No One Wants the Millersburg Mom and Her Kittens

I get a call about those Millersburg cats again. It's a mom and three older kittens.

The fricking last owner up and left them and now its under new management and they don't want them. It was some different woman calling, a delivery woman, who has been trying to find someone to take them. She says she can't because she has five cats.

I tell her I have 40 cats, live on nothing and nobody donates even a bag of cat food in this county. I said I could get them fixed and I wish I could take them, but I can't because I have way too many now. I told her I have an ad running now advertising cats need homes but have not received a single call.

She wasn't very happy I wouldn't take them. I don't blame her. It's frustrating. I know that more than anyone. She said someone gave her my number and said "Oh, she'll take them."

It might have been Safehaven. Not sure but she had called them and they refused to take them, she said.

That poor mother cat and her kittens. If I offer to trap them and get them fixed, as I did with the last owner of that business, they'll probably say "only if you don't bring them back." Rocks and hard places.

I feel for that poor cat and her kittens.

I have nowhere they could go.

UPDATE: I'm going to get them. Stupid me, eh? Well, turns out I get one call on my ad, and they want barn cats. I'm real skeptical due to the overpopulation of predators but call back. They're cool people, big time animal lovers with a great setup and very ancient cats still living there, and Great Pyrenes who love cats but patrol the property night and day, chasing anything else off. So I described to them the Millersburg mom and kittens and asked if they might take them. He turns and talks to his wife about it, then says "Yes. Call us when you have them." I'm going to go get them and end this pergatory they've lived in.

That was like fate stepping in, like perfect timing.

My other fateful injury this week, Saturday actually, was a spider bite. I have never had a spider bite cause me problems until Saturday. The problem was instant, with the area swelling and becoming painful. I wondered if it was a brown recluse.

I was out chatting with my neighbor who was pulling off dead old flower stalks and I absentmindedly picked them all up while talking to carry to the yard debris. It was then I was bitten. A spider had crawled out of the pile of dead stalks. I shook the spider off my hand.

The bite is just below the knuckle of my left little finger. It became inflamed almost immediately and the inflammation crept into the joint and muscle almost immediately.

I thought, "what kind of a spider can do that?" I soaked my afflicted finger in warm water and epson's salt. It's still sore, inflamed and swollen but not as bad as it has been.

Two different people have showed me appendages after a brown recluse bite and it was uglier than sin. The venom ate their tissue. The sight has stayed with me. Brown recluses however are shy spiders who stay in the dark usually, I think. So I don't think this could have been a brown recluse that bit me.

My luck has to change, right?

Funny (In a Way)

I have wondered why, if I call 911, like with that drunk driver coming the wrong way right at me, on Pacific once awhile back, then with the shooting spree going on, a few weeks ago, why my call would get transferred around, and I"d have to say why I was calling two or three times.

I finally e-mailed the city, to see if they knew. My calls are first going to Corvallis I guess, or some other city's 911 center (could be another city in Linn). Then they are transferred to Linn County 911, then to Albany 911.

I joke that by the time you tell your story three times, the emergency is long over. The Albany police told the city seems to be more of a problem with trac fone in particular.

I don't know that they are first going to Corvallis or some other city.

It's funny, in a way.

If I had a life threatening emergency it would not be so funny.

I also tried to call once on the freeway, when behind a swerving impaired driver. That call got tranferred once or twice and ended up transferred to an ODOT road emergencies or obstacles message machine. Since then, I don't call on swerving impaired drivers. No point.

I've got a break in the cat transport I've been doing, which is good because my foot needs to heal. I did go get part of my stuff at the Crabtree colony. The cats had been fed this morning when I arrived to try to trap the one remaining female. I tried for awhile nonetheless and saw both her and the unfixed Blue Pt. male.

I gave up finally and told the woman, and she wanted to continue by feeding in the trap tied open so I said "great". I gave her some FCCO clinic fliers because she said there are lots of colonies in Crabtree. She said she'd post them around.

I also referred a Brownsville woman to the FCCO. It's too far for me to drive. I asked if she'd contacted Spay Inc. and she said she had a couple years ago and they had referred her to Safehaven's vouchers. I asked if she went and got some vouchers but she hadn't done that. I told her to try Spay Inc. again and also e=mailed her the information so she could register at the FCCO clinic. My guess is she won't. I hope she does, however.

I also taped an FCCO flier to the door of a woman's house whom I've helped before on Frye. She'd called about a friend of hers whose relative feeds strays on Scravel Hill. That would be the third family member I know of in that particular group who has fed cats but not fixed them. I hope they register for the clinic and get them in. The lady whose door I taped the flier onto used to volunteer for FCCO clinics so she knows the whole shebang on them and can let them know how it works.

I'd also been contacted by a woman in Lebanon whose neighbor feeds strays. I sent her the FCCO registration information and explained how they could get them fixed through them, and it's a great deal, given they get shots and all. Plus, I went on to tell her how I have to pay my own gas and flea treatment for the cats, so it's also a great deal for me, when people register for the FCCO clinics and get it done themselves. So I hope they do.

Taking a break is what I'm saying. Oh, I'll jump on Albany cats needing fixed, when I find them. I have only one on my list now waiting and that's because her owner is super busy. She also happens to be a relative of Slurpy, from the Rock Hill colony. The daughter of the caretaker had told me she gave one kitten away. It's so interesting that I run into the guy who adopted her. Actually it was his ex girlfriend or wife who adopted her, and then he ended up with her after the split. She's another torti, too, like Slurpy and so many of the others.

Sod Busters on Craigslist

I saw a free ad for sod on craigslist. Supposedly it had great grass growing on it. From the photos provided, it looked like I could just sling it into the low areas that flood out in my yard. So I called the guy. And then I went over.

