Friday, August 31, 2007

Two of Four Kittens Get Fixed

The vet wouldn't do two of the kittens, because they have URI's--the two from the colony, that the colony caretaker is keeping inside the house. The other two, Spider and the little feral male from NW Corvallis, were done. I paid the $25 and had to give back the $25 donated by the colony caretaker for the two who weren't done, when I returned them this evening. I told her they need to be on antibiotics, but I don't think she has any left.

I realize I wouldn't get any adoption inquiries most likely anyhow on a holiday weekend. So many people are gone, off camping and such, the last fling of summer. I feel bad I never did a damn thing all summer. I had so hoped to find someone, or a group, to go camping with. I never did. I only went swimming once, too.

Both my innertubes are flat. I started to collect a few two liter pop bottles in hopes of making myself a boat of some sort out of them, then gave up, since I really don't know anybody that drinks that much pop.

I've been depressed all summer really. I'm not cut out for Albany living. I have nobody anymore, nobody I could call on to help out should I need help here, get hurt, get sick, or even if I want to get away for a couple days. It's kind of a scarey feeling.

At nights, sometimes I wake up missing my mother. I do miss her, although she was so brainwashed by dear old dad. I don't miss him. They're both dead.

Sometimes at night I wake with a rush washing over me and my heart beating, thinking I've died and where am I now. I figure I must have been dreaming something. Sometimes at night I think about the aloneness. It comes over me in long black suffocating waves.

I become stoic in the end and remember I'm a stray and strong as a stray. The strays die out there, in intense suffering, without anybody comforting them and I can die alone, too, when my time comes. Almost everyone ends up alone when they die. Car wrecks. Accidents of all sorts. Heart attacks.

Me and the strays, we have a lot in common.

In America, I'm expected to cuddle up to this computer and that should be enough. I am expected to plop on the couch in front of reality TV and that should be more than enough. It's not enough for me.

I've never been good at e-mail communication. I write and read them hastily, missing things. Or I write an e-mail when overwrought or mad and regret it later. However, I've never been able to equate e-mail with the real world. It's like fantasyland to me. I don't know why. But I usually don't even feel I am writing to real people, for some reason.

Perhaps it's my age. Maybe younger generations do not equate online communication with fantasy. Maybe younger generations really feel they connect with people online. I don't. I can't. I get in trouble because of this, which can make matters worse for me in attempting to communicate in other more personal ways.

I'm not much good at social interaction anymore. I've been alone so long the lack of social interaction means I don't get any practise. When I get a chance to be around people, I flub up. The longer I go without meaningful human contact, the less likely it becomes that I will ever get it, because my eccentricities from life alone and lack of social interaction practise become more pronounced.

I could be happy living in the company of others in stick shacks along a river. If I have good friends, I need nothing much else. I know many of you who read this think it's stupid to desire human companionship. And if that's how you are, that's how you are. But it's not how I am.

I think it's time I say goodbye to White Fang and answer the call of the wild.

No Luck On Finding Fun Buddies

I've had zero luck in finding anybody to do anything with. So I've done nothing, but clean up the yard, really, and print some more kitten adoption fliers and post some around. I have had zero kitten adoptor contacts for a week, which is discouraging, very discouraging.

I did get four male kittens in for neuter today, have to come up with $50 to pay for them, but the BS caretaker donated $25 or $30 at least. $50 is cheap for 4 neuters, so I couldn't pass it up. I pick them up at 6:30 p.m.

I'm dying of lonliness. I wish I could find someone to do something with, that's for sure. Hopi, one of my cats, has been number one bitch today.

Wild Rescued Kitten and Cat Party Video

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Taking Rest of Week OFF

I cancelled appointments for fixing at the vets tomorrow. I am too exhausted to go trap more cats tonight. I've had the neck pain come back, ever since I helped those fence builders try to dig fence post holes, by pounding at the hard clay with overhead blows, to loosen the soil, using a long handled crowbar. Just hasn't gone back to normal yet, the pain level from that stupid act.

I wanted to be one of them, I guess. One of the hole digging fence builders. Um, I've not got the body of a young manuel laborer. Too many metal spinal plates. Live and learn. Or grow old and never learn a damn thing.

