To Blue's Colleague's Down at JLARC

The Joint Legislative Audit and Review Committee (JLARC) was just down the street from our Duplex on Jefferson Street. As soon as we moved in, Miss Blue went to work for them, putting in more hours than most usual state employees, or so it seemed.

We always asked her as she came in through the kitty door late in the evening, "They are paying overtime, aren't they"?

Blue became popular enough that we had several people from JLARC offering to adopt her when we were still planning to deploy with the Peace Corps. Our plans changed from the Peace Corps to moving to Belize instead.

At our garage sale, Dianna said several JLARC employees came by to say goodbye to Blue and told Dianna how much they enjoyed her visits to the office.

Although her "retirement" from state service seemed to be a surprise at JLARC, it had actually been in the planning for quite some time (Blue does like to plan ahead. It's amazing how much one can accomplish during a nap!).

Here's part of an email from Blue's friends at JLARC - "We were just wondering how Blue -- and your other cat -- weathered the trip to Belize? We still look for her every day, out of habit, and have not yet found a replacement. Doubt if we'll find one as sweet as Blue. I hope you put pictures of her on your blog periodically".

So, to answer their questions, here's some recent pictures of Blue getting used to retirement in paradise.

She's still acclimating to the heat and humidity and consequently, spends a lot of time laying on the tile floor - it's a lot cooler.



Here she is in the living room taking part in the conversation. She does enjoy being around people.

As for her brother, Midas, well, he never exhibited the same desire for public service as Blue. His feeling was that he had been retired for several years already and felt no need to rethink that issue.

Prior to the big move to Belize, we had him shorn of his long white fur, to ease his transition to the tropics. Here's Midas involved in his favorite activity. You can see his stitches from a benign cyst the Vet removed during the haircutting process.



As you can see, both came through with flying colors. For Blue being 12 and Midas 16 years old, they did amazingly well. On the Vet's advise, we didn't tranquillize either of them. After a long, long day's travel, both by air, and land (five hour van ride from Cancun to Corozal) and a good night's rest, they act now like it's just, ho hum, another day.

Thanks everyone from JLARC, for caring and for being such good fellow employees and foster parents to Blue. She and we appreciate it very much!