He came out from watching TV to point out the pile. They were not what I expected. The pieces were not even depths of sod and the grass was pathetic, flattened short full of moss and weeds. I glanced around the rest of his yard to see what I was getting and it wasn't good. He went back inside immediatley to flop in front of his TV. I threw about five square foot pieces into my car, then thought "This is nuts. This is trash." It was. I got in my car and left.

It was my old neighborhood besides, the place where I was wrongly evicted and suffered so, at the hands of a slumlord. Feelings arose within me, a yearning. I had loved Corvallis. But it didn't love me back.

For all the talk of diversity love, they don't stand up for anything I can think of, unless it's far away and easy because it's far away. Injustices in their own city, forget about it, a blind eye will be turned. You're just as on your own there as anywhere else.

I had anxiety just to be on that same road where I used to live. I tried to fit in, to make the little slumshack rental not as disgusting to the neighbors, some of whom hated it with a passion and wished it would burn and told me that.

Yet I loved the area, the short walk to Bald Hill park, the pedestrian path I could walk back to Corvallis or all the way to Philomath. Another I could walk all the way to Timberhill shopping center. Or half through I cut along a path that wandered through fields, then across a covered bridge and ended up near campus. They have such wonderful paths in Corvallis everywhere. I miss those.

After taking off, I ended up at Winco. I was going to maybe get some groceries. But I saw Richard there, drunk as a skunk, and holding a sign. I didn't read it. He was begging. Homeless Richard.

I drove up above him and yelled at him and he came over right away, saying he needed my number, that they were out of cat food again, and would have to connect somehow with the humane society to get it.

I knew that would not work out, since they're so far from it. I gave him a card. I just printed up some more on my computer.

I got back in my car and sat there. Then I drove to the Grocery Outlet and got their last five bags of Atta Cat. I know, it's shit food, but what the hell. It's food and it's cheap.

Then I drove over to the homeless camp. But, there, also holding signs, by the Safeway center, Stacy and Pete. I was already past them but I pulled in at the next entrance and circled back and parked and went to talk to them.

I told them I had five bags of cat food for them in my car. Just then a sheriff's car pulls in and parks not far from my car in the shopping mall parking lot.

I don't know why he showed up, if maybe some up and coming asshole called about the two harmless homeless sitting along the curb or what. I didn't ask. I just told them to head on back to the camp and I'd meet them there with the food. So they headed out and I went over and parked near the camp, unloaded the cat food and waited for them.

I couldn't hike it in with my bad foot and wearing only sandals. It's flooded back in there.

While waiting some guy in a pickup pulls by real slow staring at me. I didn't say anything but I figured he was up to no good. He then puts his truck in reverse and backs up almost even with me, but still doesn't say anything, just stares out his window at me. I wasn't going to say a word because I figured, since it was all dark around me, he was trying to decide if it was safe to rob me. Finally I say, "Can I help you?" I was actually gripping my bear pepper spray canister pretty hard in my pocket.

He finally said, "You seen a piece of plywood? I lost a piece out of my rig." I'm staring at his rig. The back is closed up. Be pretty hard to lose a piece of plywood with the back all closed up. I said, "No I haven't." I keep facing him and just at that time the homeless pair wander up and he takes off and I was happy about that.

They were grateful for all that cat food. I didn't know if my debit card would actually cover it when I bought it, but I hoped it would, and if it didn't, screw it. I am really really broke.

It was a risk I know, stupid probably, to buy them all that food when I have nothing. I don't care. When you have nothing you have nothing to lose really. The cats there, I can't let them starve. There aren't that many left. Nobody else is stepping up to offer help.

I'd put a plea out on craigslist asking for help with cat food, and got only one reply, asking what kind I feed. I responded, but then I never heard another thing from that person.

Those three campers, they're old drunks and not one of them probably has much time left. They drink. Their problems are out there, for all to see, and they do get the criticism, for not being productive members of society. But what are our values? Our greatest value is working ourselves to death, to produce what, the planet now sick from infliction of our values? Long ago, we all should have become less productive, more self-reliant, less prolific breeders, more gregarious.

Well, enough useless philosophy. I did what I did and I'm not sorry.

I hope those cats got a great big fat meal tonight. Atta Cat, well, my cats don't mind it now and then. I don't think it's ever been recalled, since it has no standards for ingredients and is probably mostly corn.

Julian Assange was on 60 Minutes when I got back. He was getting raked by the reporter whose been effectively neutered by the network and his own fears of retribution if he spoke the truth. We used to celebrate truth and openness in America. Now we like to spy on our own citizens and sneak around in the dark around the world. Julian Assange's website is a big threat to the new us.

He referred to the First Amendment, to providing a harbor for whistleblowers when no one else will. Whistle blowers often end up fired and ruined and they shouldn't. If it takes Julian Assange to give them their open mic, at least there's one place left.

The press changed back in the Bush Administration. They got bullied and corporations, who sell ads, now own the news. The news has to please the big companies who bought the ads and the corporate heads who own the news companies.

I don't believe a word I hear anymore on the news. It's soft garbage, nothing of depth. It's pathetic. I like to see cats neutered but not news men and women. They're supposed to be gutsy and the last vanguard of truth.

Julian Assange has balls.

I couldn't watch the segment. They're going to crucify him is why. Probably right here in America, which is exactly where he should be instead hailed as a hero.

I can't stand to look into the eyes of dead men walking.

He's playing with fire. He's got stuff on powerful people and corporations who buy elections here. He thinks that information, not yet released, like on some big American banks, will protect him, but it will just get him skewered.

