The Most Charming Cat in the World

Character kitty Ermie! 

Hot Water in Short Supply

This is a photo of the hot water heater plumbing in my little rental I will soon be gone from. I took this because again, this morning, I had to make my shower real quick. Within three or four minutes, the water was tepid, which is common when I take that long of a shower. I did so this morning, because I washed my hair.

I used to think the bottom elment of the water heater must have failed, so that the only heated water I was getting in that large tank, was from the top elment, designed to heat surface water in the tank rapidly.

Also, with that large of a tank and this tiny of a house, you would think you would have such hot water one would have to mix in some cold, from the cold water faucet, to tone the heat down some. Not so. To get the few minutes of hot water, one must have the cold faucet in the shower tightly closed and open only the hot water valve.

I did tell the landlady about this and told her I would be willing to buy and replace the lower elment. They're cheap. Dirt cheap. She said there was nothing wrong with that water heater and not to touch it and that was that. So I've endured the tepid water.

But then there's this. If one shuts off the hot water to the house, by closing the valve on the corrugated copper line running out of the tank to feed the hot water faucets in the house, three in total, then, as would be expected, no hot water or any water at all, comes out of those three faucets.

But in the foreground of the photo, you can see two faucets. These are for laundry hookups. I never used them because I do not have a washer and dryer. The bottom faucet is supposed to be the hot water faucet hookup.

A T on the hot water out pipe, located just past the hot water shut off lever, extends to that lower faucet. So you would think, when you'd turn off the hot water lever, that faucet would go dry also, if you turned it on. That is, you'd think nothing would come out, just like the other hot water faucets in the house.

You'd be wrong. Even though that faucet T's off the hot water out pipe, if you turn off the hot water lever and turn on that faucet, cold water comes spilling out. So how in the hell does that occur? Where's that cold water coming from and how is it getting into a hot water line?

I showed this to the HUD inspector who just shook his head. He said it's not from some sort of backflow valve, or something, can't remember what he called it, because there's none installed. He believes, as I do, there's a line crossed somewhere.

That's why, in the end, I never pressed changing the hot water heater's lower elment. Because it might not be that at all causing the hot water shortage here. It might be that a cold water pipe somewhere, who knows why, was connected to a hot water pipe out pipe, by mistake.

This could explain also why it takes a good five minutes to get hot water running in the kitchen sink which is literally ten feet or less from the hot water tank. I gave up on doing dishes in even lukewarm water long ago.

So, soon I will say goodbye forever to hot water shortages. At least, in my last days here, with that new furnace, my TV doesn't turn to snow every couple minutes. This furnace doesn't throw out RF that affects the appliances, probably because it isn't ancient and laboring like that other one was.

Spiffing Up the Rental I'm Being Thrown Out Of

I painted the kitchen today in the rental my landlady is kicking me out of. That's right. You read it right.

I painted the kitchen today. I painted it because this house was my home, and, I don't know who if anyone will move in next, but, I want this house cared for, so I will leave it in the best shape I can, to give it a decent chance. I do it for the house, not for the landlord.

This was my home. I treated it as such. I cannot understand house owners who let their places rot to hell.

Should be a crime. Owning a house is a precious gift that not many people get. Then you got people who don't even take care of a house they own. These people waste a precious resource.

I didn't have much to work with here. But I spiffed this place up over the years I lived here. I mean I really did. I fixed leaking plumbing and caulked cracks and ripped out moldy floor vinyl and replaced the leaking cracked yukky disgusting toilet that you'd have to flush three times to get anything to go down. You know, that kind of thing. I had almost no tools, but I did these things with my bare hands my heart and this house is better for the fact I lived here.

Hell yes I'm spiffing it before I leave, because who the hell knows when it will ever be cared for again like I cared for it.

I do it for the house. Because I loved it like it was mine. Hahahahaha.

I am removing what I added on here, for my and my cats betterment. I removed the insulation in the room off the kitchen. I had to, since maybe the new tenants will want to put a washer there, and with the insulation I installed, one couldn't find the dryer vent hole. So out went my insulation job.

I am removing all the shelves I installed, too, for cat roosts and the closet shelves I labored to put up. No need to leave my money and sweat here for my landlord's profit. But paint and caulk, it stays and will even be refreshed, because the house itself deserves the protection.

I have two different people who want the shed. It'd be hard to get it all the way to Albany. So one of those two parties, both in Corvallis, will get the shed. I think some people with a flatbed are going to help move it. The fence I built will come out, to fascilitate shed removal. Just as well, it has to go anyhow.

I'm recycling as many boards as possible, from cat shelves and climbs, through the Habitat Store and those too rotted for further use, will go to the dump and into their chipping program, to be re-used that way. Some of these boards have been around and around, used for one thing by me, then made into something else.

I'll take my lightbulbs, which are the spiral florescent energy efficient bulbs and replace them with the four for a buck variety, before I leave, and take mine with me. There are only five lightbulbs in this place to begin with, so that's not a big deal.

I may or may not leave the bathroom doorknob, that i bought and installed after the one that was in the door, froze up on me, locking me out of my own bathroom for some desperate hours late one night.

For a long time then, the bathroom door had no knob. I told the landlord's husband about it, and he said just to put an eye hook on the door, if I needed it closed. But I bought a doorknob finally, and installed it. No reimbursement for that. I should probably take the doorknob out and with me.

But I probably won't, just like I will of course leave the toilet installed that I bought, with my own money, and put in. I told the landlord's husband about that, too, and he thought it was cool I did it, but I got no compensation. I just wanted so badly to have a toilet that actually worked, didn't leak, didn't rock when I sat on it, flushed the first time, that kind of thing.

So anyhow...the kitchen looks great with the new paint job, although it looked fine before. Painting is kind of relaxing.

I hurt my back yesterday, breaking up branches and moving stuff, you know getting stuff out of here. I hurt it bad. It's been very painful today, but I made myself keep moving after I hurt it yesterday, because I heard with a muscle strain and pull, if you keep moving, even if it hurts, then blood gets to the area better and aids in healing. So it was very painful last night. It was "cry out in agony" painful, but oh well. I'm used to that sort of thing. It's better this evening.

The other thing I did today was take Malachi to the vet. He's the cat that was featured in the photo of Skylar from Albany, as a stray needing a home. Well when I called his mother, she said the cat has ringworm and they wouldn't let him inside anymore. So I made the appointment.

When I got up there, they had no power, due to the power company replacing a power pole a mile away. The doc was seeing clients by flashlight. But anyhow, Malachi doesn't have ringworm. He has either a food allergy or, more likely, a bacterial skin infection, possibly staff. So he got an injection and he's on antibiotics, and great news, SafeHaven took him in. That way he didn't have to go back to living outside at that complex being sick like he is and stressed out. So he's at SafeHaven, and will be up for adoption in about a week. The vet visit cost me $73. Man alive I didn't need that.

Hansel, the male kitten I trapped along the shoulder of Highway 34, along with his sister and the adult female, Buffy, still here, got a home today! Yahoo for Hansel! 

Ermie/Felix Rescued in Tigard, Lost then Found at Rest Area, Now Up for Adoption

Ermie/Felix, rescued in Tigard, lost then found at the Santiam rest area, this nine year old brown tabby female is tough, has attitude (sometimes bad) and wants a home. 

Skylar, the Cat Boy, Gets a Deserved Rose from the Gazette Times!

Yahoo for Skylar, the Cat Boy of Albany! (And thank you Gazette Times. You made my day!)


• ROSES to Skylar Hunter, 7, of Albany, who knows just what to do when he finds a stray cat roaming homeless and hungry — round it up and get it spayed or neutered.

The pint-sized animal lover has found strong support from someone with a lot of experience in this area: Jody Harmon of Corvallis, who has for years given tirelessly of her time and her limited resources to rescue and neuter cats and kittens.

Unfortunately, both face a greater challenge in Linn County, where — despite a burgeoning economy — county and city leaders have been lethargic or reluctant to tackle the county’s neglected cat population.

Even as we applaud Harmon, Skylar and Skylar’s mom Mary Ramsey, we urge Linn County to get serious about allocating the necessary resources to provide humane treatment of cats. That a

7-year-old is taking action where they won’t should spur them into action.

Skylar the Cat Boy from Albany Complex Featured in Today's Democrat Herald

Click on post title to go to the story in today's Democrat Herald, about Skylar, the cat boy of the Albany complex. It's a nice tribute to a boy deserving of some credit. Skylar is holding Malachi in a front page photos. His mother tells me, Malichi is now is severely ringworm infested and is not allowed inside their apartment, although he cries to get in pathetically.

Malachi was the first cat I got fixed through POPPA Inc at that apartment. He had been abandoned about a week before I entered the scene there, by tenants when they moved. They also abandoned their female cat, Senecia, whom I got fixed and whom also is being fed by Mary who also needs to find her a home. Malachi desperately needs some medical attention and adopted or fostered by someone with the ability to get him medical attention.

I only found out about the article appearing in today's paper when I called Mary, because I now have a home for the two feral girls she also feeds, whom I also got fixed through POPPA. The paper article misspells POPPA as Papa.

It's been a couple months since I called the paper hoping to get an article about Skylar, since I felt he deserved it. It's been three weeks since the reporter called me briefly, to ask about my involvement at the complex. I figured the story had been killed.

The number is now over 70 cats fixed there. Mary and I had a falling out in November. After that, I did continue getting cats fixed at the complex, right up until I ran out of POPPA funds for December in the second week of December. We've since reconciled our differences, which were admittedly minor. The story is really a very nice tribute to a little boy, I think. He's a wonderful kid.

