It’s not on my calendar, but I do have a set of priorities today:
- Dirty work. I have to clean up the cell biology lab from last semester, because another class will be using it this semester. I have to store away microscopes and computers, and scrub benches.
- Setting up fly stocks for my genetics lab.
- Feeding spiders some of those same flies.
- Shoveling sidewalks. We got more snow last night.
- Picking up all the things on the floor that our cat spent the last week knocking over.
More will probably come up. It always does.
Not only do those poor flies get eaten by (cute, but) deadly spiders, but they have to await their doom being experimented on in the bubbling couldron of the genetics lab, shackled to impromptu stocks!
=80-DX
My flies haven’t arrived yet! They get a reprieve. I hope they arrive tomorrow, so I can breed them even more fiercely.
I have a cat question. How do you set things up to leave the cat alone for that length of time? I’m living alone with a cat for the first time (first time alone, not first time living with a cat). I haven’t had to travel yet.
I put out 4 heaping full bowls of dry food. A dog would just gulp it all down at once, but cats are more sensible and just nibble as they need.
Normally, we’d just have one bowl out, but after our last trip, she began insisting that we leave two, always…not because she needed that much food, but because if she can see the bottom of the bowl she begins to panic.
I put a couple of bowls of water out around the house, too.
I think that, outside of her anxiety, she’d be fine left alone for as much as two weeks, but that might be pushing it.
Added bonus: she hates all other human beings with an unreasoning, furious passion, so she also acts as a guard cat. I wouldn’t want to be the burglar who broke into our house while we were away, because there’d be lacerations and gnawed body parts and we’d come home to a blood-spattered floor.
Also, flies have arrived, finally. They’re really cold, so I’ve put them in an incubator overnight to recover.
I appreciate the advice. I’ll try an overnight trip and see how she handles it. My cat actually likes people, so there won’t be any home security happening.
Your doctors let you shovel snow? Be careful.
We have three cats, and often leave them for a weekend. We fill two self-feeders, and we have a cat fountain, which constantly filters the water – important, since one has a habit of washing her paws in the fountain. We make sure that everything is safe and comfortable for them before we leave. Other than being a little pissed at us when we return, they are just fine.
We’re lucky that we have a wonderful cat boarding business nearby when we need to be absent for a longer period of time.