Here's the catch in his story: if they prosecute him for printing the cables, they also have to prosecute anybody else who printed them, and there were many other places, like the New York Times, and there ends freedom of the press. He's got us. Smart guy. The reporter said, they are going after him to prevent more of the same down the line. "More of the same?" Assange asked, "You mean freedom of the press? More of that?"

I think his website is really to wake up America, to be what we say we are, what we want to be, to remind us what we don't want to be.

I already think it is insanity to be fighting at all overseas right now. I hate the Taliban, don't get me wrong. I like to see them all dead. But we can't afford wars right now. We can't even keep schools open or bridges in repair or pay for health care for old people and yet we're spending billions in foreign countries.

That's completely insane. And it's anti American.

Well, enough chitter chatter with myself on these difficult subjects.

As for the Crabtree cats, I can't force them to finish fixing them. That's the way it is. Tomorrow, I'll collect my equipment from them and not look back.

Opting out of the Crabtree Cats

I am not going to do further trapping at the Crabtree locale. That's becasue the woman won't return calls and then when I finally got ahold of her, was snippy and rude.

She is the one who called and wanted help.

I wish I could get the rest fixed, and when I go pick up my stuff in the morning, wiil try to catch the one female left, but if I can't I see no reason to sit around there trying when she is not wanting involved, other than to ask me to do it, and then be rude to me.

I do not understand people.

Off and on, since I moved here, at night, usually still air nights, there is a horrible stench to the air. Horrible. It is so bad tonight the smell burns my nose, eyes. What is it? I don't know. I don't know if it's a nearby meth lab or emissions from the many industrial plants on the street a block away. All I know is it stinks and burns my nose and is awful.

Book Drop Foot

To compound and complicate the work load issues around my place, with so many cats to care for, I incurred a foot injury.

A week ago, I was reaching for something in a top shelf cupboard and a heavy book fell out of that cupboard and dropped seven feet onto the arch of one bare foot.

Yoooowww!

I thought it would be momentary misery, the type where I hop around on one foot cursing or yelling for a few minutes, have pain for another couple hours then forget it happened except for a reminding bruise.

However....

A week later the bruise is almost gone but the swelling isn't. Neither is the pain.

It's a small swelling left, top center of my foot, and below the swelling, if I press on it, that's where the pain is. The swelling spreads out down my foot and off towards my little toe.

Last night misery plagued my attempts to sleep. No matter which way I turned or how I held that foot, I'd get sudden bursts of throbbing pain.

I gave it up finally and took a swig of Nyquil. Doesn't even take a full swig, just a teensy amount, and I'm out like a light.

I examined my problem foot this morning. I think my shoe is aggravating whatever is wrong, whatever that book edge did, falling that far, hitting on edge square on a critical foot point. My shoe laces right atop the misery area.

Today, I better switch to sandals. Fortunately the weather calls for it. The sun is out like spring again, like yesterday.

Books can be deadly weapons and not just for the knowledge they impart. The cookbook that cooked my foot probably weighs three pounds, and maybe more.

Remember that, if you get mugged and happen to be carrying a book.

I was going to meet some people or try to, from someone's craigslist post, about wanting get in shape buddies. I contacted her and she responded that a few of them were going on a hike today. Directions were vague and she had said they communicate by texting. I responded I did not have texting capacity (no minutes again on my cell) but I would try to find them. I got no further response. Nonetheless I was going to try to find them for the hike. But last night's pain convinced me that would not be a good idea.

They don't want me along, since no real directions were sent. I need to find a group of poor people to exercise with, who will include those who can't text due to the finances involved. I've posted several times on craigslist attempting to find exercise partners. This was the second response I got, although this time, I responded to a post. I thought the first response to one post I made a few months back was going to be fruitful, but she lived in Corvallis and decided she didn't want me along, in the end, said she had dogs and walks real slow and the fact I'm way over here would make it too hard to coordinate.

I thought I"d talked the Mormon sisters into at least a once weekly walk together, but the time scheduled for our first walk came and went and the one sister who had pledged to come, never showed up and did not answer phone calls.

New Neighbors

New people are moving into one of the rentals. My only worry, there are lots of young people involved again, and I wonder if they'll use my place for parking excess cars. I will talk to them, after they are settled, tell them how much it disturbs me to have my view of the world their cars. That's if they park there. Right now they're just moving in.

Young people usually do not care, but I will try, because otherwise, my life becomes a nightmare and my quality of life is gone.

It is a frustrating thing when people move into a place and have so many vehicles they think it's ok to inflict them on others. I hope that is not the case with the new renters.

I have heard from so many people where this becomes an issue---people who move in nearby but park their cars and trucks in front of a neighbors' place, often because they've stuffed their garage full of junk.

It's really rude.

Anyhow, I hope these new people will be a good addition. You never know. Box of chocolates thing.

Photos of the 3 Cats Fixed Thursday and the Four who were not

Impressive hairball Sam coughed up. He's much happier now!
These four Monroe kittens were under two pounds and so could not be fixed Thursday.
Big John, this gray tux male kitten, the biggest of the five, was over two pounds so he got neutered.
The kittens' Monroe mother was also spayed yesterday.
This rambunctious Albany male also was neutered.

Taco Bell

So....the good news is, vegetarians can eat at Taco Bell and feel pretty happy since news broke their all beef tacos contain pretty much no beef, but various oatmeal derivatives and filler and other products, including, of course, (this is America) high fructose corn syrup.

If you have a gluten sensitivity, steer clear of anything at Taco Bell labeled "beef" or that includes "meat" of any kind.

However, I'm fairly sure other restaurants that claim "beef" hamburgers are actually using recycled rubber products.

