Sunday, December 19, 2021

Belated Birthday Celebration

When I arrived on the job today, I found a printout of an email, placed on the reception desk of our main building by one of our managers.  It conveyed very special birthday wishes to a very special coworker.  We have always had mousers on the payroll, and these working cats get regular checkups and medical care at a local animal hospital.  The veterinarian, who took over the practice from our vet of long standing last year, had sent Ginger an estimated birthday card:

 


Ginger came to us eleven years ago, as a package deal with her (dearly departed) brother Fred. given to us by an old site director, who cared for feral cats in her neighborhood.  Fred and Ginger were about six months old when they came to work with us, so the vet was able to extrapolate a probable birth date.

Ginger looks pretty good for a twelve-year old, even though she is overworked and overstressed:

 

It must be a strange time for Ginger- our site has been closed to visitors since Fall of 2019, the pandemic coming on the heels of our usual off-season.  In a typical year, she was surrounded all day long by doting human coworkers and friendly human visitors.  For the past two years, we have had a skeleton crew staffing the site, so it's up to the night crew to spoil our Precious Kitty... and spoil her we do.

She's a very affectionate cat, aloof at times like all felines, but typically very sociable.  Her companionship has meant a lot to me (and I can vouch for other coworkers) during this trying time, when I typically see only three human coworkers on a weekly basis (October was an exception, we did have a couple of fundraisers, but very much more low key than in the Before Times).  

Needless to say, she got plenty of treats for her birthday, but as the vet admonished, not too many treats.  She's spoiled, to be sure, but she's not spoiled rotten.

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