Things that go bleah in the night

There are times when I wonder why we have a cat. Many, many times. Spenser has been a royal pain in the tookus lately, even more so now that the weather has turned cooler. I guess the cold bothers him more since he is a senior (he is 10+ years old), but I can hardly sit down without him trying to climb on my lap. I know that I am nothing if not warm furniture but does he have to be so obvious?

Spenser also sleeps far more than he used to and since he sleeps at night on our bed, he expects us to go to bed when he is ready. He glares at us and blares his loud meow when he thinks it is getting late. Nothing will quiet him down until we go to bed and he hops in after us.

In the wee hours of this morning, we were awakened by the sound of, well, heaving. No delicate way to put it - Spenser was getting ready to throw up. If it would have been light enough to see, we would have been treated to the sight of his whole body undulating...each heave starts at the end of his tail and works its way in a wave to his head. And he is LOUD; no delicate upchucking for him.

I decided that I was too warm and comfortable to get out of bed and try to move him onto tile. Several months ago I tried a similar maneuver in the dark, only to hit the recliner in the corner while running. I dropped Spenser, hit one armrest and flipped over onto the floor. Although J gave me a 9.8 for difficulty and 7.3 for style, I ended up with a hideous bruise on my side and Spenser still threw up on the carpet.

So I let him heave in peace last night, knowing what would be waiting for clean up this morning. To my surprise, after all that heaving and horking, only a quarter size spot was on the floor by the bed. Much ado, indeed, about nothing.

T is for tutor

I finally started as a reading tutor today. It was something I had done years ago in North Carolina, when I worked for companies that encouraged volunteering during work hours. It was a nice break during the week and really helped me keep my so called "issues" in perspective.

I signed up with the BOE to be a tutor long before this school year started and have been rather impatiently waiting for a student to be assigned to me. I had requested a student at A's school but the coordinator said that there wasn't a match at that school for me - either they didn't have any requests (hard to believe) or perhaps they had all the tutors they needed, I don't know. So the coordinator of the program asked if I would consider another school and since the one she suggested was not too far from our house, I said yes. In hindsight, it is probably better that I am going to a different school; A is at an age where he can be quite possessive of me and if he saw me in the hall but I wasn't there to be in his class, there might be hurt feelings.

I met my student this morning. He is in the fifth grade and is a very outgoing young man. We spent today's 30 minute session just talking and getting to know one another, and will start in on the reading next week. It will be good for me to work with someone older than A, to move beyond the "Jack and Jilly" stories that can be quite tiresome!