Spreadsheets

I stepped outside for a minute to get some air after the rain. I was tired of looking at spreadsheets and talking about spreadsheets. It was pleasantly cool and breezy. I listened to a bird singing on the powerline in front of the sandy colored building across the street and wondered if he was singing for himself, talking to someone, or maybe singing for God. He flew over to my side of the street—singing the whole time—and landed in a tree in the parking lot. A big black street cat quickly ran past me and under a bush. I walked over to the railing and saw him crossing the street into the big fenced off parking lot by the sandy building. He must have jumped from the ledge. The bird began singing again from the tree behind me as I watched the cat prowl along the service vehicles in the lot. A FedEx truck drove past. Water suddenly spilled from a PVC pipe I hadn’t noticed on my side of the street. Suddenly a little bald man in a sanitation uniform came out of the sandy building’s garage door with a plastic or styrofoam bowl with something in it. Seven or eight cats—including the one I had been watching—rushed over to where he sat down the little bowl and began voraciously eating. This must be a regular ritual for them. It started to drizzle again and I went back inside to look at some more spreadsheets.