Why do I say that? the bounce back effect when you bite into one and the experiment one couple did with a MacDonalds hamburger they left sitting for months with no apparent change in its appearance. It did not grow mold or even attract bugs.

Three Cats Fixed Yesterday

I thought I was taking up seven cats to be fixed. Six of them are from Monroe, a mom and her kittens whom the woman thought were quite big enough to be fixed.

I got it into my head they were teens. I picked up the Albany male going, then the six, at a meeting spot on I5. Alas, the kittens were tiny and I didn't think any would make the two pound weight for spay or neuter, except the one biggest boy.

I took all five up anyhow. The other four were anywhere from four to eight oz. shy of two pounds. The couple have homes lined up for all of them, with relatives, but the other four will have to wait to be fixed.

I delivered some Lym Sulphur dip to Keni, since the two kittens from the nursing home have ringworm. I think they should just go back to join their peers, at this point. She found it immediately after I transported them up originally. I had not checked them for it. The first one caught was caged in the garage with two other adults from the same place until the day before they went up to Keni's.

They are at least four months of age and will be almost impossible to fully tame.

With only three cats to fix, two of them males, the clinic had them done by 1:00 and I came home with them then delivered them to the two respective caregivers.

Furnace man is coming to replace the thermostat today. I better get dressed before he gets here. Miss Daisy wanted to play half the night, and when she wants to play, she races around screaming at the top of her lungs, being deaf. It wasn't fun. I couldn't find my earplugs.

I'm burned out again, not only because people I try to help fix their situation with cats, when they request the help, just don't participate or even call back if I call them. I am burned out on finding homes. I can't seperate the spammers and scammers replying to ads, from real responses. The scammers have become very flexible, replying using words from the ad itself and often sound like real responses. Then I waste my time responding and then, with the second response, realize their fricking scammers.

Then, there has been one case, with someone I know and another with someone who contacted me, where somehow they fake out an ad if you respond, grabbing parts of your material, adding it to theirs, but with their e-mail to I guess increase their local validity.

It's so bad in the cyber world with theives and slimy crooks and bullies, it makes the simple pure act of finding homes for rescued cats a nightmare world of thugs and creeps and liars to navigate through to find the one true blue real interest.

The world has gone to hell, I say.

Utah Legislator Introduces Bill That Says Yes to Clubbing Decapitating, Abusing Feral Cats

Click the post title to read the article, although it will make you sick. Mormons, where are you? Kindness, compassion, come on! Stand up against this. I know a lot of cat loving Mormons.

Best Friends Sanctuary is in Utah.

Condoning such animal abuse is horrible and sends further messages to our already violent society that violence is cool and legal and that we fix human irresponsibility by killing the victims. This is wrong and society will plunge further into decay.

This mess can be directly laid upon the assholes of Utah who don't fix their cats.

This should also sound a stern warning to everyone in Oregon who does not fix their pets or the strays they feed.

I'm so glad I don't live in Utah. My gosh, what a horrible state.

Born in a boat Brutus, and Zuli and Rainy, all could have been legally clubbed to death or decapitated under the Utah law. Those are some wimpy people in Utah that feel so threatened by the likes of Brutus's, Zuli's and Rainy's out there. Pathetic.

Bad Bad Bad Thermostat Cause of Power Draw

Repairman came and left. He has to order the replacement thermostat. Mine is old and shot and must retire. It is a bad bad bad thermostat. Shame on it! It was causing the coils in the furnace to kick in all the time, clicking on, instead of the heat pump. This takes lots of power and is likely responsible for global warming in my immediate area. Bad thermostat.

It's a whacked out thermostat, old as the hills. It's time had come and now is gone.

One day, I will behave in exactly the same manner.

I'll get replaced and thrown away just like my thermostat will be.

My power bill will go down.

Starting Friday, when the screwed up in the workings bad bad thermostat gets replaced.

Yay for working thermostats. I'll take warm showers again!

The coast cop shooter has not yet been found. It is a huge area they are searching and he may well have slipped out of it. His friends and family say his behavior turned odd about two weeks ago,when he had surgery and went on pain meds and broke with a long time girlfriend. Before that, they say, he wouldn't harm a fly. However, he had an obsession with guns and owned many. He always dressed in camo and was known as "Camo Dave" but sounds like a quiet nice guy prior to possible addiction to pain meds combined with the breakup, which maybe made him take more pain meds. If pain meds get combined with uppers like energy drinks, that's trouble.

I wonder if he will fall asleep somewhere down there in the woods or in an empty vacation house and wake up thinking, "What have I done, what have I become?" If he realizes what he did, and is the guy his friends say he is, he'll kill himself.

New Way of Life with High Power Costs

Nasty Pacific Power's rate hike plus all these cats to care for, on pretty much no income, has necessitated a new way of life for me, one that requires even more labor, but there's nothing I can do about it.

The future seems hopeless, in many ways, in that I know life will not get better for me. My income will never increase and costs will just go higher.

So, I now use a headlamp Kate gave me for Christmas, (thank you Kate) for lighting. It's cheap and easy. I just wear it always in the house now and I think I look snazzy. I feel a miner, a freak, a penny wise crazy cat lady! I take even fewer showers. I only wash in cold water and hang dry most of my things over doors. If a load is almost dry, I run a load of mostly dry clothes and towels.

I will look and smell dirtier to other people and I don't care because I have a huge power bill and I have to pay it and that means suffering at the knees of my master, the power company. I have too many of other people's cats here, paying myself for other their irresponsible behavior.

I hope to find Rainy a home as she is highly adoptable and cute!

I want to go off the grid. I will be studying up on solar power, and 12 volt appliances and trying to locate 12 volt appliances used (they're made for RV's already).

