Spiraling down

This is not how I wanted the end of my tenure in Daegu to go. I had all these plans to see people and do things I haven't gotten around to doing. Instead, I can't pull myself out of the funk over Tiki. It doesn't help that I wake very early every day (sometimes awakened by Tug) and can't go back to sleep. The night I saw him, I couldn't get him, and the "cat detective" the ladies brought down from Seoul blamed me for driving him off. He's probably right.

Unless Tiki comes back (increasingly unlikely, as he hasn't eaten any food I've put out for the last three days), my best intentions have only resulted in misery for him. He was better off before I got him; he was living on the street, but he was fed regularly and he was with his two brothers. He is the most timid cat I've ever known, but he won me over by being so affectionate, funny, and playful. He's certainly the only cat I ever had who's played fetch. If he doesn't come back, it will never be all right.

Meanwhile, Tug has no life at all, alone almost all day with nothing to do. He demands attention about two minutes a day and otherwise lies around.

And I find myself just kind of spiraling down to the end of my stay; I'm moving in twelve days, I'm tied up emotionally and temporally with Tiki (I try not to be away a lot in the evening because that's when he'll be moving around), and the weather is often so gray and humid, that I don't feel much like doing anything. Obviously, I'm not as detached and enlightened as I'd believed.

Meanwhile, I've found out that my next apartment is not a largish place in an Officetel (modern office/apartment building) with all the other teachers, but a one-bedroom studio off on its own. But that pales in importance compared to Tiki, who is lost for good if he doesn't let himself be caught in the next twelve days.

This is the summer of my discontent.