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 Posted: Sun Aug 21, 2011 1:22 pm
It had been about a week since Chris had last spent more than an hour volunteering at the shelter, and he was starting to feel rather guilty for it. There was an open house for volunteers today and he was determined to give as many hours as he could. It wasn't much, he knew, but with what little time he'd have in the coming months, well... this little bit was better than nothing.
"I'll help with the cats," he offered to the woman at the front desk in charge of organizing the one day volunteers. A lot of them were college students that were required to do a certain number of community service hours in order to graduate, and then there were groups of high schoolers here and there. Here and there, a lone volunteer like himself was wandering around, and he was trying to make sure they didn't feel too out of the loop with everything going on. There were dogs barking and cats meowing, not to mention the racket in the smaller rodents, reptiles, and birds room.
Chris was in his usual attire of a polo (light blue today) and khaki shorts. Surprisingly, for those who knew him, at least, his boat shoes had been traded for sneakers today. It was better traction, at least.
He got a broom from the closet and headed into the large, open room where the cats were allowed to wander around and be played with, so getting it cleaned up was a challenge in itself. In fact, he almost tripped over a cat on his way in. "No, you can't go out," he gave the cat a frown, before nudging her out of the way with his foot and squeezing into the room so none of the animals could escape. Now was just a matter of sweeping, brushing cats, sweeping again, scrubbing the floor... and whatever else was in need of constant cleaning.
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Posted: Sun Aug 21, 2011 1:33 pm
Although a consummate volunteer, Sidra Winters had only rarely helped out at an animal shelter. She knew that others had great love for animals, and she sort of left that volunteer work for them, choosing instead to volunteer for people. But the weekend had ended up being pretty heavily staffed at the soup kitchen, and Sidra was tired of lazing around her bachelor suite with nothing to do except mope and yawn and try to study.
Hovering behind the front desk, Sidra accepted her volunteer sticker, and clutched a broom to her chest, having been directed to the cat area. There was a lot of hustle and bustle going on around her, and Sidra winced as another girl backed in to her, leading a wet dog over to be dried. She finally made it to the cats, and the howling and hissing and pitiful mewing was a sad cacophony that Sidra was not used to. She wanted to adopt them all, but she knew she couldn't even adopt one (or suffer the wrath from Astraea, encroaching on her sometimes territory). Sidra was glad that she had decided to wear some old converse sneakers that her mom had bought for her in a pique of generosity, even though Sidra had decided on that sneakers just weren't for her, unless she was in gym. Clad in shorts and a ratty shirt and suspenders, she looked little like her preppy self.
There were a few other people in the room with her, all of them looking just as wide eyed and confused as her-- though half were paying more attention to the caged animals than to their job of cleaning up. There was a boy who looked like he knew what was going on, and Sidra side-swept over to him.
"Are we supposed to clean out their cages next?"
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Posted: Sun Aug 21, 2011 1:46 pm
It was a little difficult to sweep when there were cats crossing his path, and he wondered why they weren't all moved out of the way while the room was being cleaned. Chris had almost stepped on a couple tails here and there, and he didn't want to be put out of work because of scratches to his legs. That would be pathetic and embarrassing...
He nearly jumped when a girl spoke to him, thinking it was a cat trying to jump onto his shoulder, but he quickly regained his composure as he pieced together what was asking. "Yeah, the cages next while they're all out here. And then we can put them in for a bit while this place is scrubbed down," he suggested, glancing around to see if any of the other volunteers were busy with the same plan of action, or if they'd been distracted by the cats already.
"If you could grab that bucket?" he asked, leaning down to pick up one, himself. "I'm Chris Gallo, by the way. I don't think I've seen you around before... Is this your first time here?"
Of course, it was entirely possible that their paths just haven't crossed. He had definitely been distracted with fighting monsters and just keeping an eye on the city in general. If that wasn't a giant volunteer job in itself, he didn't know what was...
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Posted: Sun Aug 21, 2011 2:08 pm
Sidra leaned down to grab the bucket at Chris' request, using one hand to keep her pigtails from dragging on the ground. Seriously, white hair was such a pain to keep clean.
"I'm Sidra Winters," she offered as she stood back up, bucket in hand, "I've volunteered elsewhere, but never here. So yes, first time here! I think I need all the help I can get..."
Sidra gently pushed away a large grey cat that was intent on licking her ankle.
"So, what's the bucket used for? We're not about to dump water all over these guys, are we? I definitely do not want to be in the middle of that," Sidra said, frowning playfully.
