Confusion In Our Corner of the World

There was consternation in the Cosy Cabin last night. Snack-time for the beasts has been at seven o’clock for about a decade. (It once was a smaller meal than dinner or breakfast; hence the term ‘snack’. It has since become little different than the others.) I decided to alter that.

One of the reasons is to find time for more writing. One wouldn’t think that taking care of eight cats, working full-time, having to scoop litter-boxes at least thrice a day, keeping the floors and walls clean of debris, and working with the rescue-group, would take up much of one’s time. Yet it does. And I have recently found that opportunities to do anything that isn’t actual work are limited. One of the problems is interruptions. After eating my own dinner, washing dishes, answering rescue-group correspondence and the general round of post-prandial cleaning, I have had about half an hour to myself before snack-time. When one wants to concentrate on writing, just beginning where one left off the previous day takes some minutes; it’s not like flipping a switch to the ‘on’ position. In other words, the amount of time available doesn’t make an effort worthwhile. Do you remember when you were a child and it took fifteen minutes for mum to dress you in all the warm clothes she thought necessary for half an hour’s play in the snow? Yeah, like that.

After snack-time (and its attendant cleaning, packing up and box-scooping), I have perhaps another half-hour for myself. This is frequently rendered pointless for the same reasons as the earlier thirty minute period.

I decided, therefore, to move snack-time back by an hour. This gives me, theoretically, a longer period, undivided by cat-related business, to do as I wish. Then, instead of another uselessly small opportunity afterward, I go straight into showering and preparing everything for the next day’s morning.

A later snack-time also allows me to eliminate the ‘little bit’ that I was giving to Brazil at about nine o’clock. That seems unfair to him but, because the other cats were seeing that I was offering him a morsel at that time, they were demanding their own. It felt unjust to exclude others who wanted something, and thus, it was threatening to become a fourth meal-time, with all its consequent work. Food served an hour later keeps everyone from feeling peckish longer.

This brings me back to the first sentence of this entry. Though it may be alleged that cats cannot actually read a clock (analogue or digital), they can certainly tell time, and at seven o’clock, the beasts began acting up, talking, moving about and swirling about my legs. These distractions reduced the efficiency of the extra time available for writing, but did not destroy it. The distractions will also diminish over the next week, as the inmates become accustomed to the later snack-time. But they were displeased at what was perceived to be my tardiness last night. While telling time is within their abilities, understanding actual schedules is beyond the endurance of their patience.

I expect a few more days of consternation before the new norms are accepted.