Gosh Darn It, How Stupid Do I Feel?

I wanted heat. So I got a magnifying glass and stool, to read the inside of the thermostat. That's what you need. The instructions flip out, but not down, and they're in the teensiest print imaginable. So, you either have to be six foot five inches tall with excellent eyesight, to be able to look down on the flip out instructions, or you get a magnifying glass and a ladder.

I did the latter.

So in the very corner it said, "if display doesn't work, remove the thermostat and change the batteries." So I did. And suddenly, like lightning had struck, the display was all working again, little items I hadn't seen in months, like day of the week.

No wonder I couldn't adjust the temperature. No wonder at times, although I thought I'd left it at 68, I'd wake up sweating and end up having to turn the thing off.

But you wouldn't think it would run off batteries, that the batteries would just be auxillary to keep the clock working if the furnace was shut off or the power went off. You wouldn't think you would need them normally. That there is a problem, I think, a red flag.

Anyhow, I let my brother know, but he said he's having it replaced anyhow because it should work without running off batteries, and because it is ancient.

I feel stupid but glad I changed them before the repair man comes because they like to point out those little things to belittle a person subtle like.

In other news, we got more violence in Oregon. An officer was critically shot in Lincoln City for unknown reason in a traffic stop, then sped off south. The guy is from Sauvie Island, up near Portland. Sauvie Island gained media fame as the likely place Kyron Hormon's body was dumped by his stepmom.

Maybe there's a connnection?

Anyhow, spike strips stopped his truck but he took off, with his dog, a blue heeler, into the woods. He had continued shooting as he was driving and even shot at a crab fisherman on his boat in the harbor when on the run after leaving his vehicle. So the whole coast is shut down and that's a little too close for comfort, being as how it's Walport. They're after him all right and I hope they catch him, but I hope they don't shoot his poor dog. That dog didn't have a choice in getting an asshole murderous owner.

One report now says he may have stolen a car. The fishermen's tale is harrowing, of seeing what they thought was a seal laying on the spit, then it got up and unfolded a sniper rifle and began firing at them. Shrapnel hit him. They hit the deck, turned off the spotlight but the shooting continued. Then he remembered his headlamp was still on and he smashed that. The shots continued before he realized the boats' naviagation lights were still on, so he doused those and only then did the guy stop shooting at the boat.

Matilda and her aodptors live west of Highway 101 in Newport. I e-mailed them and hope they are ok. But the fisherman shooting was in Waldport, south of Newport. Highwayss 20 and 34 head west from I5, just south of Albany, going through Corvallis and Philomath where they split. HIghway 20 ends up in Newport and HIghway 34 ends up, after going up the steep Coast Range twisty turns, past Mary's Peak, then through little Alsea, to Walport.

There are cut off roads all along there, to connect with roads south, like the one that runs through Triangle Lake and Cheshire, etc. etc. you can cut to from Alsea. If he slips through the dragnet and steals a car, he could head anywhere, but they're checking cars on 34 and 20 I hear and of course on 101. So good.

This is a guy who went bonkers after he and a long time girlfriend broke up two weeks ago, paranoid probably from severe sleep deprivation after the breakup the news said. He's going to kill whomever he meets. He's angry. Very very dangeous until he is caught or killed.

Bruce and Josh Turnidge went before a judge today to hear they're getting death in the bank bombing of two years ago that killed two officers. They both went into a tirade in the hearing, no apologies just fricking anti government ranting crap and how they were framed. Those are two egotistical dangerous men. Unapologetic for their crimes. A camera cut to Josh showed him rolling his eyes, when the wife of one officer described the pain the family had gone through since he died.

My brother said he was driving flipping radio stations and Rush Limbaugh came on and did a rant against, of all things, vegetables. Yeah, vegetables. My brother's conclusion is he is a nutcase and getting nutcasier.

Who in the world could rant against an innocent little carrot?

Rainy

I'm going to get new photos of Rainys surgical site that are not so blurred. I'm taking her back in to the vet tomorrow.

I think it's probably caused by allergy to the suture.

In the meantime, I'm taking the Siamese back to the trailer park. She'd make a great pet for someone but she's older, and finding homes for any cat is very hard these days. She's well fed there.

I wasn't going to go up tomorrow, since I cancelled appointments and have no gas $, but Rainy needs seen. The six cats who were scheduled to be done, I have not been able to contact their caretaker by phone. So, without a phone number or address, I don't get cats fixed. So I cancelled for that reason also.

Anyhow, maybe I'll try to take Rainy up today and get that out of the way. I have no idea how much it might cost, is the problem, and I'm so broke.

The power bill issue may be the result of the furnace or thermostat. The thermostat lately is hard to adjust temp as the buttons seem not to function as they used to. I am unable to adjust the thermostat temp up or down often. This morning, since I could not adjust it, before leaving, I turned it off and now, turning it back on, it won't come on at all. That's a big power savings right there--no heat!!!

It's 61 degrees inside which isn't that cold. My brother was already going to have someone come and replace the thermostat, since it's original equipment from the early 70's. I hope that is all that's wrong because furnace repairs, omg, I think the guilt would kill me, with such an expense on my brother.

I don't have a way to pay him back. I wish I did. I told him with these higher rates on everything now, including power, water/sewer and gas, I don't much hope for any sort of a future. My income won't ever get bigger and those higher rates won't ever go down. I told him my only hope would be to somehow go partially off grid for power I could afford. I will be watching ebay for solar cells and panels at cut rate prices. I surely will.

Night Out!

I got invited to a movie by my Corvallis friends Jim and Jane. The movie was ok, we arrived just as it was starting, so no waiting through all those trailers, although I don't mind them. I've been to three movies now since just before Thanksgiving. That's more movies seen in a theater in three months than I've been to in ten years. Things are looking up!

