Judging and scurrying

I’ve been judging a contest comprised of long poems or a poetic sequences. It’s for the appropriately named part of the Hopwood contests at the University of Michigan. This isn’t the first time I’ve acted as judge for one of the Hopwood contests, one year, the fiction I remember. Anyhow I’ve read all ten of the manuscripts and am engaged in rereading them and ranking them. Then I must write a critique of each manuscript.This week, I was asked to write a piece for the second podcast of Bill Moyers No Choice on abortion. it was podcast last month. Now it’s to be podcast again on the anniversary of Ros v Wade next week. I was filmed for an interview for it for the last showing, but they wanted a piece about how it was for women before abortion was legal. I was very glad to write it for them. I hope they use it.We’re in a state of turmoil. Woody’s mother, who is in an assisted living facility with her three year old altered male cat, is being pressured to get rid of the cat. Sending it to a shelter where it would likely be euthanized is not in the cards. I’ve been on the phone for two days trying to find a solution and have come up with a couple. We’re drive down there next Friday, weather permitting, and pick up the cat Saturday morning to take it to a reputable nokill shelter either in New Jersey or here. I’m still working on arrangements. I made seven phone calls yesterday and will get back on it today. We’ll drive back here Saturday either with the cat or after bringing the cat to a local nokill shelter in New Jersey.It’s all complicated and Woody’s mother can’t remember much information about the cat and whether it had shots or tests for FIV etc. All that will have to be done, of course, there or here. We’ll pay for it, of course. If we bring the cat here [I don’t know his name yet] he’ll have to spend Sunday with us freaking out of course, confined to the downstairs office to keep the other cats away before going to my vet overnight for shots, bloodwork, tests. Then to a shelter here.We had a marvelous thaw for a couple of days and all the snow is off the ground here. We never had much, probably an inch and a half. It felt so good to go outside without sixteen layers. But after raining all night, the temperature is supposed to plunge today, down to 21 by tonight from 54 now. Ice again and high winds.Tonight Dale and Stephen come over. Woody’s making one of his fine dishes, Oysters Rockefeller. I’ll make a pineapple mousse for dessert, a ricotta penne recipe from the Neopolitan cookbook I ordered two weeks ago, and guacamole to start. Then we’ll watch the Pats vs. the Titans. It will be quite cold, windy and slippery for the game.Well, back to calling no kill shelters and rereading poetry mss. I should be able to write critiques on a couple today. But first off after breakfast, I need to make dessert so it sets completely before tonight.