I'm going to focus on trying to adopt out even one of the fixed kittens. That would be a win, to even find a home for one. I have four fixed kittens, some a bit older. I have two boys and two girls. Meeko and Mooki are the two boys. Purrly and Little Miss Sunshine are the two spayed girls.

In the wings, ready to go once fixed---Aces, Pixie, Spider, Shady, Micah and the three, not yet named, of the injured mom cat--two boys and one girl. I also have two kittens here from NW Corvallis. Two of three kittens of a feral mom, now spayed, out there. The woman had caught the third kitten, then tried to transfer the kitten to a carrier, alone and outside, and the kitten bolted away from her into the berry vines. The other two, two gray tabby tuxes, one boy, one girl, are here, in a rabbit hutch, waiting to be spay weight. Once they're fixed, they can go back there. Won't be the greatest life, living as feral kittens out there, but they'll be fed and they'll have an outside bed, so they'll be just fine.

Yikes! I have 15 kittens here alone. Plus about 16 adults. 31 cats, although two of the kittens will be leaving the moment they are fixed. Only four of all these cats are mine. The rest are up for adoption, some chronically.

Fantasy Revenge Didn't Last Long

Click post title to go to KATU News story about a woman, who went on a State Fair spending spree, using her ex employers' credit card. This is a fantasy shared, no doubt, by many a disgruntled employee. Maybe she'd been rightfully fired.

In other news, a Portland woman was arrested for embezzling almost a million buckeroos from the nursing home where she worked, causing the nursing home financial woes during the time she stole so much money. That's one way to make an extra income.

I don't get why they don't lock such people up for ages, stealing that much. Often embezzlers don't do much time at all, compared to say your local loser stealing a six pack from the corner Circle K.

I guess embezzlers are pretty much upstanding citizens. They're often well educated and either book keepers or accountants, often women. I also heard bank robbery is on the rise nationwide.

Well, maybe I should embezzle something to fund spay/neuter, or rob a bank. Sorry to say, I'm not the type to do well at either. I'd mess up. I'd mess it up badly.

I would end up feeling sorry for the bank tellers and slipping them big wads of the stolen cash, knowing they get only minimum wage, generally, and probably can't even afford to fix their cats.

I'd probably try to slip the cops arresting me some cash, too, knowing many of them don't get paid much. But cops aren't empathetic or understanding by and large, so I'd just get charged with attempted bribery, too, adding to my mess-up-the-bank-robbery woes.

I'm just no good at illegal activity and I'd be no good at robbing anybody either, because I have empathy. You can't be a good robber if you're empathetic. You better choose another career route. There aren't many available career routes for the empathetic soul to take, let me tell you.

I think a lot of empathetic souls end up living and drinking under bridges. I think that's where I'll eventually end up once again---living under some rocks by a river, just like where I lived when I began this whole cat journey.

Nine Cats Fixed Yesterday. Injured Mom Cat Undergoes Eye Removal Surgery

I took nine cats in to be fixed yesterday. Four are from Corvallis--a feral mother and her three kittens. The other five are from the Albany resident with at least nine unfixed cats. At least five, three females and two males, are now fixed.

I have been working with a Corvallis woman who contacted me wanting me to take a feral mother cats' three kittens. She live trapped the mother with the help of some of her neighbors who took her to a vet to be fixed, then gave her the bill. She then called me horrified, that getting one feral cat fixed cost her $200! I said "There are no cheap spay options in Corvallis. I told you I could get her fixed for $40 at Countryside." She said she realizes now why there is an overpopulation problem, when a spay costs that much. She said a lot of people she talked to, told her to dump the cats on Peoria Road. She said that must be a popular local option for Corvallis residents, because she heard it so frequently. She thought it a disgusting option, and condemned those who suggested it soundly.

She live trapped one kitten a few days ago, housed her in a carrier, then live trapped a second yesterday morning, then he got away from her when she was trying to transfer him. I went over then and helped her set the trap better.

Later on, she called to say she'd caught one of the two remaining kittens. When I went over to help show her how to set the trap, I brought home the female kitten she'd caught a few days prior. The kitten is skinny and scared, a female. Last night, she finally agreed to take back the kittens, once they are fixed, and feed them there. I haven't heard from her this morning.