Happy Happy Happy

My brother says the house buy is still on. Yahoo! I'm relieved!

I'm singing the happies!

Well then, back to the business of cat fixing. I've got a bunch of situations on the backburner. I'm moving them to the front burner. I have someone who will take the two feral sisters from the Albany complex, as warehouse cats. Their warehouse has a serious mouse issue. They will care for them well. I just have to trap them and get them up there. Plus, same woman has a friend who might be interested in a housecat, so I am hoping maybe Buffy, Margaritaville Lovebug or Ermie/Felix will fit the bill.

In other great news, Bo and Button, the calico kitten sisters Chris is fostering are getting a home together.

And also in the good news column, Hansel, of Hansel and Gretal, the two kittens I trapped, along with Buffy, in that big storm, along highway 34, not far from I5, is also getting a home. This will leave little Gretal vulnerable because she loves her brother so. But it might be exactly what she needs to come out of her shell of fear. I believe the extra two days it took me to catch her, after I caught her beloved brother, including her overnighting out there alone, in that howling windstorm, shook her to the core. She just needs love to overcome her fears, is all. Plenty of love.

So, I'll just get my mind off everything by getting back to what I love doing and do best---getting cats, feral or tame, fixed.

Failure to Disclose

Well the house in Albany was inspected today. Unfortunately, it has issues that the owner failed to disclose, even though the issues were known to the owner. There is standing water under the house. Same inspector found water standing under the house when he inspected it for the last buyer who made an offer. That buyer then backed out of the buy.

So my brother wasn't happy that this problem was not disclosed when it should have been and told the realtor to tell the owner that they need to pay to have that problem fixed, or offer withdrawn. So, I'm in limbo again.

Also not disclosed--a fixed place appliance--the wood stove. Even the realtor said this too should have been listed as a fixed place appliance, which it wasn't. But you walk in, there it is. It was not original in the house, I guess, no permit to build it, probably because it was put in before permits were required, but it was altered only a few years ago also without a permit and it's uninsurable as is. There is not even adequate clearance between the front of the stove and the carpet and the chimney probably is not city code legal. Anyhow, my brother has said that's a non issue now, so good.

Other than that, no real problems with the house. A bit of rot in a few corners of the roof overhangs. Gutters leak and need sealed. Some leaky faucets and a sink faucet installed backwards which so common. Whomever put a TV antenna on the roof, didn't seal it properly, so the roof leaks slightly into the attic from that antenna, also a non issue for my brother. Garage door openers have vanished into thin air, as such things seem to do.

But, by and large, except for the water under the house issue, which can sometimes be really easy to solve, it's in good shape. Hopefully the owner will get that repaired, or, the other option my brother gave the realtor, was that he would sign an agreement with the owner, that whatever costs he incurred, in hiring a contractor to fix that issue, would be deducted from the cost of the house. Sounds like a good deal to me. I hope the owners see it that way.

My landlady taped an eviction notice to my door today while I was gone. Technically, a sheriff needs to that, because she's still not supposed to be coming on the property, without permission or notice, unless it's a life and death emergency. Oh well. She's kind of blurred that line for a long time.

When her daughter moved into the house in front, instead of them going to and fro, from the daughter house to the landlord house, through the daughter house backyard, they started crossing my driveway in front of my place and walking down the narrow strip between my east neighbors and this house, right by my bedroom window. And at all hours of the day and night.

I'd startle awake to noise outside my bedroom window, which was always open in the summer, because of the heat, and, there's the fact I usually sleep sparsely clad. My cats would race off the bed in fright from the sound. I'd shine my light out and IT'd be the LANDLADY! How awkward is that? She'd shrug and look like a deer caught in headlights, promise she'd not do it again, would do it again, along with every other member of her family. I mean, what do you do?

I finally strung a baricade along there, old boards, buckets, birdnetting, a piece of old horse fence, to try to deter use of the area beside my bedroom window as a thoroughfare.

You know, if this happened in Albany, I could have shot them, when startled awake by a person right by my bedroom window, and been heralded as a hero, protecting me and mine.

But this is Corvallis, where people can be violated or stomped into the dirt at will, even as protests about human rights take place around the corner.

So anyhow, I hope the water under the house issue gets resolved. Hell, I'm so used to living with water under the house, I'd not blink an eye to it. There's four or five inches under this one right now. There usually is. But my brother does not have the standards of a slumlord. He does not want me to have to live like I rent from a slumlord when I rent from him.

He wants me out of Slumlordville as soon as possible. THANK YOU brother T!!!!!

Felix, a.k.a. "Ermie" Chipped in Lake Oswego, Found in Tigard

Ermie, or Felix, as the original owner named her, was first brought to Lakegrove Vet Clinic, in Lake Oswego, in 1997, as a kitten. In 1998, she was microchipped there and that's the last time they saw her. She was also spayed there. Because the chip was never registered to her owner, just to the vet clinic who inserted it, I am not allowed access to the original owners name, due to medical privacy constraints. If I was, right now, I'd be finding that person on the www, searching that person out, but I can't.

Ermie was found, by Winston and his girlfriend, at Homestead Studio Suites, over in Tigard, west of I5 and north of 217. The address of where Ermie/Felix was found, by Winston and his girlfriend, when they were living in a motel room, from late September to November 1, is: 13009 S.W. 68th Pkwy; Tigard, OR 97223. Motel staff claimed she'd been around the motel for about a year.

Who dumped Felix? Or was she lost by original owner. 1998 is a long time ago, and the last time she was seen by the original Lake Oswego vet clinic, that inserted the chip and who saw her when the original owner first got her, as a kitten. Where's she been in the meantime, before she showed around that motel, starving and begging for food from motel guests.

Did her original owner die? Did her original owner dump her, when she moved? Did her original owner move, and Ermie somehow got lost and tried to make it back to her old home? Was she looked for? Was she loved? Was it a motel employee who first owned her who left her there? Did she hide inside a car or truck, that then stopped at the Tigard motel, and she got out and ran for it? How long did she suffer, wandering, before she stumbled, luckily, into a couple down on their luck themselves, but with big hearts, living in a motel studio and then in their car, who chose to help her.

Ermie/Felix is nine years old. What happened to her in the years since she was last seen by Lakegrove Vet Clinic and when she showed up at Homestead Suites in Tigard?

I'd love to know.

I found out that the Homestead Studio Suites motel, where Ermie/Felix, was rescued by Winston, when he lived there breifly, on 68th Parkway in Tigard, is very close to Portland State's Sylvania campus. I wonder now if this cat was originally adopted by a student and then dumped by a student when they moved or left school. She has suffered. When Winston and his girlfriend, both basically homeless at the time, took her into their motel room, she had suffered a serious burn to the stomach, which is why they took her to a vet.

But, if she was abandoned by a Portland State student or anyone else for that matter, it would be wonderful to publicly embarrass and then arrest such a person. It is against the law to abandon or neglect an animal.

I've developed a theory, since she was micro chipped in Lake Oswego, that a young person adopted her who lived in Lake Oswego or was raised there originally, and wanted a cat when they moved away from home as a student. Sylvania campus is one where people pursue post bac degrees. So, I think this person went to school, finally finished school or dropped out or flunked out, moved and left her behind. But that's just one of many scenarios.

People who dump their cats refuse to visualize the aftermath of such an act. Or they are such shallow people to begin with they are unable to visualize anything or are completely incapable of empathy or soul. There is nothing pretty at all about the aftermath of abandoning a cat.

Ermie's Real Name is "Felix"--the ongoing saga of the Rest Area Cat

Winston finally called me a couple days before Christmas about Ermie, the cat he had asked me to go look for at the Santiam Rest Area and who has been here for three weeks now, unclaimed by the man I thought was his worried owner.

Turns out Winston has a few problems, like we all do. Turns out he was actually living in his car when he lost Ermie at the rest area. But, despite being down on his luck, he and his girlfriend rescued Ermie when they were living in a motel in Tigard. The staff there said she'd been around the motel for about a year.

They saw she had what looked like a burn on her stomach, so they took her to the vet--two people, down on their luck, living in a motel or in their car. I think that's beautiful. The vet scanned Ermie and to their shock, she was chipped.

The chip was registered to a Tigard vet clinic, not to the owner. That clinic matched the chip number to original owner. But the original owner's phone contact information produced only a disconnected number. Winston does not now have the chip number or remember for sure the clinic where it was inserted. But, we found out, her original name was "Felix" and that she's just over nine years old.

So, I will need to get Ermie, a.k.a. Felix, re-scanned, and hope the original owner didn't dump her, that she was lost and that, if I find the original owner, that they will want Felix back. Winston, her Tigard motel rescuer, is all for that.

Winston called me Christmas morning from Philadelphia. He was concerned about my housing situation and about Ermie's fate. That is really very sweet.

So, I'm hoping there can be a grand reunion, although these events rarely occur, between a loving former owner and his or her cat named Felix.

Holy Cow! Yard Aflood!

Photo is of my yard aflood. I should keep better track of weather reports. The water under the house is also rapidly on the rise. I think it's about six inches from the floor on the east end, but I didn't take a measuring tape out. Holy Cow!

This little house is the lowest property around, from both sides. So I get the run off from all around. The house has no foundation, is on blocks, so underneath often has standing water, but usually not water that comes to within inches of the floor, although this has occurred a few times. 

