On Wednesday I helped out at the cattery until they told me to go home, which was three hours after I arrived, because they were going to have a meeting.
I showed up at 11am and found out that they didn’t know I was coming. Whoever I talked to on the phone didn’t tell the person who showed me around. *shrug* I’m used to it.
Everything seems to have gone well and I wasn’t intimidated by the two people who were doing the cleaning as they’re about my age. I started to feel edgy when talking to one of the two people in charge and hopefully didn’t come off too badly, especially since she wasn’t told that I wanted to introduce Poo-Chi to her cats (she was against the idea). There’s so few people there and yet such bad communication. Again, I’m used to it and really, it’s not a big deal. *breathes*
The woman said that Wednesdays would probably be good. I’m thinking I’ll figure out sometimes this weekend when I’m going back.
I was told that they could use help cleaning up after the cats and brushing them. This is actually what I was hoping to do. I’m still interested in doing public outreach, but brushing cats is less anxiety-provoking and the woman said she’d have to get to know me first. Fair enough, everyone says that.
I might even have a chance of fitting in this time. The girl I was working with is also a fan of the TV show “Dirty Jobs” and has several anxiety disorders herself, in addition to depression. I could tell that she likely had OCD just from how she talked about cleaning her clients’ homes. That and the fact she had rules about simple things, that if broken, could have serious consequences. (Comb the cat the wrong way and it’d never let anyone comb it again; use scissors to cut a bad mat out of a cat’s fur and a cut would lead to a dangerous infection; hand towels needed to be folded a certain way or else her boss would get angry, etc.) While I didn’t like being told so authoritatively that my interactions with the cats were wrong, (I really don’t think “shhhh” sounds like hissing to a cat), I did feel comfortable knowing that there were rules about simple things. That’s less thinking that I have to do and it gives me hope that I won’t come off as too weird, at least around her.
I’m putting way too much thought into this, aren’t I? Welcome to the inside of my head.
