Stressed?

Cats, unlike dogs, are not known for being empathetic.  Of their many sterling qualities, they are more the "I want what I want when I want it" sort of pet.  Celeste, however, seems to have picked up on and is sharing my stress vibes of the last week.  She wanders up and down the hall, mewing piteously (for no apparent reason), and carrying one of those knitted piglets for comfort.  Go figure.  She makes me think of Linus and his security blanket in the "Peanuts" cartoon.

Feast or famine, drought or flood.  We don't seem able to reach an even balance.  Northern California is under major stress right now because of all the recent rain, more than the levees and the dam in Oroville can handle.  Over a hundred thousand people are displaced due to mandatory evacuations affecting entire towns, not knowing when they'll be allowed to go home or what they'll find when they do.  The logistics of putting that many people on the road with less than an hour's notice is a nightmare in itself.  At one point there was a thirty-mile long string of cars trying to leave, and gas stations were running out of product.  This doesn't address all the domestic and farm animals involved, and most of the towns are in rural areas.  And where does one go?  Now that's big-time stress.

Cam came by last evening to catch the news as she doesn't have a TV, and we sat with eyes glued watching crews on the ground and in the air try to repair a broken spillway on the Oroville Dam.  I'd watched previously as water began to pour over an emergency section that has never before been needed when the lake ran over one-hundred percent capacity.  Nature has proved her point.  The worst part is we're due for another week of rain starting Thursday.

Maybe Celeste knows something I don't.