responsibility

[boxofdelights]

Last summer my[*] feral cats drank from my birdbath, which worked fine except that when I let it run dry they would tip it over, and eventually it cracked. I think I can fix it with white glue if I figure out how to clamp it while it dries, but I haven't done that yet. So this summer, I don't have a birdbath, which is sad but then I don't have that many birds either.

I put one of the dog's water dishes out for the cats, but I don't think they're using it. It's in the back yard, where I'm more likely to dump and refill it every day or so, so as not to breed mosquitoes, not the front yard where the birdbath was, but I know they hang out in the back yard when the dog's not there. Sometimes they hang out there while he is there, on the compost bins, probably waiting for mice; as long as they don't move, he doesn't notice them.

I could move the water dish to the front yard, or over by the fence near an escape route. Or I could decide that if they need the water, they'll come get it. I don't really understand how I decided that it was my responsibility to provide them with water, but it is my responsibility now, because I am thinking about it.

How do you decide what your responsibility is?


[*]Begging the question there.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I'd probably use this as an excuse to get a few pieces of drip irrigation stuff and play with rigging up a water tube to some really safe place to put a water dish for them.

/houseboat

[snippy]

Things I think need to be done, and there is nobody else doing them, are my responsibility. Things I want done, and nobody else is willing to do them when I ask, are my responsibility. But I very seldom take on responsibility for other people (certainly not without their consent) or for animals. I do have a lot of plants in pots at my office, and I put some of them in the women's bathroom because I wanted plants in the women's bathroom.

I am responsible to myself for making the world a better place, and that is a very difficult question indeed. Mostly I accomplish it by making my own life better, because I have a fairly large capacity for making the world a much worse place, and restraining those impulses is all I can manage much of the time.

[laughingrat]

Tough one. I guess if there's someone who depends on me and nobody else is filling the gap, it's my responsibility? For instance: someone's little cat got loose in the building the day before the power failed, and he was crying and crying at me when I found him, and it's not like there was just food and water going to magically appear or something, right? So I went back to my apartment and got him some. Later, the maintenance guy found him and gave him some more food, and while the power was out, a couple down the hall had left food and water out too, so I felt okay about letting that responsibility go.

IDK if that illuminates anything, but cats!