Should have canceled yesterday

Can I call 'em or what? Yesterday was the day that everything I touched went down the crapper (sorry for the indelicacy). Seriously, I went from one task to the next at work and every one of them was flawed in some way - usually a result of me missing one critical bit of information that was readily available but escaped notice until I was cleaning up the mess. And I think I can handle college classes on top of this???

But I'm not one to dwell on past mistakes (hush, Tiny Ninja and Danger Haley, if you have a different opinion).

While taking my morning break on the dorch (looks like a deck but the size of a porch), I was admiring our feline population. I have become, thanks to Tiny Ninja, an irresponsible cat owner. She found a stray at a friend's house some years ago and brought it home - a beautiful orange striped critter that she named Corker. Then she went back to college and we became the legal guardians. Since we had only one other cat (a neutered female) it didn't occur to me that we needed to get Corker fixed. And I didn't think much about it when a very handsome, large orange and white cat (it would be a paint if it was a horse) started hanging around. I was probably the only one to be surprised when Corker had kittens. Tiny Ninja? You're a grandma - congratulations! Can you take them to your house? What? What do you mean, they're ours?

To make a long story short, Corker's kittens (and every descendant litter) were/are barn cats: wild as March hares, untouched by human hands, and - consequently - all reproductively intact. The head count reached 17 when I began to despair, and my Mom laughingly reminded me that Grandpa Gail had 20-something when he was still living here (he also had a red fox that would eat out of his hand, but that's another story). We are down to 13 now so my cat food bill is manageable, and there was physical evidence that one of the newest babies actually caught a mouse, so maybe they are earning their keep after all.

If you know any wild cat herders, please send me contact information. I'm sure once we contain them, they would be docile for any vet prepared to impede their fertility.