Marching to a Syncopated Drummer
So Iâve been sitting on the Dear Diary Update Diary page since April 8th (no exaggeration) trying to compose an entry. For some reason I tend to freeze when I actually sit down to write something these days. I think Iâm finally realizing that Iâm not as interesting as I think I am.
Under âRegretsâ, Iâm sad to report that after six weeks of trying to integrate Poindexter into the family I had to concede that he will be best homed as an âonlyâ cat. I tried all the tricks of the trade I know except for Prozac. If I have to drug an animal to make him happy, then he isnât happy. He was a late neuter (neutered at 10 months of age, just before I adopted him) and I wonder if that was part of the problem. Even through a screen, heâd get anxious and frustrated when he saw one of the other cats, and the few times I tried to do in-room introductions he would run at the other cat, pounce on it, and grab it by the nape of the neck. Aggression? Learned sexual behavior? I honestly donât know. He is great with people, but when it got to the point that I had to keep him harnessed and leashed if he came out of the foster room I realized that he wasnât going to work out. I visited him today the pet center where heâs up for adoption, and heâs thriving on all the attention visitors give him. I donât think itâll be too long until he gets the right home.
Under âBucket Listâ, made it down to D.C. last Saturday for the March for Science. It rained most of the time, with a particularly hard rain coming down during part of the march itself, but in a way I think that made things better. The people at the march werenât there for the party â they were there to make a statement regarding support for the sciences. I wonât say that there was no partisanship involved (at one point I was marching next to a woman carrying a âFuck Trumpâ poster) (couldnât tell if that was pro-Trump or anti-Trump sentiment, actually), but for most marchers the message was to fund EPA, fund NIH, support peer review papers and eschew opinion as data. The signs were clever (Girls Just Want to Have Funding for Their Research; Society Should Worry When Geeks have to Demonstrate; Grab Them By The Hypothesis), the marchers well behaved, and the rhetoric kept to a minimum. It was the first time Iâve ever participated in a national protest. At sixty, all I can say is better late than never.
Under âWorkâ, I think Iâm finally realizing that there is no such thing as a good job. I thought Iâd finally found my niche, doing work I am good at and that I think is valuable while earning decent money. Turns out that I thought wrong, or at least partly wrong. All of my reasons to love my job still exist, but bosses who have never done your job and will never understand what your job entails can ruin even the best position. Without too many details, I have been informed that we need to up our auditing and oversight of the establishment Iâm stationed at by 2.5 hours a day. That exceeds the number of hours theyâre in operation on most days. I have never fabricated a report in my life, but it would appear that I may have to rethink that approach if I am to satisfy impossible whims.
Sorry about Poindexter. I tried to integrate a cat over the fall and early winter. It was a disaster. All three dogs and the other two cats were miserable. The palpable calm and relief in my house the day she left were all the confirmation I needed that it was the right decision. We can’t win em all.
Sorry about the work situation. That blows
Well, cr*p. You-know-who and I were in D.C. last weekend. In fact, there were several people on our Metro train from the airport to Mom’s on Saturday who had obviously been at the march. Too bad it couldn’t have been you. THAT would have been a merry meeting!
I wonder if I will ever be able to participate in a March for Accounting?
Well, you know I sympathize about the situation with Poindexter from experience. A decision that was best for all concerned. There are people out there just waiting to be ruled by him as The cat. He is such a cutie, and he oozed personality just via a photograph.
And yes, there is no such thing as a perfect job. *sigh* It’s too bad that, in some cases, the ethical are the ones who suffer.
I love the "Society should worry when geeks have to protest" sign! It really says so much! I can’t believe the nitwits on Capitol Hill these days, with their whole "I’m not a scientist…" schtick. I mean, that they aren’t scientists is pretty damn clear! What they don’t seem to be grasping is that the vast majority of pols over the years haven’t been scientists, but they were willing to listen to what the scientists recommended and implement the scientists’ suggestions. That’s how we got to the moon, for Pete’s sake! I don’t think we would be able to do anything remotely comparable to the moon landing today because one side of the aisle thinks that any money not spent on war is wasted money. That little tidbit finally dawned on me when I was watching some political hack explain why he was cutting PBS’ funding. He said he couldn’t ask a single mother to pay a couple of dollars for PBS (something her kids would benefit from having) but he COULD ask her to pay for a bomb.
It’s like we’ve been in a cultural civil war the last 20 years. The Dumbs don’t recognize science or understand that The Clevers might have a grasp of things that they don’t. The Dumbs are so sure that The Clevers are tricking them that The Dumbs are willing to risk the extermination of all life on our planet to "prove" that The Clevers were wrong. Of course, it’s impossible to get The Dumb Pols to understand anything because they get paid by their Dumb Donors to NOT understand ANYTHING– EVER.