When Doves Cry

Blogging from Bruce
March 30, 2009

Vonda Keon

For someone who has suddenly been thrust out into the land of job seeking once more, I have been staying pretty busy. Redoing my resume and bringing it up to date took a major portion of my time last week. In today’s economy and job market there are 40 plus people competing for the same jobs so I have my work cut out for me while I try to standout in the crowd.

At one job I applied for, being a stand out wasn’t too hard. I was the only one over the age of 30 and the only one that was dressed in business type attire and not blue jeans and sneakers. I may be “old school” in my thinking but I don’t care if you are trying to get a job flipping burgers or cleaning the sewers, when applying for a job you should look like you care about your appearance. If you care about your appearance then you will probably care about the job you are trying to get.


After doing several interviews last week now I have to wait and see if I made a good enough impression to be called back for the second round of interviews. I do have a few skills that some people don’t, such as I actually know how to take dictation and to transcribe it. And I did learn to type the proper way thanks to Ms. Sandra Hubbard and Ms. Rosie Daniels back in the day when typing and office procedures were actually taught. Add those skills to knowing my way around a computer and Microsoft Excel and Office, plus past experience in running an office, I might just be marketable after all. We will see.

I have to be doing something and now that I have some leisure time, I am not just sitting around twittling my thumbs. There is spring cleaning to be done and organizing my cabinets again and digging through all of the papers that have stacked up on my desk. I have never just been used to sitting still and doing nothing.

I did, however, take a breather and sat outside one day last week during a nice day and soaked up the wonderful warmth of Spring. I was watching the stray cat that has adopted us as she cared for her new litter of kittens. She doesn’t speak much. She just comes over for the occasional neck rub and to thank me for the food and water and the nice box I made for her new little family. She is extremely protective of her little ones but she tolerates me checking on them as she keeps a watchful eye out for the many roaming tomcats that come sashaying through the yard.

One tomcat was making his way across the street when his attention was diverted by a family of doves that have made their nest in a hedgerow in my neighbor’s yard. This rather large gray tomcat crouched and went into hunter mode. I could tell he was getting so excited about the prospects of capturing a bird for his afternoon snack. His long tail was the only thing twitching as he slowly crept closer to the nest. Then all of a sudden one of the doves crashed to the ground and was running and crying and dragging its wings. The cat turned its attention to the injured bird. That bird stay just out of reach each time the cat pounced. I sat there fascinated by the ingenuity of the dove as it ran on the ground across the street and up my driveway with the cat in hot pursuit.

I was prepared to swat at the cat with my broom and when the dove ran down the hill by my gazebo and came to a stop on one of the large rocks that make up the creek bed that separates my yard from my moms. The cat spied the dove and slowly made its way down the hill and under the little bridge never once taking its eyes off the dove. The little dove was sitting on that rock making a distress noise and preening its wing feathers seemingly oblivious to the danger that was steadily creeping toward it.

As I watched I realized what the sly little bird was doing. The rock it was perched on was no where near dry land. It was sticking up out what appeared to be a pile of leaves. Under that deceptive layer of leaves was a lot of cold water. Mr. Tomcat was not aware of this cold wet danger as he only had his eyes on that bird with the sagging wing. He slowly and steadily moved into a position to ambush the injured bird. It was a beautiful and scary sight to watch the cat as he homed in on his prey. The concentration and the control over every muscle was amazing.

Then the cat was airborne, his strong leg muscles propelled him toward the bird still serenely sitting on the tip of that rock in the sea of leaves. Just before the cat hit, the bird had a miraculous recovery and flew straight up, the cat’s paws were grasping at empty air when he plopped into the cold water. Cats don’t swim you know. This one was trying his best to walk on water though! It took him a while to get out of the water and onto the safety of the creek bank.

I sat and laughed at the poor wet bedraggled creature as did that sneaky dove and my little mama kitty. The last we saw of him he was skulking off shaking each wet foot in a desperate attempt to dry off. Mama kitty went back to her little hungry litter, the doves decided to rebuild their nest in a little higher spot that happens to be hanging right over the creek bed and I felt a little better about being unemployed for the moment. If I had been at work I never would have seen the antics that occur in nature.