The Kings Speech was the movie we saw. It was a man love movie, about a relationship between the then Duke of York and a speech therapist. The Duke had a speech impediment. He stammered, but soon would have to rise to his fate, when his brother, a philanderer, a.k.a. man whore, chose to marry an American divorcee stripper he met I think in Singapore. He could not continue as King and Head of the Church if he married a divorcee.

And so he left the throne and his stammering brother Albert, who took the name George, became King. Lionel, the speech therapist, insisted on calling him Bertie.

As war broke out in Europe, the new King had to rise to the occasion and make speeches. He finally overcame his stammer which arose from inadequacies he felt that went back to childhood and his father's treatment of him.

The main assetts of this movie were the period sets and clothing and the deep relationship between the king and the speech therapist.

After the movie, we went to get something to eat. At Shari's. I don't like Shari's. I did have a great breakfast there once a couple years ago in Wilsonville while waiting for cats to be fixed.

Jane and I ordered burgers. There was a long long wait before our food was brought, but not Jim's. I could see our plates sitting up on the shelf in the kitchen for some time, before the waitress finally brought ours but not his. I'm sure she brought them over knowing otherwise they'd be even colder. There was what appeared to be chaos in the kitchen with the cooks. The waitress had to field the brunt of the kitchen issues, however.

The burger was burned, yet cold. I couldn't eat it. Jim's breakfast finally arrived and he ate that. I thought maybe I should choke it down, anyway, because the waitress wasn't responsible. That's guilt for you. But I had a beer first and I drink very rarely, so it loosened my tongue. I became mouthy.

I told the waitress I couldn't eat the burger and refused another, citing the time it would take to produce it (probably another 40 minutes). While Jim ate, bunches of students came and went. Suddenly Jane goes, "Look at that. His pants are half off his butt!" I turned around and saw underwear firstly, then pants trailing off down below them.

It was a college student wearing his pants like a gang banger. "Intervention!" I said to Jane, enthusiastically, "Let's go pull them up for him." She wanted to pull them down. We conceded either way we'd be arrested.

Jim finally finished and the bill came. There was no charge for his breakfast or my burger which was great! And fair. I wanted to leave the waitress a tip, for putting up with bad working conditions (cooks that couldn't keep up with orders) but Jim said he would.

It was fun to just get out.

I'm terribly spoiled on food since I cook for myself. Like for lunch yesterday, I had a mixture of ricotta cheese, fresh avocado, green onions and garlic on an English muffin. That would be very hard to beat in a restaurant.

Then four days ago, I boiled macaroni noodles, and mixed into it olives, tomatoes, mushrooms, onions, garlic and ricotta cheese. I froze leftovers and ate the same thing for four nights and wish I had made more. It was delicious.

The cats are driving me nuts tonight. Fantasia has some bone to pick with every other cat tonight. I can't seem to find anybody a home. I'm getting one useless dresser out of here, that just takes up space. It has fallen apart so I removed the drawers a couple months back to let the cats use it as a bed, but the spaces are too narrow for even that between the former drawer bottoms.

So it can get gone from here, leaving me more space, which is good. I'll salvage what wood I can from it, and try to somehow get rid of the rest of it. That isn't easy either, the getting rid of the rest of it part.

Power Bill $200

I knew rates had increased with the power company. I knew the trailer park people told me their bill was astonishingly high. But I put that aside in my mind until I found out my bill for the month--a whopping bill, close to $200. When this is combined with the 7% increase in water/sewer rates and gas price increases now at $3.19 per gallon, how is one to survive?

I called the power company. The woman was apologetic over the increases but there's nothing that can be done.

How do they get away with raising rates so high?

I tried to call my brother but no answer. I left him a message stating I can't afford to live here any longer.

It's true. I've been struggling here for ages and now it seems impossible to go on.

I can't pay the bill. I told the power company that and that I can't sustain living here, but cannot afford to move elsewhere either and I have all these cats.

I already wash dishes and most laundry in cold water. I already take a shower only every other day. What else do I do? I'm sure something is malfunctioning probably the furnace or hot water heater, which is very old. For now, the hot water is getting shut off. My clothes can wash in cold water. I can take cold showers. I can do without lights and use flashlights and battery powered lights. The TV is on a power strip that is shut down when the TV isn't on. Same with the computer. I just tossed the second phone, that useless mobile that rings in the background when I'm talking. It too took power.

I will no longer use the dryer. It's hard, because I don't have many clothes and they take forever to hang dry. FOOOOREEEVER. And towels, you can forget about towels ever drying in here. I have to get the bill cut down. I can't do anything about the duct system which may be leaking heat under the house, or the furnace if it isn't working efficiently. That's beyond my league.

I will borrow to pay this bill and hopefully next month, by severely limiting power use, I can get back somewhat financially. But I can't live here much longer because I cannot afford the place. I don't know what to do. The power company isn't going to ever lower rates. They don't do that. Water/sewer rates are not going to magically decrease either here.

I can't imagine how people are suffering right now, with the basic services massive price increases then the gas prices going up too. It's enough to knock people like me off the cliff. Doesn't take much when you live right on the edge in the first place.

Greed is an ugly thing. It hurts people.

Did Comcast Force out Olberman?

Comcast just bought NBC. Is Olberman too outspoken and funny for Comcast? Just seems coincidental, Olbermans sudden departure and Comcasts recent purchase of NBC.

Killing freedom of speech has become a way of life with the big corporate media. Olberman was funny and outrageous and will be seriously missed. I have only seen him on air once and that one time, he was funny, cracked me up with his pointed jabs.