Quickly Addicted to Sudoku

Someone showed me the basics of Sudoku today. Instantly, I became addicted. I like playing with numbers, so these puzzles appeal to me. I'm getting a puzzle book tomorrow. I once was addicted to crosswords, but I haven't gotten a new crossword book in a long time. Now, I'll gladly exchange crosswords for Sudoku.

My computer crashed again as a result of the CDR drive. I had to remove both drives. I also need a new TDI cable. It has a slight tear in it.

But I'd wanted to make some simple Christmas gifts. I wanted to burn Marc Gunn's Irish Drinking Songs for Cat Lovers to some CD's and give them as gifts. I bought the original CD and Marc Gunn gives implicit permission to copy and give it away. I like the songs, especially "Wild Kitty" and "Furigan's Wake." They're funnier if you're drunk.

So I tried every angle at getting that CD drive to work, truely thinking I could work magic, so I could burn a few CD's. Well, you can't make a burned out drive burn a CD, that's for sure. I finally gave up.

That drive has never worked well. When my brother gave me this computer, he said, "the CD drive sounds funny. Kind of rattly, might not work."

Well it worked off and on, for awhile, before it began the crash syndrome, where it's failures would crash the whole machine, always preceded by some short beeps, that would make me mutter "Oh gawd, NO! not again", that kind of frustration.

Funky. Irritating, too. So now, it's connections dangle and both the DVD and CDR drives sit on a shelf. There are holes at the top of my tower where they used to be. I cover them so my cats don't try to crawl through them into the tower and they would, too.

I've thought about increasing the cooling capacity of the processor. It gets really hot and that little plastic fan pointed it's way seems so lame. Maybe I should just stop thinking about improving an aging computer since I really know zilch about techie stuff. I read a bit here and there, or hear a part of some show, put all these bits of information together, often haphazardly in my brain, and suddenly I'm an expert. Yeah right.

Well anyhow. Today my upward climbing neighbors were having a big get together. I could hear them over there. For some reason, it irritates me. I guess "irritate" isn't the right word. I feel left out, driven from this neighborhood, unwanted in these parts.

But fat big deal. Why would I want to feel included by the people around here anyhow? Foooorrrgeeettt abbout IT!

I don't have to tolerate this ice cold neighborhood very much longer at all! Yahooooo!!!!! Won't have to warn people backing out of the driveway to be careful of the east neighbors blessed light pillars any longer! Won't have to take the landlords distortions of reality.

When she came in here, after the furnace man shut down the furnace as dangerous due to the heat exchanger being pretty much blocked, with flames licking up around the outside of the exchanger, during ignition, she told me this bad furnace had ruined her Christmas. I told her, "Well, it's me who's the one who's been going without heat, you know."

I knew she wouldn't say something like, "Man, thank you. My rental would have burned to the ground with you and your cats and all your things in it, had you not noticed the strange orange glow at the bottom. I'm sorry. I should have had it serviced and checked more often, since it was 40 years old, since we were warned it should be replaced when the fan fell off a few years ago and the burners haven't been cleaned in maybe decades." In my dreams, she'd say something like that! Ha!

I didn't expect that, but in my imagination, I immediately converted her statement into just that sort of happier conversation. It's a skill I've honed since living here. I can understand the angst created over a sudden large expense. Very normal. But to take it out on me, with the guilt-directive "furnace ruined my Christmas" statement? That's so wrong.

Then, maybe because she was mad about the cost of a new furnace, she started in about the cats, and asked did I have cats in the bathroom.

I said "Yeah, I have an old feral in there, who got sick, and since there's no heat in this place currently, I have a space heater in the bathroom for her, because she's sick."

I thought she'd be nice and say, "Oh, I hope she gets better," but no, nothing of the sort. She said "I thought they built you that shed for the cats to live in." I said "there's no heat in that shed. It's winter. She's 18 and she's sick."

"Well," she continued, I guess it's ok because they all use litterboxes." They have always known what I do with cats. For gosh sakes, I feed her cats. They're always over here. They at least will miss me.

Her husband used to tell me how noble the work I do is, and that as long as he lived, I'd have a place to stay, because I was a hero. That would make me smile when he'd say that. I wonder if his ex has let him know she gave me the boot. Ah well. I'm better off for getting the boot. I just don't like living here in the meantime, with hostiles on all sides. Except for her animals, of course, who love me. Yay for them.

So, it was after I left her a message telling her it was not ok for her to come in here, when I wasn't here, a violation of landlord/tenant law, that she left a message evicting me. She left a few more messages, too, trying to convince me she was so right in coming in. I deleted them and left her a message that she was to contact me only by mail, because I was under tremendous stress.

When I called her back, she quickly changed the reason she was evicting me, from being mad over me telling her it was not ok to come in here without giving me notice, to "your place smells like cat pee".

This was a strategic change of tune on her part, so she could pretend her violation of tenant/landlord law, with subsequent retribution eviction, when I stood up to her over it, was not the real reason she gave me the boot, which it was. And she could go tell other people, which she has been, that the reason she evicted me, was because the place smells like cat pee. Funny, when she was here with the furnace people originally, the only legal time she was in here, her only comment about the cats was about the feral in the bathroom. Funny how that was, you know.

You know, OH WELL. The thing is, since she came in without my permission when I wasn't here once, after which I called her and said that isn't ok, after which she gave me the boot, I can't leave here now without thinking she'll be in my place again. It's just a line she crossed and might cross again, although I don't think she will. But it's in my brain now, every time I leave here, that she could be inside my place right at that moment. So I'm not much comfortable when I'm away from here now, wondering about it, if she's in there.

Anyhow. I shouldn't worry about being snobbed in this neighborhood, for gosh sakes. I told myself and my cats today, "they're just a bunch of scrooges." Never mind. I will soon be moving out of scrooge territory. Yippeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Former Neighbors Stop by With Cookies

The former neighbor family just stopped by, like they always do, to wish me Merry Christmas. The kids have grown so big! I told them I'd been evicted. They weren't surprised, given problems they had with same landlord, but expressed concern about where I would go. I told them "no need to worry about that" with a grin.

But, she needs a shed, to store her lawnmower etc, in. I said, "If we can figure a way to get my shed into your yard, let's do it." I won't need it where I'm going. If she needs it, I would love for that family to have it.

So I'll be working on that. It'd be a great home for my shed of dreams. A fitting home, too, for former neighbors to have it, neighbors I loved and who were so good to me.

Unbelievable. One of the "little boys" or that's what they were when they lived next to me, is now taller than I am. I'm 5'8".

Moby Cattyhop and Beanie on my bed. 

Hopi on Christmas Eve. Hopi was my first cat. 

Going to Miss Bald Hill, Chip Ross Park and Willamette Park

I'm going to really miss living in Corvallis because of the parks in Corvallis. Albany doesn't have any parks. One summer, I hiked up Bald Hill nearly every day. I love Bald Hill park. I love Chip Ross park. I love hiking up Oak Creek into that forest, too. I love Willamette Park, the trail from Crystal Lake boat ramps to Willamette Park.

I'll miss Winco Foods. Albany doesn't have any reasonable grocery stores. That will be harder. Since I will live in a house, means paying city water and I found out Albany city water rates are over twice as high as those of Corvallis. Plus the water supply is shit, comes from canals running through farmlands, farmlands dumping run off from pesticide and fertilizer laden grass seed farms and cow crap into the canal system that becomes the city water supply. I have been in Albany houses. When the water faucet's are turned on, the water coming out smells like clorox.

But there's one thing Corvallis does not have---affordable housing. Of the dozens of houses we looked at, only four in Corvallis came under my brother's price range--a crappy run down trailer in south town, two broken down houses in need of a lot of repair, thousands of dollars in repair, and a zero lot line place, down on Wake Robin.

Albany has lots of affordable housing and Lebanon has even more. I love Corvallis, but my brother couldn't afford to get even the cheapest of houses here. So I must settle for Albany. I'm a little jittery about moving to a massive residential district in Albany, but it's between that and the streets and it's a lovely wonderful house.

I live on a very thin financial margin. This move is going to make my life harder in some ways and easier in others. I'll live in a nice house, but will be able to afford even less, with the move. In other words, I'm moving into even deeper poverty for the time being.

While I made few friends living in Corvallis, I made friends of places--like Bald Hill. And Chip Ross. And even Winco Foods.

I do drive from Corvallis to Albany, on cat stuff, about once a week. Now my big outings will be once a week drives back to Corvallis, to shop at Winco. But how will I pass time otherwise, in Albany? I'll find ways.

My financial setbacks from the move will last for a year at least---changing over utilities and all that, that affects a person for a long time who lives on so little to begin with, takes a long time to recover from small things. Moving isn't small. It takes bucks to move. A lot of bucks.

If it were not for my cats, I think I'd be pretty content camping out, like in a small camper or even in my car and a tent, living by a stream, cooking over a campfire under the stars. Or in a small cabin out in the woods. I've lived like that before, and I liked it. You don't have to worry about mowing a lawn so the neighbors don't complain, or scrounging the money for utilities, or pretending you're anything at all.

Then you live in a house, and all of a sudden you're rooted. You start getting glued to stupid TV shows you don't even like. You think you have to be on the web all the time maybe, or need more and more of this and that, to make up for what you don't have, what you really want and that might be just to lay under the stars by a river or a stream and cook over an open fire, flickering and hissing, and jump into a mountain lake in the morning, with a yell of jubilance.

Well what can I do now, but move to Albany, and try to like it. Oh, I'll like it all right, and the mountain lakes and rivers I so love to be inside of, come summer, now will be even closer to my jubilant spirit.