The Freddies district university employees, who fed the feral mother with the three kittens, all fixed yesterday, said the same thing about the fact the high cost of fixing cats is causing part of the overpopulation problem. The vet they used wants $250 for a spay. Nobody is going to be able to help a stray mother with kittens get at least fixed, when that is the normal price of spays in the Corvallis area. A good share of people could never afford to fix their own cat at that price.

I know this is a huge problem--the prices charged for spay at most vets. I know vets are just running a business and not out there to solve overpopulation. So, since they're not into solving the overpopulation problem, there needs to be an alternative out there, so it can be solved, not only for the cats, but for the community, as a community livability issue, an environmental issue and a public health issue.

The injured mother cat is recuperating after surgery that removed her damaged eye, that was knocked out of the socket by blunt force trauma, according to the woman who took her to the vet in Corvallis. She was likely hit by a car, I would guess. Blunt force trauma injuries with cats are usually from being hit by a car or bike. Sometimes, cats get such injuries if kicked or hit by a person, also, but the usual manner is when hit by a car.

She was otherwise healthy, outside of a white count consistent with infection, which was setting into the eye socket, and severe earmites, which her kittens, here with me, also have. I spent hours yesterday cleaning their ears. They're sweet kittens--two boys, one a brown tabby with green eyes, and a tabbical female kitten.

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

I need to get away and I need some human contact

Is there anybody out there who wants to do something fun? I have not had fun in ages. I haven't had anybody to do anything with for ages. I am desperately lonely and being fed upon more and more.

All you people who say to just go take a walk and that will be enough, what a bunch of baloney. Hey, you try it. You try going for days and weeks and months and years on end, without any meaningful human contact, nobody to do things with, to chat and joke with, to watch movies with, go on hikes with, go swimming or camping with---you go try it, and don't be telling me "go take a walk" if you don't know what it is like to live alone, exist alone, without any support or friendship or family whatsoever. You live in vaccuum of human contact for decades. Then you tell me what to do. But not before.

Lately I've just given in, to the demands from people to take cats. It's sick, I know. I have no adoption venue. I get no funding to do this. People prey on me. It's time to stop this. If I were being paid, different story. If people were donating a fair share or anything, be a different story. People are laying work and burdens on me cheerfully because they can then resume their lovely lives guilt free. While I have no life. None.

Nobody even returns my equipment. They expect that I travel to do that. I've got equipment in Shedd and they want me to come all the way out to get it. I had equipment at the BS overflow but will they return it? Fuck no. And yet if they say they'll return it, it has to be on their time. It's fucking sicko. I can't find decent people out there.

I can't go anywhere, even for one night, because I have no one to care for all these cats.

I can't find homes for them, either. I've had one inquiry of late. ONE, that's it. Someone who wants to adopt an unfixed kitten, but won't or can't provide a vet reference even though they claim to have had many dogs and cats. Apparently, none ever visited a vet? I can't figure that one out. I've told them I don't adopt out unfixed kittens to people I don't know or who can't provide proof they are diehard spayaholocs. That's just the way it is.

I'm not going to take in kittens that then go out there and become part of the problem. I'm trying to fatten these kittens up to spay weight. And now Purrly, from the BS and Little Miss Sunshine, a delightful Siamese mix, getting to be an older kitten, are just on the verge of not being cute enough kitten types to have much of an adoption future. Without an adoption venue I am sunk. Wish one of these nonprofits would let me adopt out with them, but they won't. I stopped in at Petco the other day and low and behold both KAT and Spay Inc were up there, adopting out cats, because they can. They had the money to become nonprofit. I don't. So I'm fucked.

I try to stay clear of Petco, for that reason. They help every other rescue operation except me. It just hurts me, to be so called upon by my community and yet so ignored, when it comes to community support. I feel like an abused woman. I am being used and abused by Linn and Benton county residents. I like helping cats and having something to do, but unless I get some support I'm going to have to shut down and leave. And I do want to leave.

Well anyhow.

Dog in the Road

 I went to get groceries yesterday morning fairly early. I was expecting visitors, brief ones, pop in and out, so I wanted to get done with ...