Obama Sworn In While I Feed the Rest Area Stray

I meant to get in gear sooner this morning. I've been worn out and fighting off a cold. I've taken to sleeping through my alarm, too, with ease, and it's loud!

This morning, I'd just awakened, when I heard the rumble of the garbage truck. I panicked. I forgot it was garbage morning! I grabbed for a coat to wrap around my misfitting pajamas. No time to search for shoes.

I raced out barefoot and in pajamas, onto the frozen pavement, waving at the garbage man and pushing the cart at a run down the street after him. I sure hope nobody was out that early with a video cam.

The garbage truck turned out to be a glass recyling pickup truck. I felt like an idiot and retreated quickly back inside, to warm my frozen feet.

However, I left the garbage can at the curb for pickup. Moments later, the garbage truck came by. I put out the Recycling Cart as I pulled the empty garbage can back to the garage. I didn't look around, to see if any neighbors had witnessed my frantic pajama clad barefoot footrace after the glass recycler.

It would have been funny to see somebody else do it.

I finally got going and got the four cats in traps into my car and headed to the vet to be fixed. I knew I wouldn't make it back in time to watch Obama sworn into office on TV. I had the radio on and listened to the proceedings.

I stopped back at the rest area, on the way back, to feed the tabby on white. I hadn't been to the rest area since last week, since I really only drive when I am transporting cats. The food dishes, in various places, were empty.

I listened to Rick Warren's prayer in the car and Aretha Franklin sing, sitting in my car in the rest area parking lot, before getting out to fill the dish with cat food for the stray, under the shed.

I was stopped under the I5 bridges climbing up the big rocks to leave food along the trail the cat has used, beneath the north and south bound I5 brides, when the new composition, created just for this event, was playing in my car, with the windows wide open, so I could hear, even up under the bridge.

I was cruising back from the north bound side of the rest area, under the overpass bridges again, with the river in front of me, still brown from running wild over its banks a couple weeks ago and searching with my eyes and binoculars, the flood devastated mud caked brush and tree area, for the stray there, when Barack Obama became the President of the United States.

When he said the last words in the oath of office, I grabbed my homemade cat catching net and shook it overhead and yelled "Yahoooooooo!"