The Big Move

As I drove around Corvallis today, doing some shopping and my laundry, I was overcome with emotion. I've lived here over 30 years. Now I'm leaving.

I've had a lot of experiences here. I've gone through great trauma in Corvallis, especially while in the mental health system and over the river cats, who were my family. Many friends died while I live here, many of suicide.

I suppose it's place more than the people I will miss. I know so few people now in Corvallis. Lonliness has eaten away at me for many long years. But when I lived along the river, I often drew strength and comfort from the hovering darkened distant form of Mary's Peak--tchatemanwe" I'm sure I spelled the peak's native name wrong, but I don't pronounce it wrong and that is my name for it in my mind, when I speak to myself, or to my cats' of the peak. I do not call it "Mary's Peak".

When I'm driving home, west on highway 34, sometimes upset or in despair, and I see the peak, rising out of the fog bank blanketing the valley, I feel protected, comforted--not alone. I don't know why, but I do.

My reference points in this town are the peak, Vineyard Mountain, Bald Hill, the two rivers and their confluence.

I will miss the solidity of grounding to these points.

I will return to see them.

I guess I'm a little worried about planting myself in the midst of long rows of houses upon houses in a large residential district. I'm a private person, a night person, a country person, a forest person, and a woman of the fog.

I am not a woman of the city. I find no comfort on concrete, on asphalt, or on the tamed grass of manicured lawns. I'm as out of place in a busy mall as many people would be crawling after feral kittens beneath a collapsing trailer on their stomachs somewhere out beyond Sweet Home.

But I can turn that city house into my hideaway and then get out and away to my comfort zone, when I need to, out somewhere under the stars with the ferals around me.

Sure, I'm nervous about such a huge change. I'm nervous about trying to fit in somewhere I might not fit into. But the reality of my severe lonliness here and the abuse I've endured from Corvallis slumlords, makes the move something I look forward to, a challenge, a step away from a nothing life here. I have nothing here. I have nothing to stay here for.

I have every reason to try someplace new. I have nothing to lose. Nothing. So I look forward slightly nervous yet eager, to try a new place. I will have a great place to live now and a great landlord--my brother.

Yes I'll be paying the same rent, maybe a bit more. The attempt to find a place to live has already cost me plenty. It'll cost more, to stop and start utilities, etc. I'm saving every penny.

I did go buy some jeans today, with a Christmas gift of cash from someone in Portland I don't even know. They asked that I spend the money they sent, not on cats this time, but on something for myself.

So I bought two pairs of jeans, three pair of underwear and two bras. Boy did I need these things. All were on extreme sale, too, due to being right before Christmas.

For $42, I now have two good pair of jeans, three pair of underwear, without any holes at all, and two bras. My own bras are rather embarrassingly stretched out and full of holes, from washing them too many times over the years. They're so bad, sometimes one boob would be out of the bra to the side, hanging there loosey goosey. I didn't really care, but sometimes, you know, you've got to look a bit better than at other times. So having a couple of decent bras, that's fairly essential. Now I do, thanks to big just before Christmas sales and the Christmas gift from the Portland couple I don't even know.

Doing the pre-Christmas sale thing today, I got into it, really into it, so into it that when the clerk mentioned something to another customer that made me believe that store intended to slash prices even more tomorrow, I put my hand on my goods to stop the clerk from ringing up the sale. I eyed her closely and then grilled her, "Are you cutting prices tomorrow?"

"Relax," she said, "No." I then let her ring up the jeans, panties and bras. I went out to my car feeling smug. "I could do this," I thought, "I could sale shop with the best."

So, tommorrow is Christmas Eve. It's my last Christmas in Corvallis. Oh well.

BEST CHRISTMAS EVER!!!!!

This is the best Christmas ever! My brother's offer on a house in Albany was accepted! I love the house. Two bedroom, one bath, wood stove, two car garage. I don't have two cars, so one side will be converted to cat rescue. Big back yard mostly fenced. Nice neighbors, one of whom I already met and immediately liked!

This is one of the best things that has ever happened to me in my life!!!!!! Good things come from bad things sometimes.

The garage in the new place is bigger than this place I occupy now.

When I heard the news, by message machine, I just started yelling "Yippeee!"
I was leaving to head to Albany at the time, and all the way to Albany, I'd suddenly just have to yell "Yaaaahhhooooo!"

I'm going to have a home, a gorgeous beautiful place for me and my cats, with even counter space to cook now!!!!!! Everything works, too.

Goodbye scroogey slumlords!

BEST CHRISTMAS EVER!!!!!

Lost in the Forest Survival Tips

If you do end up lost and stranded on winding looping, all look the same dead end forest service and logging roads in Oregon......

Don't burn your tires for warmth and a signal fire. Burn the forest instead. Chances are, if the wind is right, you''ll be just fine. The fire may bring rescuers in the form of angry pot farmers, however. So, you know, have a weapon ready. Or a bong.

Remember to crouch under a plastic tarp or, at the least, beneath your truck or car, when the helicoptors and planes drop flame retardant on the forest fire.

If you are running short on drinking water, set out buckets or dig holes lined in plastic to catch the water dumped on the forest fire by planes and helicoptors.

Also, after the forest has burned, you'll be better able to locate where you are, so you can make it out yourself, without those trees in the way but you can then be seen better for rescue, also, once the trees are burned.

Just blame the forest fire on a careless smoker or backfiring ATV with redneck driver who was also smoking and drinking Bud Lite. Point out a Bud Lite discarded empty nearby, and there will be Bud Lite empties nearby on any forest service road in Oregon. Describe someone you passed who you saw smoking in a rather vague, hysterical, thankful to be rescued, manner, interupting yourself to sob and thank your rescuers again. It'll all work out.

This is tongue and cheek I hope you know. We all make mistakes and wrong turns and sometimes end up lost, physically or emotionally. In the dark and in storms and in mazelike unfamiliar territory, it is often nearly impossible to find the way out on one's own. We hope for rescue while doing everything we can on our own, consistent with whatever our own knowledge levels are, to save ourselves and those we love. Sometimes this effort produces failure.

I sat here in my little shack hoping beyond hope James Kim would be found in time. Sure, he made mistakes. We all do. Rescuers probably did, too. Everyone wanted him found alive.

I wished I knew how to climb mountains like Hood when I heard of the lost climbers there. But, there are chances to help people right in Corvallis, everywhere in fact. Maybe the efforts won't have cameras and reporters shadowing the endeavor. Big deal.

Go save someone today. Go save a lost soul. Give somebody hope. Go save a stray cat. Be a rescuer. We need more of all kinds of rescuers and real super heros--not the comic book/movie variety--real flesh and blood superheros is what we need. That Hood River sheriff involved in trying to find the lost Mt. Hood climbers is just so superhero! What a man!

God bless the Kim family and I so wish they could all have made it out alive.

Croc is Dead

My precious bottle baby Croc died last night at his new home. I don't know what he died of. I was given no details other than he seemed fine the night before.

Three weeks ago, the woman who adopted him wanted me to come get him. She said he was sick, had had diarrhea for a months' time. This horrified me and I made arrangements to go down the next day. I wasn't happy that he had been sick for a month. They had adopted Croc and Bindy six weeks earlier.

But then she said they had taken him to a vet who had found no bacteria in his stool and given them some enzymes to give him, to help him absorb food. This didn't set well with me either, because it is common to not find bacteria in a single stool sample, especially if that stool sample is not very fresh. I kept insisting he likely had giardia or coccidia.

She then became very angry with me, and told me if I showed up to retrieve Croc, she would call the police. She later apologized, claiming to be under a lot of stress. I also apologized, for being judgemental about her letting a kitten have diarrhea for month. She then had told me his stools had been normal for some time, although he was not using a litterbox. I told her to confine him to the bathroom for awhile and he'd start using the litterbox again. They had a self-cleaning litterbox, it turns out, and these can frighten kittens.

So she said that had worked and he was using the litterbox. She was very happy that the issue could be solved so quickly and easily. I heard nothing more until today, when she said he had died.

I feel great guilt over his death. But in reality, he did not thrive as he should have. His growth should have outstripped that of his sister, Bindy. He never grew normally like Bindy. I believe he had a congenital fatal defect, either structural of some sort, or a heart defect. As a kitten ages, congenital defects get larger and then kills the kitten. So, I believe there is no fault to be laid anywhere, except for at the feet of fate.

This is a nice family who tried hard. Croc's fate was sealed at birth. He was a wonderful kitten. I loved him. That family loved him. There was no way of saving Croc.

I told the woman who adopted Croc, who is devastated, about Kia. Kia was a little kitten I trapped at a feral colony. But she quickly tamed into a sweetheart who adored people. She was beautiful in every way.

But this beautiful sweet little energetic kitten suddenly inexplicitly started a downward slide. At first, I thought she had an upper respiratory and I started her on antibiotics. But then her breathing turned raspy, yet I wasn't sure it was pneumonia. She wanted to live and she was so beautiful. I wanted her to live.

I took her to Corvallis Cat Care. Dr. Blouin also thought Kia had pneumonia. She X-rayed her lungs. That is when a defect we would never have known about, that would have killed her, was revealed. Her aorta was wrapped around her esophogus. As she grew, blood supply was slowly being cut off to her heart and organs. She was euthanized.