I hope the reasons come out. If you don't like what a company does, like NBC, or comcast if they are reponsible, you don't watch them or use them.

Companies count on us being sheep, you know, so they can do what they want without anybody saying a word.

Poem Composed in my Car

Driving is booorrrrringg!

So, yesterday, while driving back with the fixed cats, I composed this little poem:

Polka dot morality
Inflicts on us humanity
For instance....
I can not kill thee
And thou can not kill me
But! However can this be?
We both may kill a flea with glee!

by me

That's right. In the car driving poem composition.

I recited it over and over with increasing drama and flair to the anesthesia dazed cats so I would remember it. It rolls off the tongue nicely I think.

The Six Cats Fixed Today Photos, Late, Due to Couch Nap

DMH black female Toothless, from the Crabtree mob of cats, spayed today.
Grayboy, DSH gray tabby male, from the Crabtree mob, who somehow, at the clinic, mistakenly got both ears tipped.
Mama Brown, from the Crabtree group, spayed today. She has three kittens somewhere, who are at least 8 weeks old, who also need fixed, along with one more adult female and one more adult male. This is, if all three kittens have survived, or will be, a 13 cat colony. Eight have now been fixed.
Smokey, Albany male, fixed today.
Tizzy, Albany female fixed today.
And this black Albany male, Smokey's brother, was also fixed today.

Also, in more good news for cats, the Animal Crackers woman caught another of the nursing home cats and she was fixed at Heartland and moves to the relocation shed, where the cats are being held pendng homes found. It was a long hair tabby female. She sadly reports, however, that there are still at least six more.

Portlandia Debuts Tonight!

Out-of-state readers, if any, (everyone in Oregon is already braced) tune in to IFC channel (whatever that is) and watch the first episode of six, in a show dedicated to spoofing Portland!!! Portlandia debuts tonight.

Click the post title to see a clip with song, "Dream of the 90's" promoting Portlandia, on Hulu.

My favorite line from this clip: "Portland is where young people go to retire."

In other news, tomorrow is a big day here: Litter box soak day.

If you want to come and be part of this, entry to watch is $5. To participate will cost you only $10. Child admission fee is $35, due to the high piercing screams they emit, and endless questions that distract from the complex task of soaking the litter boxes in 10% clorox.

Future events will include the always popular "Kill a Flea" day and that will be geared towards families with young children.

Also, I am planning a seminar entitled "How to put the Fun Back in Killing Your Cats' Earmites". I will post in advance the times and fees for that seminar so you lucky participants can sign up and pay early.

Six Cats Being Fixed Today

I've got six cats up being fixed today. Three are Albany cats. Two of those come from a house I've gotten cats fixed from before. She had left a message. It's a house with a history.

A sordid queasy history, to my memory.

The old man who lived there, the current residents' father, had no indoor plumbing and for decades, did his thing in a bucket he then dumped out back. When he died a few years ago, he fell between a space heater, which was on, and the wall. His body was not discovered for two weeks time. It had bloated and exploded. Uh huh.

The low income daughter inherited the place. She has no money to fix it up and clean it up, but is living there nonetheless. She has a meth history. She told me, when she was on meth, one of her cats got hit by a car and it's leg was flopping. She had no money for a vet. So, high on meth, she and a boyfriend, tried to pour whiskey down the cats throat. That was right before they ran the cats broken leg through a band saw. The cat lived another month, probably in agony and terribly infected.

Another young relative, and I can't recall how related, just a young kid, lived with his biological father and when he died suddenly, of a heart problem or drug issue, the kid lived with the dead body for three days.

The house and its occupants have a history. That's what I'm saying.

But she makes sure any cats she gets now get fixed and calls me. I picked those two up and then her adult daughter also had a cat who needed done. I like these folks for whatever reason. They had horrible upbringings, terrible struggles, but always seem to weather the pain of pasts and present with stoic cheerfulness. They're always grateful and respectful.

The other three being fixed are three more from the Crabtree lot. I nabbed one last night and one this morning, by use of the old fashioned way of selective trapping. I rigged a fish line to the door of the trap, running it up and through a plant hangar hook, on the porch eve, and stringing it out to my car, where I tied it off to the passenger side seat head rest. I put a bunch of food in the back of the trap and sat there waiting, with scissors, for an unfixed cat to go into the trap and eat.

I had to wait awhile, while some fixed males went in and out, then the brown tabby female, who somewhere has three two month old kittens, went in, and I snipped the fish line, holding the door up. Door of trap drops, brown tabby prolific female caught.

This morning, I went out early again. I'd made a crucial embarrassing error. I repeatedly called the wrong person. This began at the Circle K. I stopped there about 6:15 a.m. for coffee, and thought I was calling the Crabtree cats caretaker, when I was mistakenly calling the owner of the last Albany cat I picked up last night. I was telling her, from the parking lot, "well, I'm on my way, be there in 20. How are all the cats doing? When we catch them all, we can all finally get some sleep." She sounded a little strange in response, but said nothing else.

So I get to the trailer out in Crabtree, and set up the fish line and all and call her again, thinking I"m calling the woman inside that trailer. I say stuff like "Come on out, shake the food, call the cats, move the dish a foot from the front of the trap and then go back inside." Again, she says almost nothing, but sounds confused, says "I don't see you out there."

By the third time, I realize my mistake and apologize profusely. I said "I probably woke you up! This is what I get fumbling around in the dark, and forgetting you were the last person I called last night, not these folks." She was kind, said she was getting ready for school and no problem. I then called the right number and told the woman I was outside her trailer. The first six digits of both numbers are the same. I did not bother to look at the last four. I was punching redial, on last number called, forgetting I'd called another 791 number in Albany last.