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Posted: Mon Aug 22, 2011 11:55 am
Chris let out an awkward, but still amused laugh, quickly shaking his head to reassure her. "No, we won't be dumping it on them. That would be horrible!" And mean! He was pretty sure his heart would want to break if he sprayed a cat with water when they weren't expecting it. Sure, they had to be given baths on occasion, but that was one at a time and very (theoretically) controlled.
"We're just going to wipe down the cages and dry them out," he explained, opening the door for her to head into the back where the cages were. "I'm surprised you don't have any of these guys trying to climb up all that hair," he said, although he noticed that there were a couple felines eyeing the long, shiny hair, and looking like they were plotting the best time to pounce.
Once they, and her hair, were safely behind the door, Chris made sure none of the animals could follow before setting the bucket down and picking up a small broom to sweep fur out of the cages before they were cleaned. It was a long list of mundane processes to get things done, but once they started getting into a rhythm of sweeping and scrubbing and drying, it wasn't too bad, hopefully.
"Where do you usually volunteer, Sidra?" Chris asked, curious about the girl helping out. It was definitely nice for her to come all this way to the shelter and clean like this, especially when she could have been walking the dogs or spending time with the cats or puppies. She made him curious to find out more... as if there were an air of mystery surrounding her very presence. But that was weird to think, much less say out loud, so he kept those thoughts to himself.
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Posted: Sun Sep 18, 2011 9:41 pm
"Oh, here, there, and everywhere," Sidra replied, as if that was all the explanation it needed. Which, it wasn't, so she went on, "I mostly volunteer at the Boys and Girls Club, runs, reading programs, soup kitchens-- you name it, I've probably done it. I never really wanted to do sports or anything, and my parents wanted me to get in to a good school, so I just volunteered as my extra curricular; it sort of became my only curricular." Sidra ended, laughing.
It was a good thing she wasn't allergic to animals, though she had preemptively taken an antihistamine prior to coming to the shelter, as the sheer amount of animals there might cause her some problems. As it was, the cat fur was sticking to an inordinate amount of her clothing, and Sidra was doing her best not to notice, even though she had noticed, and now it was bugging her.
Like an itch you just can't scratch. Even though she didn't particularly care that there was cat fur all over her, it was taking all of her willpower not to try to brush it off while they were sweeping, considering they were there to clean the cages, not themselves.
"Do you mostly volunteer here, or do you do anything else? Not that it's a bad thing if you only volunteer here!" Sidra quickly bactracked, "it shows you have passion; mine only shows that I am trying too hard, really."
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Posted: Fri Oct 07, 2011 2:49 pm
His eyebrows raised, impressed by her resume. He only volunteered at the shelter on a regular basis, but he went to other places depending on the season and how much extra help they needed. "Wow," was all he could figure to say for a few moments, before snapping out of his own sudden desire to do more than he was doing (maybe he should go to a soup kitchen that night instead of going home early...). "That's really great, I bet you've met a lot of really interesting people," he said, before nodding in agreement with the 'good school' comment.
"That makes a lot of sense, and I bet you'll get into a great school with how much you do," he said, trying to keep up her motivation to continue volunteering. There were a lot of young people who didn't enjoy it, but when they did, well... it gave him a little more hope for the world.
"Yeah, mostly just here. I've been volunteering here since high school, so about five years. But I just do this and baseball, really. Nothing too impressive," he said with a small shrug, before shaking his head. "No, it's good that you're going to different places. It keeps things from getting repetitive. And you doing this shows that you're dedicated, at least. " The overachiever in him wished he had more hours in the day to volunteer at more places, if only to match her time, but he knew he was being ridiculous.
"Ah..." he made a face as he got to one of the last cages. It was somewhere between a grimace and an awkward grin when he glanced over to Sidra. "They didn't take Coconut out of her cage," he mumbled, stepping to the side for the young woman to see the very angry and scared looking white cat cowering in the corner of the cage. She hissed at Chris when he reached up to unlatch it, and quickly lowered his hand. "She's only been here about a week... There's a custody case going on about whether or not the owner gets her back..." he explained, slowly lifting his hand again to open the cage, only to be hissed at once more.
"How good are you with cats...?" he half joked, not really going to make her try, and he quickly shook his head so she knew she didn't have to do anything she didn't want to. "I'm not being serious... Some of the women volunteers have a better time with her, though... I don't think she likes guys," he said with another frown as he looked at the cat. "Well, we can finish sweeping up what's left in here, and then I'll get someone to worry about Coconut later..." It was probably better to just leave her alone.
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