I cried over Kia's fate for weeks, at night, seeing her brave little face in my dreams. Croc likely suffered death from a similar cause---congenital defect. With Croc, I will never know exactly what killed him. But his long term failure to grow normally is the evidence. At first here, he played wildly with Bindy, as they grew from five day old bottle babes, found in the berry vines behind Carmike theater. But his energy levels became less, and often he was happy just to sit on my shoulder and watch his sister play with Tommi.

Croc is dead and a family is in mourning. But he had months of life, play and love he would never have experienced had he remained inside the berry vines crying beside his sister and dead mother.

Goodbye little Croc. I love you. I will always love you. Now I'm going to call that family and the woman, who also loved him, because she must be feeling horrible.

Winston Ludlam's Lost Cat Ermie is Going to Heartland

Ermie, the cat I went up and found at the Santiam rest area, upon e-mail request from a Winston Ludlam, is going to Heartland Humane tomorrow or Friday. Heartland called me this evening. J said she'd felt bad when I'd called before and they had told me they couldn't help. So now, she's offering help from Heartland. Thank you Heartland!

They will contact Mr. Ludlam once after she arrives there. If he fails to reply or make arrangements to board his cat in three business days after Heartland contacts him, Ermie will go up for adoption. Heartland has agreed not to euthanize her. If she doesn't adopt out, and I think she will, because she has charisma, being a tough tabby girl with an irresistible story, once settled somewhere, hopefully, I will retrieve Miss Ermie the wayward cat, if need be.

The last straw with Mr. Ludlam was when he lied to me about contacting Corvallis Kennels to make arrangements to board her. He told me he had called them a couple times and was waiting for them to get back to him. So I called Larry and Marlene of Corvallis Kennels. Mr. Ludlam had not called even once. I was not surprised that he lied to me. But that was the last lie I would tolerate from Mr. Ludlam.

I then e-mailed him, told him he'd lied and I knew it, and gave him an ultimatum about calling me about Ermie's fate. He never has called me even once. He has not contacted me since I told him I knew he was lying about the Corvallis Kennels thing. I have no idea what is going on in his life. Something is. But something is going on in my life, too. It's called "Mr. Eviction comes a knocking."

Ermie is caught in the middle.

She may be unhappy caged at Heartland but she'll be alive and she'll get seen by potential adoptors. So go, you cat lovers, next Monday, to Heartland, and adopt Ermie, the rest area cat, formerly loosely owned by Mr. Winston Ludlam, whomever he is of wherever.

When I found her, she'd been lost for ten days at that rest area, Ludlam told me. He would only say, when I asked where they'd last seen her at the rest area, that she ran into some berry vines near a barbed wire fence. Not very specific.

But, the only barbed wire fence at the southbound Santiam rest area, is to the north of the parking lots. I followed it down to dense berry vines and even from a distance I could see a dark form crouched morosely in the berry vines beyond the fence.

I got my trap out of my car and went over, thinking I'd have to trap her. But I didn't need the trap. She was desperate for food and came right to me. I put her in the trap and carried her in it back to the parking lot and put her into my car. She ate two more plates of food in about three minutes.

Ermie was starving. She hadn't moved from where they lost her. Why had he not been able to coax her out? He claimed they tried for six hours the day she got away from them, then came back twice more to try. Ah well, at least she came out for me. She was sporting a collar and a tag. The heart-shaped red tag said "Ermie the Cat" and "I Travel a Lot". It also had a Venice Fl landline phone number on the tag. When I call that number, I get a message machine with female voice.

Mr. Ludlam himself, whom I talked to only once, gave me a cell phone number based out of Pennsylvania. I've only been able to reach him once at that number. The other times, even the voicemail box is full. Mr. Ludlam has never called me. He
e-mails now and then, but not often and he lies.

He got my e-mail off my petfinder site and asked me to help. I did help. He claims he has posters offering a reward at that rest area. I never saw even one of them. He claimed he would retrieve Ermie immediately if I found her. He hasn't. I realize things come up, all sorts of things come up in life. But why wouldn't he at least call me, make arrangements, give me a tentative estimate on when he could come get her? That part I don't understand at all.

So now I"ve pretty much given up on Mr. Ludlam coming to get Ermie. And maybe Ermie is better off without him, if his life is that chaotic, full of lies etc. You know?

So go adopt Ermie. She's got this sad expression constantly on her face, seems sad anyway. But she can also play wildly, snarl at my cats, which has subsided, even in the short time she's been here, and loves to be held tight and made over.

Ermie is a cool cat, a brown tabby, with dark brown and black stripes, and a white muzzle. She's a bit overweight. She's depressed, not knowing what has happened to whatever life she briefly had with Ludlam.

Mr. Ludlam claims "they", whomever "they" are, rescued her outside a motel where they were staying and that it took "them" two weeks or was it two months for her to let "them" touch her. He concluded she'd been abused. But I don't know. She warmed up to me instantly and I dont' necessarily believe his motel story. That's because the time he said it took to get her to come to "them" when they first found her, has changed twice in different e-mails. So I don't believe him.

Who is this guy? I don't have a clue. I've thought various things---drug runner, musician, spy, salesman, fugitive, general bullshitter and rubber tramp, mafia man, spoiled rich kid, wannabe politician, career scam artist, real estate investor, reporter, egotist, abusive boyfriend (who tosses a girlfriends' cat then tries to make up for it), did I mention drug pusher/runner? In other words, I haven't a clue.

First he claimed he lost Ermie when moving from Portland to San Diego. His e-mails were badly spelled and badly composed. Then later he claimed he'd gone back east for two weeks to pack up the old house he'd sold. So I asked, "I thought you were moving from Portland, not Pennsylvania." He then claimed "they" had stopped briefly in Portland to "set up shop" and quickly decided to head for "socal". He kept telling me over and over "my story checks out" and yet he never really gave me a story to check out.

When I called him from Millersburg excited that I'd quickly found Ermie, at first he did not know who was calling and was aggressive in asking who was calling him on his private cell, that he was conducting "business". I said "I have your cat". Then he relaxed and was very happy. He said he'd call me back in two hours, to arrange details of getting her back. That was the first and last time I was ever in direct contact with Mr. Winston Ludlam of wherever.

So tomorrow Ermie the Cat is moving on with her life. I sent Ludlam an e-mail to let him know. I hope he calls tonight but I won't hold my breath. She's a nice cat, she is, a very good cat indeed. I want her to have a wonderful life. And Mr. Ludlam, I don't know who you are, but Ermie wanted you to come get her back. She loves you, whoever you are. Remember that.

Up Late Looking at Housing Listings, Off again to search

I was up til after 2:00 looking up housing listings and am off again, to search for a housing solution. I cannot fail. I can't. I have to find a place, for me, for my cats. I owe it to my cats to not give up, to never give up. I won't.

I've off to look at a place in south town, then another in Albany.

If all else fails, I'll live for awhile in my lovely shed, built for me by the Day of Caring HP volunteers. It would be more than suitable, temporarily, if I could find a place to "place" it. I insulated it even after they built it. I could have a porta potty put beside it, as a temp fix, if I had to, if I could find a place to put it for awhile. It has a great roof. It has two shelves strong enough and long enough that I could use for a bed for myself. I could rig a temp fencing structure, outside the window, so my cats could come and go. Wallah! A home, if need be.

I had a call from my tow truck friends, giving me all sorts of tips on hunting for housing. The HUD inspector came by this a.m., to approve the new furnace, and was very sympathetic, too, and also gave some great tips. The HUD people have been very wonderful to me in all the years I've relied on housing. I do think that the Linn Benton Housing Authority is incredibly user friendly and empathetic.

Desperate Situation and the Christmas Beating of 1998

I am in a desperate situation. The house hunting today went badly. We looked at thirty places. All the decent houses in my brother's price range were already sold, some over a week ago, yet they were listed as "active" and many still had For Sale signs up. We only found they were sold by calling the realtor. I have also looked at various rentals, none of which took both HUD and cats or were within a single person's voucher limit, which is not very high, compared to current rent rates.

I have begun getting rid of most of my things, none of which are valuable, but it is very sad. I can't look into my cats eyes. I cry when I do.

I never thought I'd end up facing life in a car or tent, freezing, sad, desperate. I am a good person. I've lived the last few years helping others and animals, at extreme sacrifice. I've loved this effort. I am proud of what I did. I helped thousands of cats, feral and owned. I adopted out hundreds, within the space of a few years.

Just in house hunting, we didn't go down a steet in Albany or a country road where I have not trapped or fixed cats. Like a trip down memory lane. I could see their faces when I'd pass. Made me smile to myself.

And yet the desperate situation I now face seems impenetrable. I it hard to live here, for the short time I will remain, knowing how much pain and suffering the landlady is causing me. I've spent so much money and effort fixing up this place, which was not livable when I moved here. I have many witnesses to this fact, including the HUD inspectors themselves. And yet this will not help me. Being a good person, a selfless person does not help me. She has the power and I believe she likes knowing how much she is making me suffer right now.

Without money, I have no power, and often, very little ability to direct my fate. I did the best I could.

I left the mental health system five years ago. The first 45 years of my life were spent suffering a great deal of abuse. In the five years since I left the mental health system, I've made such changes, and also done great things for animals, unbelievable accomplishments for animals.

Five years I've had to really live. And so I did. I did not waste a moment.

The first 45 years of my life were misery. I was abused by my father, who could not keep his hands off me, who treated women as nothing more than slaves for men. I grew up in an isolated existence with this attitude, that I was worthless, drilled into me at every turn.

