Happy Vacation Days

My energies have moved over to the new Liebling Center building this last week and it's both fun and physical. It's always exciting designing new installs  – stations and labs – for working and learning, but it's also a lot of moving boxes of books, computers, monitors, and just stuff all over from one building to another in the heat, in the rain, and mostly right in the back - ouch.

I'm at a point now when I need the internet working in the building, but it's not there yet. So, I thought, now's a good time to take some of those vacation days that are still sitting there ticking away. Use them or lose them is the phrase. Bob Crowley says no internet until Tuesday so Friday and Monday are vacation days for me.

You might think that days off are happy and carefree, but not always. Yesterday a neighbor woman stopped at the door with a flyer of her white cat Twinkie who's missing. Oh my goodness what agony in her face. We talked a long time about cats and the neighborhood with tears just barely remaining behind her eyes. An hour later I went out in our yard to look around in likely hiding places and "meowed" out loud hoping for a response. I'm actually pretty good at it, but just silence. How sad. I watched her all day going up and down the street stopping at front doors and walking up driveways.

Today while working in the backyard garden my wife came over and said there was a tragedy. What? One of our resident chipmunks had drowned in a watering can left in the yard. Oh the poor little guy is all I could think, what a sad way to die. Our cats love watching him run across the deck with their eyes wide and their noses pressed again the sliding glass door. They'll miss him too.

Happy relaxing days off and it's only Saturday afternoon with two more days to go. At this rate I'll be a wreck by the time I get back to work.

gunther