The devil is in the details, they say. But so is God.
For this road trip and the film I'm shooting while traveling, I've faced a number of challenges in finding some of the things I need — batteries, lights, equipment of various types and rarity. But none have compared to the difficulty of finding someone to watch after my cat, SoongiddyDoongiddy Doo. (And, yes, that is his real name. For some reason it never fails to put a smile on the face of the people at his vet's office.)
I looked at a number of cat sitters/boarders and was amazed at the cost of hiring them to watch after my cat for the next three weeks. I won't name names but I found one cat boarder that wanted $65 a day! Now, I love my cat but I've stayed in decent hotels for less.
As he's fairly independent, I have previously left Soongs (for short) for as much as 2 weeks with enough food, fresh water, and access through a highly secret and secure portal in the house — just in case any of you cat burglars get any funny ideas — and he's always been just fine. He's probably been having huge cat parties while I'm gone, cats dancing in the moonlight, drinking, smoking, and carrying on, if you know what I mean and I think you do.
SoongidddyDoongiddy Doo having a bad day, so he's sharpening his claws.
But kitty-cat is getting old, just like his person. He can't jump much any more; these days, he claws his way onto the bed, for instance; so he has to be let out to do his business via the old fashioned way — the front door. Hard as I try, I can't do that from across the street, much less from Atlanta or Roanoke, Virginia. I just never thought it would take so long or so much effort to find someone to look in on him.
That's when I turned to Facebook for some help. And to the rescue came several cat lovers, good friends all. Recommendations were made. I called. Once. Twice. No response. Turns out she had been doing something that kept her away from the phone and was very apologetic. We came to an agreement on the time, the frequency of visits, and the finances and all that remains is to walk across the street and have a spare key made.
This one remaining detail was bedeviling me for quite a while. It became the linchpin in this trip. Without a cat sitter, I couldn't leave. The trip would just be a pipe dream. Once I found the sitter — Laura, by name — the stress simply melted away. I felt myself relax, knowing it was handled, my cat would be taken care of, and I could resume my planned Monday departure. For me, this was God at work in my life. He touches my life daily, I know. It's often quite subtle so I don't often recognize it in the moment but it's real.
Details, y'know?
— LSS