Then, a lost soul, I was herded into the mental health system. It was never considered that my childhood was at fault, the abuse. No. The shrink immediately declared me faulty and I was labeled with many nasty labels over the years and treated like the dirt beneath society's feet. And yet I survived. Many of my friends did not survive such a life, of being patronized and put down, drugged up and stuffed away in low income hotels to rot. Nine of my friends, all sheltered away from life, drugged up, within the mental health system's unhealthy treatment style, killed themselves.

I escaped.

I escaped after I was beaten a few days before Christmas in 1998. My head was slammed by staff over and over against the hard cement floor of an isolation room at Portland Adventist Hospital. I begged for my life. I begged for mercy. 12 staff members were holding me down. One of them then put his arm across my throat and began to choke the life out of me.

My crime? I had banged on the isolation room door demanding to use a bathroom. I had had to pee on the floor. This is a common ploy to break mental patients will. I was then made fun of, told I couldn't care for myself, because I was peeing on the floor. And yet there was no bathroom to use. The isolation room bathroom door was locked.

I banged on the door because I needed to do number two. I did not want to do that on the floor. So they massed outside the door, came in, held me down and beat me. They intended to finish me off, by killing me, choking me death. One woman stopped them, ordered them off me, or I would have been murdered. I remember thinking of the river cats, as they were killing me. I remember wondering how they would paint my death to the media.

I was released then, without shoes, coat or transportation, into the snow and ice storm of that year. It was 12 degrees out. I wandered in the freezing cold. I did not know Portland. I did not want to attract police attention and have them take me back to Portland Adventist, where I knew I would have been killed. I went through a building and found the bathroom open, and went in. Inside I ran hot water over my freezing hands and dabbed the hot water onto my frozen nose.

I finally saw the glow of Mall 205. I'd never been there before. Inside, last minute Christmas shoppers were everywhere. Kids were lined up to talk to Santa. It was surreal, given what I'd been through.

I found one child's glove and put it on one hand then the other, attempting to warm myself. I was shaking from the cold. A man noticed me. He came over. I told him my story. He left. When he returned, he brought two pair of socks he'd just bought. He knelt and put one pair on my frozen feet himself. This display of kindness overwhelmed me. I went into a mall restroom and cried privately in a restroom stall.

The man helped me get ahold of my brother. My brother arrived two hours later, furious at Portland Adventist. But the fury only lasted so long. The next morning, two days before Christmas, he put on a crowded bus back to Corvallis. I spent Christmas alone. I had serious spinal injuries from the beating. It took almost two years to get treatment for that because my symptoms and pain were judged symptoms of mental illness. I often had to pack my failing body in ice, to stand the pain. I was refused pain meds, because, they claimed I was not in pain. I was.

My body was shutting down because a neck disc was ruptured into my spinal cord, compressing it by half. I got surgery in 2001 and left the mental health system behind forever. I'd endured within it abuse, suffering, forced drugging, patronization and nothing healthy, mentally or physically, at all.

I began helping cats when I lived at the Julian. I basically really lived along the river, down from Mater Engineering, with a colony of river cats, who gave me the love, acceptance and belonging I'd never received anywhere else from the human species. I owe cats.

And now, now, what will become of my precious family? They are all I've ever had. They have given me the only love I've ever known.

Beginning to wonder if I live in the wrong city.....

I'm starting to doubt blue Corvallis. The seeds of doubt got planted by blogger Pril, who pointed out, that even though I live in the bluest of Oregon cities, I suffer incredibly here and nobody cares. I think it might be true. I think if I lived in a small red community, I think there might be people offering to help out, both with the cat thing, and helping in a neighborly fashion, given my eviction, in offering assistance.

Talk is worth nothing. One can spout values. But the only thing that counts is action.

I e-mailed people in town, whom I've worked with with cats, whom I thought were friends, and told them I have been evicted. They have not even responded. This is in contrast to out of towners and out of staters, some I've not even met in person, who are quite worried about my fate. What the hell?

My brother, who said he might buy a house and rent it to me, offered the same arguement when I said I didn't want to leave Corvallis, since I've lived here for decades. He said "Why would you want to live in a town where you've suffered so and nobody has even been nice to you?"

I think he's right. I think Pril's right. Blue Corvallis is a very difficult town in which to find connections. Or even empathy. Or even anyone with the time to give a shit about anyone else.

Sure, there's lots of protesting. But protesting, while providing an orgasmic type anger release, is not real action.

I feel very alone in this town. It's Christmas. Nobody cares what I face. Losing one's home is a huge deal. I could pretend it's not, but it is. My cats will be horribly affected. I will have to part with many, maybe all of them. They're my family. I may be living in my car for awhile. These things aren't nothing. They're huge. They're stressful. They're hard things, to be forced from a place I've carved into a home for me and my cats.

There are many people isolated and alone in Corvallis. MANY! I think we should focus on helping those people out, like neighbors, before trying to solve national and international issues.

Could it be, that Blue Corvallis is Icey blue, cold to the veins, all mouth, without a real heart?

I Love Denial

I am suffering from beautiful denial over my impending loss of a home. I love denial. It's like a really good friend who can be there for you when times are tough. Denial is currently holding my hand real tight. Like I say, I love denial.

Strangely, I'm still plotting how I can find the money to fix more cats. I got a list and I've checked it twice. And the cats on my list need fixed!

The lady who bothered me no end about trapping and fixing and relocating cats behind Carmike, then about fixing and trapping and relocating another large colony across Circle from HP, didn't do the job on her own. I finally became fed up with her, and told her, since she now knew how to trap, to take care of that other colony herself. That's because she doesn't do anything, but she wants me to take care of relocating that colony. She doesn't want to do it herself, because it's hard work. She watched me struggle financially, emotionally and physically to trap, fix and relocate the 18 cats behind Carmike. She didn't help. She had fed them for a few weeks and was the one who contacted me wanting them helped.

Tonight, I saw an orange and white skinny male crossing Walnut just north of where it joins up with Circle, over by HP. So, that's when I knew she did nothing. I was disappointed. Encouraging her to get involved didn't work. I tried that for months. So that's when, frustrated as hell with her twice daily or more phone calls, I blew up at her and told her if she wanted them helped, then to do it and to quit asking me, because I was broke, exhausted and overwhelmed. That tactic didn't work either.

I want to help those cats. I don't know why others refuse to get involved and just think I can do it all. Really sucks. But....I keep thinking, oh well, nobody else is going to help them....even though others should get involved. Helping that colony before I end up gone from here is in the back of my mind. But could I pull it off?

It is not a big deal to trap, fix and release a dozen ferals. But to also relocate them, find them barn homes, since no one is reliably feeding them there, that's another thing altogether.

In other news, a reporter called me yesterday about Skylar, the cat boy over at the Albany complex. I'd almost forgotten calling the paper a few weeks ago. I wanted this little boy, who's had it hard for his tender years, to get some recognition over his love of animals and his fierce attempts to get the cats at that complex helped. He wouldn't let me give up. So the reporter called me, after he'd already been over to the complex and met Skylar, to get details on like how many cats had been fixed over there and how I got involved. I was surprised to hear from a reporter after so long about it, and happy, too. I hope they do a good job on the story. Skylar deserves it. I hope that kid and his sister can somehow get to college one day. They have so much potential.

But, right now, rather than starting in on a new colony, maybe I better get concerned about myself instead. I mean, I could be living under a rock some place in a month. I keep hoping my brother will come through, find a house to buy and let me rent it from him. But I don't think that is going to happen in less than a months' time, and finding cheap houses, I don't know if they're out there or not. I know there won't be any in his price range in Benton County. That means leaving the area. That scares me. I've lived here since the mid 70's.

I'm looking for a cheap tent to buy and I'm checking out campgrounds, off the beaten path, where I could camp out, if need be. I don't like the thought. I'll need to get a gun. I've been homeless before for short periods, long ago. I didn't like it. If you don't go into liasons with people, then you have nobody watching your back. And for a woman alone out there, you have to sleep days and be awake nights to be safe. I used to booby trap my car---nothing lethal, but very noisy.

The landlady told me last Wednesday I had 31 days to get out. When she told me that, I was thinking to myself "Well, Merry Christmas to you, too."

But, HUD told me that they told her, the way they work, if she wants to get a full HUD check for January, she'll need to give me til the end of January. They said she agreed to this, but I have not been told by her otherwise than that I must be out second week in January. So I don't know what's going on, really. Hopefully she will clarify, because that'd be sad, if I left mid January, because she told me I had to be, and she got paid rent til the end of the month. I will ask HUD to get it in writing from her to me, one way or the other. I don't deal with her personally anymore. Too stressful even with Denial holding me tight.

So anyhow, I'm living in Pretend Land with Mr. Denial. I like it here. My cats and I cuddle nights on the bed as if nothing will end our security of a cozy care free night in about 28 DAYS.

Winston Ludlam and Ermie the Cat he Lost at the Santiam Rest Area

For two weeks, Ermie the Cat, has resided here. She snarls at my cats, as most newcomers take time to acclimate. She's a nice cat, a brown tabby with white around the mouth. She sported a brown plaid collar with a red heart-shaped tag when I found her. I went up to the rest area to look for her, when Winston Ludlam, at least that's the name he gave, requested I do this, by e-mail. He got my e-mail off my petfinder site.

I told him I was not a shelter before I went up and that I had a lot of rescued cats already, so I would need assurance from him, that if I found her, that he would retrieve her immediately. He did assure me of this. In fact, he said money was no object and he'd fly me down with the cat to San Diego, if need be.

That was two weeks ago.

