I just wanted to update this thread.

I finally found a volunteer gig that's a great fit. I'm maintaining a garden at a local animal park. I can go in for as long as I like, when I like (every 10 days or so). I really click with the volunteer coordinator and everyone else I've met so far. It's also a place that I spend a lot of time anyway-- and now I can do things like feed the animals and see the babies that the general public doesn't get to meet.

My other attempt at volunteering ended in a really weird way. Last fall I submitted an application to work with an animal rescue group. It took four months for them to give me something to do. I quickly realized that I could not do what they wanted me to (trapping animals and dealing directly with unpleasant people) and volunteered to transport animals instead.

Even that proved to be more than I bargained for. Do you know what it smells like to have seven cats in your car during rush hour traffic when it's raining so hard that having your windows down leaves you drenched? I chose to be drenched.

Anytime I volunteered to do something, the terms would change. If I volunteered to drive two cats at 3 PM, the next thing I knew, it was 5 cats at 5 PM (rush hour). If I volunteered to take a cat to a vet the next town over from me, the next thing I knew, the vet was located in a town 30 miles away. I started replying to calls for volunteers less often.

I guess it's too late for long story short, but something kind of ridiculous happened. After not volunteering for a month because I was out of town for two weeks and all of the things they wanted done were in a town far away from me, I got a message asking if I wanted to be removed from their mailing list for trapping animals. I said yes, that I was unable to trap animals, but that I would still be available for transporting them occasionally, so I'd like to stay on that one. They removed me from all their mailing lists!