Atlas Shrugged Off

I try to stay up with the current technology, I really do.  I blog, I Facebook (is that really a verb?), I Tweet, I text and use email, I read online, I use GPS.  These are wonderful tools, and I enjoy the benefits associated with each of them.  The GPS in particular has helped Grandpa and me find our way more than once.  Nevertheless, there is something about a paper road atlas that a GPS system can never match.

Maybe it is having the whole world or country or state or town in your hands that makes it so attractive.  I love turning the pages and looking to see where the road goes and how it joins other roads.  The GPS gives me only a small glimpse of the world, but the road atlas shows me the whole city or state at once.  I can see how fast the interstate will take me to the next city, or I can plan a leisurely trip following the small crooked lines of the back roads.  I can find every rest stop or state park for a picnic lunch.  While I scan the page, I might find some interesting historical place and change my plans for a side trip.  In Iowa, you can find all the bridges in Madison County at once.  In Colorado, you can find the small jeep trails that lead you to vistas far away from the hustle of life.  In Virginia, you can find the homes of Madison, Jefferson and Washington at a glance.

On the down side, the road atlas can be deceiving.  You must note the scale of the map.  Connecticut and Missouri each take one page, but 1 inch equals 8 miles for Connecticut while one inch equals 25 miles in Missouri.  You might think you can drive across Missouri quickly, but it will take you three times as long as expected if you fail to note the scale on the map.  More than once, Grandpa and I have found ourselves either wondering if we would ever get across Kansas or flying through Massachusetts in no time at all.

I love to take out the paper road atlas and dream.  I turn to a random page and scan every corner of it.  I look closely and see all that each place has  to offer.  I plan a dream trip, using a highlighter to mark a path that follows the trip that will probably be taken only in my mind.

Shrug off the atlas for GPS?  Never.  There are too many roads to follow while sitting in my chair.

Veterinarian

Duncan is an old cat.  He is seventeen years old and has lived outside all of his life.  He grew up at our home in the country catching mice and birds, alertering us to the occasional copperhead on the patio, and snoozing away the afternoons in his favorite porch chair.  He occasionally got into a fight, but the most serious wound he ever had was a split ear.

After sixteen years of country life, he moved with us to the city, and although he has adjusted remarkably well, he has been attacked several times here.  We aren't sure whether he is getting attacked by another cat or by a raccoon, but the bites have been vicious.  His last wounds were almost fatal.  

Now, if you are faint of heart, you may want to skip these next paragraphs.  We first noticed a patch of hair missing and two puncture wounds on his side.  We tend to try home veterinary practices first, so I washed the bites and put antibiotic cream on them.  But Duncan stopped eating and drinking, and we noticed pus oozing from the wounds, so we called the vet.  She was out of the office, and said that the cat was so old that this might be the end for him.  We still use our country vet, and since it was late, she left the antibiotics on ice hanging on the clinic door for us with instructions to squeeze all of the pus out that we could.

Duncan got his first dose of antibiotics and got his wounds pressed to get the pus out.  We thought he was on the road to recovery.  But the next morning, the poor old cat was sicker than ever and was hiding in a corner.  I picked him up under his front legs to get him out and thought he was peeing on my foot.  Then I smelled it.  Thick, disgusting pus running out of his chest.  Not just a little, buckets of pus.  Well, that is a bit of an exaggeration, but more pus that I had ever seen.  I tilted Duncan forward and more pus ran out.  I pressed around the wound, and pus, thick and smelling of death ran out.  In all I estimate there was 1/2 cup of pus that morning.  We checked him all over and found one more wound that had no pus.  

Duncan was washed and treated with antibiotics for a week and has recovered nicely.  Once again he is enjoying lying on the deck and eyeing the occasional bird in the yard.  I never guessed that city life would be more dangerous for Duncan than living in the country.  And I will be less inclined to play veterinarian in the future.