Cats, seminars and new apartments

Adolescent Cat from Hell must be going through some sort of personal security crisis at the moment. When she was a kitten, she liked to sit on my shoulder. I encouraged this – I thought it was cute and it made my little black heart melt whenever she sought me out so she could sleep against my neck. As she got older and larger, she abandoned this trick though. Until about two weeks ago, that is.

At first she just “tested the waters”, jumping up on my lap and then standing up with her front paws on my shoulder to check things out. She’s progressed to actively attempting to sit on my shoulder again. This means she has to find a way to drape around my neck, as a single shoulder is no longer suffiencent to hold her. Which means she tries to push my head forward so she can get around and get comfortable. Of course, the first couple of times I though that was cute too, so I let her try. Big mistake.

Now, everytime I sit down, she immediately shoots over to try to shoulder sit. I have claw marks on both shoulders from her attempts to climb up and then hold on while I, in turn, attempt to dislodge her. I’ll be glad when she grows out of this phase.

I gave my seminar at my veterinary alma mater yesterday morning. It went well – far better than last year’s seminar when the students were perhaps the most uninspired bunch of slugs it had ever been my privelege to address. This year’s group were alert, interactive, and inquisitive. I left my notes about ten minutes into the seminar and just went with the flow, answering their questions and talking extemporaneously on things I hadn’t thought to prepare for. We ended up covering all the material I had planned on covering, and a good deal more besides. My old pathology prof bought me lunch afterwards, making me, he said, the least expensive speaker he has for this rotation. Yup, that’s me. Will work for food.

I forgot to bring the information in on the apartment complex that The Prof and I were interested in. I’ll need to do a web search later today to try and find their phone number and see if I can’t make a Saturday appointment to talk to them. I’m trying not to be annoyed that the Prof won’t do this from home, today he has to be available to answer student’s questions in the morning and he’s substitute teaching in the afternoon, so I suppose it would be as big a stretch for him as it would be for me to fit it into my day. I do note that yesterday he got to nap in the afternoon while I was out giving my seminar and then catching up on the backlog of work from being away from my desk all day. Griping won’t get me anywhere, though, and it definitely won’t get me into that new apartment.

Dental appointment Friday morning. Gods, but I hate the dentist. The dread is setting in already.