I went up the next morning, after he e-mailed. It took me only ten minutes to locate Ermie and coax her out of the berry vines. I called him from Millersburg, thinking he would be happy. He did sound happy. He said he'd call me back in two hours to discuss details of her return. He did not call. In fact, I didn't hear from him for two days.

He said he was back east then, no longer in San Diego, that he had to pack up his house and was dealing with a family emergency.

When my furnace failed, I e-mailed him again. I told him I thought it would be better if Ermie was boarded, since it was cold in Oregon and I had now had no heat. He did not respond.

When I was given eviction notice, a few days ago, I e-mailed him again and told him I needed him to make arrangements to get his cat immediately or to board her. His response called me "graceless" and again a promise to board her. I e-mailed him the number of Corvallis Kennels. They did not hear from him.

At this point, I don't know what to do. His e-mails tell me how rich he is, and yet he misspells words and uses incomplete grammar. I have been calling his cell phone number, but the voice message box is full and he never answers. He has never called me. Nor does he ever ask by e-mail how Ermie the cat is doing. That is really strange.

The number on Ermie's collar is a landline in Venice Florida. Anyone out there reading from Florida? The number is: 941-496-4332.

I finally tonight e-mailed a Venice, Florida cat rescue, asking their advice and for them to call the tag number, to try to find out if this man ever intends to claim Ermie the cat. I explained my circumstances to them also, that I have been evicted, that he needs to come get his cat.

I have no idea who this man is, or why he is so vague and so uninterested in the welfare of his cat. If you lost your cat at a rest area, would you not be calling the person who found your cat, to arrange a way to get the cat back and to check to see how she is doing? And yet this man insults me, gives me no direct answers, and evades any question about when he intends to claim Ermie.

He is using me, without remorse. He's either a self-interested rich guy or a mother fucker or both. I am concerned about Ermie's welfare. I don't know what to do.

Let Down

I've been getting rid of stuff. It's hard to know where to donate things. I don't like giving stuff to the Heartland thrift store because they kill so many cats over there. It's hard to think of my things being sold and the money used to buy kill drugs. I know they are a county animal control shelter, which means killing excess animals, but I don't want my money going to kill what I love. I can't bear the thought. If I could designate that money I donated or money from sales of goods I donated to the thrift store were only used for spay/neuter there, I would feel comfortable donating.

I won't donate goods to Goodwill because of the extreme salary of the CEO. I don't know where else to donate, however. I wish we had a thrift store in town whose profits would go to spay/neuter. That would be great. Goods well donated to sell for money to be well spent.

Well, if I had the bucks to rent a place, with storage capacity, I'd do that, and start a thrift store to fund spay/neuter.

Well anyhow. It's a thought, if I ever get another place to live.

It's sad, getting rid of things, taking down the cat runs. I made most of the cat runs and shelves out of scrounged wood, from particle board to siding from the dumpster out on Pacific Blvd. outside the manufactured home building business. I tried taking some of the runs and cat shelf boards over to the Habitat Store, but they had a sign on the door that said "Closed. No Power." It'd be good if they could be re-used once again.

A lot of people lost roofs last night I think. I think a lot of people are still without power. I fared well here, with just the branches hitting the roof and cat yard. I already piled all the broken branches out by the yard debris container, after I filled it.

My landlady had left a note on the door over a day ago, notifying me she'd be coming into my place this a.m. at 8:00. She never showed up. I waited until after 10:00 a.m. but she didn't show, so I left then. Probably decided not to come due to the storm the night before.

The man who owns Ermie still has not made arrangements to pick up his cat. I asked him again to arrange boarding today, giving him the numbers of local boarding kennels and he did not do that either. In addition, his e-mails, which are infrequent, are becoming passive aggressive and insulting. He has not called me once. As of Sunday, his cat will have been here two weeks. I do not know how to proceed.

I called Heartland to ask for advice and the only advice they had was to give him an ultimatum, which I did do, then take her to a shelter. Which is them. And she might end up dead then. Besides, because I found her at the Santiam Rest Area, which is in Marion County, they said they won't take her, because the rest area is not in Benton County. So she has no options. I think I might need legal advice on what to do. I've been thinking about calling that radio talk show that gives legal advice.

I was given 31 days last Wednesday to get out of here. Now, I'm down to 28 days. That's not very long. I'm still hoping my brother comes through, but I don't know. It's looking like a long cold winter in my car. It's looking dismal is what my future is looking like. And again, what I worry about is my cats. And the foster cats. And Ermie here. I can't seem to impress upon that man, Ermie's owner, that I'm up shit creek here.

Seems like a stone cold world today. Maybe I'm just tired. Maybe the reality of my uncertain future, and possibly having to give up my cats, is pressing on my soul. Maybe I'm angry that this is the holiday season, the season of cheer supposedly and goodwill and yet I can't even find a friendly face around here. Ahhh well.

Photo is of another limb that flew off the trees to the west, landing in my yard. 

One of the limbs that crashed onto my roof, through the birdnetting of my contained cat yard, and finally falling. 

What a Storm!

Whoa, what a storm. I had not kept up with weather reports of late. I had been very upset and pre-occupied with the eviction. So, when I went to Philomath about 5:30 last night, I was shocked at the force of winds that knocked my car around on Reservoir Road. I was spooked by the thought of driving home, but did. By the time I got home, the power was out.

The power remained out until sometime in the night, when I was alseep. Huge branches hit my roof. It sounded so bad I had collars on all the cats and had herded them into one room, ready to put them all into carriers and then into my car. I had my emergency backpack by the door, ready, in case one of the huge fir trees to the west, on someone else's property, crashed onto the house.

I had flashlights. I have a flashlight with headstrap I use when going under trailers to net kittens, so I had that one. I also had a battery operated radio and briefly listened to KLOO, seemingly the only station in the area still with power. Finally, I just went to bed, nestled in with Miss Daisy, who is deaf and heard nothing of the branches hitting the house's roof.

My contained cat yard was collapsed by the branches, many twenty feet long and some three inches in diameter. I cleaned it up and reattached the collapsed bird netting this morning rather quickly. 

Peace and It's a Wonderful Life

I'm not going to worry about my fate. I can't. I will trust that I will find a place to live in time and that even if I don't, I will somehow survive. Keni, POPPA's president, has offered to house my cats in her garage, if need be. SafeHaven has offered to help me with fosters Buffy and Margaritaville. I appreciate these offers. It helps me, because I worry more about my cats than maybe my own fate.

My landlady left a message that she called city housing and they said since there was a repair in progress she had every right to come in without telling me without me being here at anytime.

You know what? I don't care if she's wrong or right. I know she has a need to be right. I have a need to find a place of peace, where I can live with my cats in a place of decent repair and not be messed with.

I left her a message and asked to not call me, to communicate by mail. I also told her that I've enjoyed living here, despite the problems, and that sometimes things just don't work out, that hopefully I'll find another place to live and she'll get another renter and we'll just move on. I told her, in the message, we shouldn't make this more stressful on one another.

I don't bother anyone. I am not a shark either. I don't like conflict. I did once, when in the mental health system, sort of, when I was younger, but I don't anymore. I want my cats happy and playful. The stress of the workers here, the cold from lack of heat, and my own emotional trauma over the eviction has them broken out in upper respiratories. I need to step back, for their sakes and for mine.

I had a dream that I was in the movie "It's A Wonderful Life" and that all the people I'd helped with cats over the years were stuffing money into a hat and the money was then used to buy a house. I was very desperate last night, very sad. I could picture myself staring over that bridge into the ice filled abyss. Then I woke and realized 'My life isn't that movie. That ain't gonna happen'.

What might happen however is that my brother is trying to find a small house somewhere in Benton or Linn County, through a realator, to buy and then rent to me. He's talked about this for years and years and always I've been so hopeful. Now maybe it will happen. But I don't think something like that can happen fast enough to save me from perhaps a couple of months in my car. No matter.

If it does happen, that would be so wonderful and beautiful. If it doesn't, what will be will be.

I'm at peace with the universe. No matter what happens, I've lived an honest life. I've done the best I could with what I was given. I've helped thousands of cats and hundreds of people. When I go to sleep, their faces drift through my mind.

I've lived through trauma and pain and suffering, good times and bad times. Like everybody. Rich and poor alike suffer the same things, I've come to see, the same mental and relationship struggles. I know there is true evil in the world creeping out through the lives of some people. but there is good, too. And many people's outbursts have nothing to do with anything other than the stress and pain of living. I know my own outbursts towards others were not personal towards them in most cases, but rather caused by circumstances of my own life and past.

I think about those climbers lost on Mt. Hood. I think about them like I thought about the Kim family. And the OSU students who plunged in their car into a river. All those lost will not be saved. We each have our moment of ultimate truth when we face the end. It is a condition of mortality.

We are bound together on this planet. None of us are significantly different than the others, not if our existence is looked upon from outside. From the perspective of space, time and the universe, we are less than specks. Our egos are less than a puff of wind.

I guess what I am saying is my problems are unimportant and I will try to treat them as such.

Memories of Living Here

I've actually enjoyed living in this house, despite all the problems. It's the first house I've ever lived in. It has lots of problems, but I even enjoyed learning to do repairs myself, looking up information online, like how to install a toilet.

I liked the first neighbors, in the yellow house. It was family with four kids. When I got extra food from the Gleanors I would take it over to them. And Rebecca would bring me cookies or something she had baked. There were lots of problems in that house, with rodents, poison oak in the backyard, the heat, the plumbing. Rebecca wanted to move out for a long time before they finally did.

