As Promised: Real Update

As nothing is ever simple in my life, my one errand yesterday turned into a day's worth of activities.

The house wasn't clean until 2:00. But, we did a very thorough cleaning. I spend about an hour on the electronics and DVDs each time I clean now; hopefully, this will prevent the higher-end stuff from meeting the same fate as the other stuff I've killed over the years. Then, we piled in the car and hit the:

Bank to deposit checks. Already closed. UPS store to mail packages. Post office to get extra stamps. Goodwill to drop some stuff off. This is how we unclutter. Animal control to check on Stanley. More on this in a minute. Old Navy to replace a pair of my jeans that I ripped at work. Don't ask. Game Stop to trade in some games and DVDs I didn't want. Ended up with Voodoo Vince. QFC for food. A salon that didn't have any room for walk-ins, despite the huge "walk-ins welcome" sign. Home again. And, we were going to get together with Jon, but we've lost his phone number and he didn't respond to IMs. If you're reading this, sorry!

And the Stanley update:

When we got home yesterday, there was a poster hanging on the billboard asking if we'd seen Stanley. So I spent most of Friday night second-guessing my decision; I mean, after all, Stanley was someone's pet and it's obvious the person at least noticed he was missing. Yesterday, I went down to the office to borrow a two-wheeled dolly so I could move an enormous glass tabletop into the car, and I spoke to the manager about it. She said the person looking for Stanley came in "late on Friday" and claimed she'd gone to "all the shelters" to look for him, and that she wanted Stanley back because "her son missed him." So deconstructing this, I learned that she really didn't begin doing the appropriate things to find her pet until a week after he didn't come home (again, she's not even supposed to put him out of the apartment!), she lied about the shelters because if she went to animal control he's the first cat you see when you walk in, and she didn't miss him, her son did. Plus, I remember from working at DHS what "my kids are 'x'" means, whether it's "my son misses him" or "my kids are so hungry!" It means you've got an ulterior motive, and you're using your children (or chitlins) as a means to an end. Needless to say, this erased my doubts.

We visited him yesterday at the shelter, and he seems to be doing OK, but he's bored out of his mind. We took him to a private room for a few minutes, played with him, and pet him. He's certainly the kind of cat who will just hop up in your lap and start flopping around, looking for someone to love him. They also said there's been no activity with him (since he just kind of sits in his cage), but he's in no danger of being euthanized yet. There's a guy from work who's very interested in him, and he's going down on Tuesday to see if Stanley is a good match. I really hope it works out, because it would be a great home for Stanley.