Thursday misc

There were no Middle Schools or Elementary Schools today, so I didn’t have to leave the bus barn until 8am.  I clocked in at 7 and putzed around until it was time to go get the high school kids, then came back and sat in the assembly hall of the Middle School on the same lot for the all hands meeting.  I had to leave the meeting before it was done to shuttle kids from the eastern high school to the district Skills Center, and by the time I got back at nearly one, the burgers and dogs were ready – a BBQ after the all hands meet is common.  I had about an hour and a half before I had to clock in again to go to the Skills Center and get kids to take back to "my" high school, where I dropped them and got my kids on board to take them home.

All in all, it was an easy day, but gee, it sorta dragged along and seemed longer than a Wednesday, my longest day, usually.  Time drags when you have to wait for it to pass.

One of my OD Favs called me this morning and another one called while I was on my high school run.  It is way illegal to yak on a cell phone when driving a school bus, so I let that one go and called her after I got back to the barn.  I had called her the day before and left a message with her husband, that I was so and so from OD, and she says he was surprised at NWC being a guy – said the name is kinda feminine.  I hadn’t thought so…. 

The previous entry contained a clue to why I picked NWC as a sreen name; my name in Japan was Kato, like "cat" with an "o" at the end.  I used to be "Southwestern Cat" because I went to a school named "Southwestern" and because I really like the Southwest of the United States.  After a few years of using that, I figured, well, it’s been decades since I lived down there, so I should be Northwestern Cat.

I grew up with dogs and a cat, but prefer cats as pets, and besides, there is a size limit to dogs here at this building, and anything under my knee is not really a dog – I grew up with a St. Bernard who weighed more than I did the whole time we had her, so I’m biased.

Besides, you gotta take a dog outside, whereas the cat uses a covered box here.  Of course, I hafta clean that box every so often, but, well, if you got a dog, you gotta take a plastic bag on the walk with you to pick up the doggy do anyway.

The family had a couple of dogs there in Japan, and my F-I-L used to take them for walks in the evening.  K* and I filled in when he was not well, and I enjoyed those walks through the neighborhood.  The dogs had a regular course, and let me know if we were off course, lol.  Both dogs died eventually, and were replaced with another one, but he died while we lived here, and so when I went back to Japan the second time, we just walked by ourselves.

I have my third black cat now.  I have written about the first one, who I took to Japan, and a second one adopted me there, but the quake in 95 wrecked my apartment and I had to move in with my parents in law and the cat had to stay outside.  Eventually, he wandered and found a new home nearby, but K* sees black cats in the neighborhood who likely carry on Chance’s line.

That was his name, Chance.  I used to give my cats names that had meaning to me – Lucky, Chance, Hope.  Hope was my first cat here in the apartment, but she only lived a year or so before her lungs gave out.  There were thin spots in her lungs and one blew out, and I had to have her put to sleep.  As they gave her the shot, she cuddled on in my hands and was gone in such a short time.

There is almost nothing as devastating as losing a pet – family members, sure, but a pet – well, it hurt a lot.  It also broke me of the habit of giving the cats meaningful names, because saying "my Hope died" sounded way bad.  When I got Blacky, his owner told me that she’d been calling him Black Bear, which I didn’t really like.  I called him Blacky until I thought of a "good" name, but Blacky stuck and has remained his name.

I’m pretty sure the cat doesn’t care what I call him, but he does respond to sailor language when he claws the couch or eats my shoe laces and stops what he’s doing, looking at me with a hurt expression.  He doesn’t hold a grdge, tg, and since I am the hand that feeds him, so much the better.

Ok, well, a rambling entry.  Time to think about turning on the evening news… or sliding the last DVD of season two of LOST in the player.  One more day of bus driving, and then two days of paper deliveries.  Then five days of bus driving and two more days of papers.  On and on it goes, for eight more weeks for the school year.  These sevn day weeks are wearing me out.  I will sleep in June and July, I guess.

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