They had four kids. The two boys would come over sometimes and help me build feral housing units, which I built in the driveway, lacking a shop or room in the house. The little girl was very smart and she liked to talk to me about cats. Once she said "You're the most interesting person I've ever talked to." That made me feel very good. I was sad when they moved out. They usually come by at Christmas and bring me some homemade cookies. Last year, I could not believe how the boys had grown. I wonder if I'll see them this year. If I do, Rebecca will be very sympathetic about my sudden eviction, since they have faced landlord issues also.
Rebecca and her husband have since divorced.

The next yellow house neighbors were a group of students. I liked them also. One was a vet student. She'd sit out front in the yard with her "box of bones", studying before an exam. She had a great dog. Their cat died suddenly. They found him dead on the front porch and I never heard if he had died of disease or been hit by a car. One couple got chickens and when they moved, before Megan and the others moved, they left the chickens. Megan was desperately trying to find them someplace to go and finally did. When they left, it seemed to be a hostile leave, between them and the landlord. Not sure why.

After that, the house sat empty for awhile before the landlord's daughter finally moved in. I don't know her very well at all.

The landlords divorced a year and a half ago. I did like him. He was quite the character. I remember after the wall heated up. I'd noticed my clock blink out, which was lucky. I got up and felt the clock, which was hot, and so was the cord and the wall above the outlet. I called the fire department.

They came and said the place was dangerously wired. The next morning, the landlady began calling me. She was very angry I'd called the fire department and not her, said the neighbors had been calling to find out why the firetruck was here.

The fire department sent a report to the city housing department who then called me and wanted to come in and inspect the place. I was very stressed, fearful they would declare it a dangerous building and I'd be on the streets. So I told them if they came, I'd stand on the porch naked and scream rape. They didn't come. I'd just had major abdominal surgery. And with the stress of the landlord's anger, it was almost unbearable.

But then they decided to go ahead and rewire it. The problem was that the house was wired entirely on one or two circuits, with high amp fuses and even pennies or something, put in the circuit box so the circuits would not break under the load.

I remember coming home and the husband had had an electrician inside for a quote. He was out in the driveway and I rolled down my car window as I approached. He declared loudly "the problem is the wiring is completely illegal!" He said it with a grin, almost like he was proud. But he was a nice guy. The place was rewired, although none of the wiring to the outlets was replaced. None are actually grounded.

It was rather common to hear yelling at the landlords house. They live behind me. Lots of conflict. And just lots of family stuff. There were often many kids back there playing ball, too, which was pleasant to watch and hear. I did not get involved in their issues, as the landlords had stressed they were not to be considered friends or even neighbors and this was probably for the best.

When He finally came to replace the bedroom window. The bedroom window had leaked into the wall for a long time, because it was rotted around the frame. Sometimes, the sheet rock inside, would billow out, puffy in moisture. So finally he came with a window he got at the Habitat Store, a huge window. He came with his adult son from a previous marriage or liason, not sure which. And together they replaced the window in a slow slow process, that was never completed. The house siding shingles on the outside around the window were never replaced. It leaks above the window now, but not badly. He'd stop, during the endeavor, to smoke weed. He had a medical marijuana card. He'd pull out his pipe quite often and even offer me a toke, which I would decline.

He wore a patch over one eye. He wore all sorts of braces, on his wrists, knees, ankles etc, that he would call his "exo-skeleton". He broke his wrist long ago, he said, in a brawl in a bar, when he punched a sailor. He's a character. He also once, he said, was a northern California pot farmer.

When I was moving in, and he was replacing the kitchen floor vinyl, a job he also failed to finish, even leaving his tools inside, which I finally returned to him, and finished edging the vinyl flooring myself, he talked nonstop about his wife, how much he loved her, where he met her, etc. I didn't really want to hear these things. He'd apparently lived a very interesting life.

I remember when the fan fell off the furnace, jolting me awake with machine gun like staccato. I told the landlords about it. It was middle of winter and icey cold. It took about five days to get a repairman there. When he came, the husband was here to supervise. The furnace man told him they don't make bushings for the fan for a furnace 40 years old anymore and they should consider replacing that furnace. The response from the husband was to start a conversation about something unrelated and partially nonsensical. He was on pain meds for a recent knee surgery and he was a little bit whacked out from them.

At first, the east neighbors and I got along fine, although it was just nods in passing. The first hint of trouble was the mailbox problem. The mailbox post with my mailbox on it and that of the yellow house, was falling over, rotted and too weighted with both boxes. Then there had been mail theft.

A postal employee told me to just cut a hole in the front of the mailbox and put a lock on the top. So I had a farmer friend do this for me. When I had taken the mailbox off however, I found several bullet holes through it and it was severely rusted. Nonetheless, I sturdied up the whole mailbox post, with hardware, cut the berry vines encircling it, and reinstalled the box with the newly cut hole.

The mailman then refused to put mail into and instead would let it fall on the ground. He claimed it was not altered to specs. I said that I got the specs from the post office, which I had. He then refused to deliver mail to the box. I didn't know what to do. The post master said he'd resolve it and come inspect the box, but he never did. So, I removed the box, so the mailman wouldn't drop mail on the ground.

For a year I went without mail service. I got my mail at various friends houses. Finally, I got a locking mailbox, post and installed myself a mailbox. First I asked the post office where I should place it. They came out and told me to place it next to my east neighbors mailbox.

But, the east neighbors son saw me doing this and called his mother, who is a bit on the ballistic side. She called the post office and apparently screamed at them, that no mailbox of a rental was to be next to theirs. The post master then came out to talk to me, knocked on my door and asked if I knew a crazy woman lived next door. I didn't know what to say, just said I didn't really know them. the post master said the neighbors didn't own the strip of road on which mailboxes sit, and that mailbox was to stay where I'd put it. I took shit then from the neighbor over it. I was just trying to have a mailbox again.

They then moved my mailbox across the driveway away from theirs, without talking to me, getting permission from the landlady. It's not even her mailbox. I bought it and the post.

I came home one day also to find a white property line painted down the east side. They'd come on this property to do this and tossed anything of mine that turned out to be in like four inches of their property off onto the grass. This, I considered, really off the wall, and petty. After that ,things were never the same, after they painted the line. We don't communicate at all. They biffied up their property, moved the driveway I use to exit, paved theirs, put in fences and tall hedges to secure their privacy from my side.

Now, when it rains, like now, because they have the mounded hedge wall and the completely paved driveway, the water backs up in my yard and driveway, and even under the house, like it's doing right now. My front yard is a flood with the slightest rain. I guess I won't miss that.

So now, without neighbors who are friendly, it's not great living here at all. I miss that family and even the four students who occupied the yellow house briefly. Now it's just like living in the artic isolated in an igloo. No friendliness to be had.

I built the enclosed yard for my cats. They've loved it here, except for in the winter, with the yard problem. The house is the lowest property of several properties to the west, so the water drains down through this yard, mucking it into a mess every winter. Every spring, I'd plant new grass, but it doesn't survive the extreme wet of this yard, the soggy bog of it, in the winter.

The three short fence sections I built will come down so the shed can come out. I may end up donating that shed to some nonprofit if I don't find a place to live. A flatbed with a winch would get it out just fine. It's considered a temp structure. Since the day of caring volunteers built it for me, to help me house ferals in traps before and after surgery, which it's worked great for, I think it'd be a fitting tribute to their efforts if I found a cat nonprofit who wants it.

I do have fond memories of living here. I suppose the landlords, neighbors and myself are just a cross section of people, all different, all with different values and issues, pasts and stressors. Nobody is perfect, you know. We're all a bit distorted.

Would have been nice if things had worked. The well water has tested positive for fecal coliform a couple of times, so HUD advised me not to drink it. I have used it for bathing and dishwashing. It's heavily mineralized also and coats pans quickly in white calcium deposits. It also doesn't taste good with so much mineral content. My cats won't even drink it. So I bring in jugs of water to drink. I was going to get a water filter, but never did.

I did take out the old ragged ugly filthy carpet finally, piece by piece, as I had garbage space. It was really disgusting. Underneath the carpet and pad, I found that dog urine and hair was all the way through to the wood floor. After seeing that and all the gunk in and under that pad, I decided carpets are not healthy at all. How could they be?

I was going to try to restore the old wood floor, but it was horribly damaged and coated in all sorts of black spots and crap. I worked on that floor forever, scraping it, cleaning it, pulling out old bent over nails and staples, then I painted it an aqua blue because restoring it to shining wood floor would have been far too expensive. Besides, the labor of it badly hurt my neck.

I've done all sorts of caulking also.

Well anyhow. Already I'm getting rid of stuff, not knowing my future or where I'll go or be.

I was finally contacted by the man who owns Ermie, the cat he asked me to go find at the rest area. He was kind of a little on the rude side, maybe pressed for time or severely stressed, too.

I'd sent him several e-mails requesting that he come get his cat, since he said if I found her, he would come get her right away. He'd not replied to any of these. I told him if he didn't reply and make arrangements for his cat to go back to him soon, I'd be forced to take her to a shelter since I've been evicted.

He claims he will get a Eugene friend to come get Ermie now or, barring that, board her. I sent him the number of Corvallis Kennels and told him to have Larry contact me when he's made the arrangements. I wonder if this man is used to having servants or something or worshippers. I don't know. I will have patience with him, as he requested. Ermie's ok here for now. I'm just concerned the stress of packing up and the workers in and out, still repairing the ceiling, might affect her adversely, more so than say if she were boarded.