Multi tasking, SamCat and I
22 October 2010
Nineteen-year-old (92 in human years or 150 in my years of cleaning litter boxes and dishing out food worse smelling than my cooking) SamCat is multi tasking. I can tell by the blank look on his muzzle as he stands, head swinging left and right, in the middle of the foyer. He’s just cruised in from his stroll down the front steps to have a drink of ‘bird bath soup’. It only took ten minutes for him to complete crossing the threshold as I hold the storm door. And now he’s trying to figure out ‘what the heck?’
I know, SamCat. I know. I’ve been multi tasking a LOT lately. I too hit those Bermuda Triangle spots in the middle of the foyer, kitchen, living room, bedroom, my office, laundry room, where my mind goes blank, all thoughts sucked out.
No clue on what I was doing, I begin a new task, mildly curious about why I headed this way. Was it something important? Nah. The smoke detector is silent and there are no flames on the cooktop, so it wasn’t cooking, even though I’m standing in the kitchen.
I was going to say the bathroom was the only room that I stay on task in. But I had a multi tasking event a while back. Sort of. I was putting on a little make-up, and I lost my eye shadow. The mascara and eye liner were laid out alongside the eye shadow brush, but there was no sign of the shadow. For five long minutes I searched and searched again my small bathroom, opening the same drawers over and over. I couldn’t remember leaving the room, so it had to be in there. I was about to let my pale eyebrows stay pale when I caught my reflection in the mirror. Uh, huh. I was clutching the eye shadow in my left hand.
Clearly my left hand was multi tasking, while the rest of my brain was … not much.
I don’t worry about it a lot. Like SamCat. What is, is. I know from experience eventually I’ll figure out what I was doing before I began a new multi tasking. I’ll hear the tea kettle scream, or trip over the cats as they throw themselves down in front of their empty food bowls eyes rolling up in their heads, pitiful meows barely audible.
Oh, shoot. Now I remember. I wandered in here for my glasses, so I could read the chili recipe. So I had to check email, delete some stuff, saw the essay I’d started. And now dinner’s going to be late. But not burnt.
Funny how I never lose focus/multi task when I’m on the hunt for the hidden Cheezits.
Kath
