam says we will make a trip back to Chicago sometime and she and I can reconnect then.

For now, I'm happy to be home.

Cats Abducted by Humans

Last Sunday morning, I drove to Oakland, arriving around 10am at the East Bay Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals' Spay & Neuter Surgery Center. Through Hands On Bay Area, I had agreed to volunteer with Fix Our Ferals.

The goal of this program is to reducing suffering and homelessness in the cat population. This is achieved through a trap-neuter-return initiative. People volunteer to trap feral cats and bring them to the clinic. At the clinic, the cats are spayed or neutered and then returned to their caretakers who keep them until they are ready to be released.

Based on reproduction rates of feral cats, Fix Our Ferals has prevented the birth of an estimated 120,000 homeless cats since its inception. That sounds like a good thing and I still think it is but when I arrived, hearing a chorus of captured kitties crying from their covered cat carriers made me sad.

I was assigned to one of the Transportation teams. Our job was to take sleeping kitties out of their carriers after they had been anesthetized, make sure they were actually out and still breathing. The sleeping cats were sweet. I wanted to think the tenderness I showed in moving them mattered.

There were beautiful cats and kittens of every shape, size and color. Many seemed in fine health but we had some distressed and sick kitties too. I washed my hands a lot and thought of naming this blog, "pee, poop, puke and pus." I experienced each of those lovely bodily functions that day.

The vet in charge was wonderful. She had a kind demeanor and seemed to really care about the cats. If a cat wasn't breathing properly, we were supposed to yell, "Crash" and run with it to a table where they had oxygen waiting. This happened a few times throughout the day. I brought one cat there. She was ok but one of the other cats didn't make. They said she likely had an underlying problem before being given anesthesia.

If the cat we were checking over was breathing ok, we marked them with the number from their cage, noted any obvious medical problems and transported them to the area where they were prepped for surgery. The people I dealt with in that area commented admiringly on or with concern for many of the cats. They didn't seem to be doing anything too intense to them. But back there, I saw cats strapped to boards with their bellies shaved ready for surgery. I didn't dare go into the actual surgical area. There is a reason I am not in the medical field.

I'm sure I should have been prepared for all of this but it felt a bit like being in Frankenstein's lab. All of the kitties looking like zombies upset me.

My biggest bummer of the day was people who kept telling me to "scruff" the cats I was carrying. They kept insisting I grab the cat firmly by the back of its neck to move it from one room to the next and even to take it out of the cage. It is hard to carry a full grown cat by its scruff and feel like you are supporting it comfortably. I understand it doesn't hurt kittens and will scruff a grown cat if I need to make it do something it doesn't want to do but these cats were sleeping. I much preferred cradling their head in my left hand and their bottoms in my right.

They said they usually treat 200 cats per clinic. I probably touched 50+ cats. And even though, by the time I was leaving, six hours after arriving, many of the cats were waking up and seemed ok, the whole thing was a bit traumatic for me. I'm glad the work is being done but watching it was grim.

I guess I prefer dealing with emotional messes than physical ones.

Coastal Cleanup's Rewards

Awhile ago, I got volunteer happy. One of the things I agreed to do was participate in Coastal Cleanup, a global Ocean Conservancy event. While I wasn't particularly excited about the idea of picking up trash, I am personally bothered by trash and figured if I wasn't willing to do it, who would?

My trash picking-up resentment has ties to my past. In junior high school, on occasion, my friends and I would act up and have tiny little food fights at the outdoor picnic tables. One time, when I thought I was especially cool, I said, "Watch. I'm going to hit Mr. Daniel's with a grape." (Mr. Daniels was our vice principal and the unfortunate man responsible for keeping us in-line during lunch.)

I never meant to actually hit him with a grape but in a show of silliness, threw one towards him. My aim is so bad that I actually hit him. Of course, everyone at our table burst out laughing, except me. I was the obvious guilty party. (Note: The irony that part of my current job is supervising kids during lunch isn't lost on me.)

As punishment, a couple of times, I was required to pick up trash in the lunch area. Yuck. But the punishment worked. I hated having to pick up trash in front of my classmates.

And really, I wasn't much more excited about doing it now but it seemed like a right thing to do so I said I'd do it. Happily, Cameron and Sam agreed to join me. One of Sam's new friends from school, Jarred and his family were going to meet us there too.

So after a nice breakfast of whole-wheat blueberry pancakes, we walked down our hill, across a fairly busy street, along a quieter one for awhile then arrived at Blackie's Pasture, the Coastal Cleanup location closest to home. Cam's brother, Eric said they held Coastal Cleanup projects on Lake Michigan in Chicago. I know events were held at waterways around the country.

Since we'd played and picnicked in this park previously and planned to return many times, making it cleaner for us and safer for the sea birds that feed there was motivating. Cam just posted on his blog about a hike he took there and the birds he saw this morning.

We didn't take pictures of ourselves sitting on the ground and climbing on rocks to pick up numerous, tiny pieces of trash. It was weird, at first glance, there didn't appear to be any real amount of trash but upon closer inspection, there were little pieces of crap everywhere, hiding in the grass and the cracks between rocks. I think the thing I picked up most of all was styrofoam. Broken up bits of styrofoam, must come in with the tide, get situated, decide they like it here and plan never to leave. Both Cam and I picked up zillions of pieces of styrofoam. We also found bottles, food wrappers, and a couple of tennis balls, a roll of blue tape, ribbon, dental floss and lots of other crap.

Sam's friend came with his younger brother and their father. We met some friends of theirs that day too. At some point, the boys became more interested in throwing rocks than picking up garbage. I made a deal with Sam that he could throw one rock for every 10 pieces of trash he picked up.

After about an hour of decent work, Sam's friend was done and invited Sam to join him on the rope swing. We didn't know anything about a rope swing at Blackie's Pasture and figured we'd better go check it out.

It was hiding in some trees on the top of a hill that didn't look easy to climb. It wasn't but we made it to the top.

Sam got several good swings in with the other boys that day, and then we decided to go back as a family one night this week. Cam had worked from home that day so we didn't have to wait for him to come home on the bus. He was free at 5 and Sam finished his homework early that evening. This, combined with the lovely weather seemed like cause for a celebration.



It was lovely at the bay. I enjoyed watching Sam and Cam walk together and talk. When Sam decided to take a break from swinging, I took a turn. Then, Cam swang a bit too.









We climbed to the top of the hill and enjoyed the view of the bay.






We are fortunate to have such a beautiful place so easily accessible to us and were happy to make it a little bit better.