The Crabtree woman was shocked because it was dark, she was up and she had not heard me up messing around on her porch. Made her worry about safety, had it been a thief or worse, that she would never hear them. I reassured her I have learned to tiptoe around in the dark like a cat. I told her about slipping in and out of homeless camps without so much as a flashlight, to better catch the cats without interference and even their dogs didn't hear me.

I was after the one female left, Lucy. There are two other males not fixed there, too. Esther, yeah, that's his name, a blue point Siamese, then Grayboy, a gray tabby and brother of Squeeky. I'd never seen him but when a gray tabby finally strolled into the trap, after many of the fixed cats already had, I snipped the line and had Grayboy. I gave up on Lucy and Esther.

I picked up Snowball, the fat not pregnant Siamese, when dropping off the six. She's in my garage in a hutch. She is ballooned out in a strange fashion. In pregnant looking fashion.

I know she has the ear tip, the spay scar, the vet exam that decreed it's just fat, all that, guess I'm paranoid, don't want kittens at the park. I'll worm her, watch her a week, make sure, before taking her back.

As for the cat who ran into my garage yesterday morning, really early, the neighbor came and looked, said she thinks the cat is owned somewhere nearby, that she's always in her backyard and that she often feeds her there. She carried her back to her backyard and let her go. I had put her in a rabbit hutch in my garage, not wanting her to get hurt by my car going in and out. I think she came in because it was so darn cold.

8 Cats Fixed Today

Former Tangent kitten, adopted out to Albany woman, fixed today. She's the sister of the pair of Tangent kittens also fixed today.
Huge Crabtree male, Tiger, fixed today.
Another big brown tabby Crabtree male, with bobtail, Ponyboy, fixed today.
Crabtree male Squeeky, fixed today.
Black tux teen Crabtree male, Amy, fixed today. That's right. I said Amy. Wait til you see Esther, whom I hope to take in also.
Black tux teen Crabtree female Tinkerbell, spayed today.
Two Tangent kittens, fixed today. The gray tux is the boy.
Wilsonville stray I trapped for a couple this a.m. She turned out to be already fixed and older. They have fed her as a stray for a year.
Stayton trailer park Lynx Pt female, whom, despite being taken in late November to be spayed, trailer park residents insisted she was pregnant again. The vet just called to say he examined her, and found her to be fat but not pregnant. She had the eartip and a spay scar, but since I don't want kittens born again at that park, I wanted to be sure.

8 cats were fixed today, courtesy of Poppa Inc.

One female kitten hails from Albany and formerly is from Tangent. Two siblings of this female kitten also got rounded up from those they were adopted from and fixed. I had gotten their mom and a couple other adults fixed for the Tangent woman and she wanted to be sure the mom's kittens didn't go on, at their new homes, to reproduce.

The other five are all from Crabtree, three big huge honking beautiful males, then two teens, one boy and one girl. There are at least five more adults to grab out there. Maybe three more kittens, not sure.

Also, a vet there at the clinic had referred a Wilsonville woman to me, who called to say she and her husband had fed a stray for a year now and they wanted to catch the cat.

I was late getting up there. That's because the Crabtree woman had trouble getting the cats she feeds contained. In the end, the first big male, tame to her, she grabbed, got loose inside her place. I herded him into the bathroom where he climbed the walls. This is like a 13 pound cat. I got him contained. Same with the second huge male. She got the hang of it by the third big guy and came back in with him hanging by the scruff. She expertedly backed him into a carrier then. She learned quickly.

But, after dropping off those 8, I drove down and quickly trapped the stray. They will pay for that cats expenses.

Then it was off to Stayton. Seems one of the two outside Lynx Point Siamese females, coincidentally the mother of the two teens now featured in pet of the week, in the Oregonian, up in foster in Beaverton, had gotten big in the belly. Supposedly she was fixed November 30 and she probably was. She got an eartip.

But on the outside chance she got missed, that day, when I took in 14 cats including the two identical Siamese Lynx Point females from the Stayton trailer park, I had the woman recatch her and she will spend the night at the clinic and be checked to be sure she isn't pregnant and was fixed. Mistakes happen. I hope she doesn't have FIP or something bad. She's tame now.

So in all, I took in ten cats today. Great day for cats! Not so great day for humans. Why? Gas is now $3.30 per gallon, up ten cents in just the last week.

New Cat

So I go out early this a.m., to pick up the paper, and a long hair white cat whom I've never seen before runs into my garage. I think it is a young female (remember, without glasses and a flashlight, I'm useless at cat sexing).

Now what to do with this cat.

She's sweet and tame and I hope somebody nearby owns her. For now, I'll stick her in my rabbit hutch, until I make sure she has a home. I've never seen her before however, and those people at that complex, about a half mile from here, described a cat, now a stray, who looks just like this one. Oh boy.

I just remembered, the neighbors who moved had a cat who looks just like this. I know they took the cat with them, but it doesn't mean she didn't come back here.

Stayton trailer park Teens are Oregonians Pets of the Week

Click the post title to see the pair of sisters, from the Stayton trailer park, now being fostered in Portland. They were fixed through Poppa Inc. funds. How cool is that? They're now famous!

I did not get a good photo of the pair, that day when I picked them up, just the one above. The sister is hiding behind the Siamese, Bunny. Keni arranged a fosterer and I took them directly to her from their spays, after picking them up that morning at the Stayton trailer park, but had to seriously clean their ears in her bathroom and treat them for earmites.

Cat Photos/Rainy's Adoption Video

Teddy and Jade engage in watching out the window.
Jade relaxes in cat bed.
Shaulin against the ceiling.
Zuli!
Rainy, taken today.
Wild girl Rainy.
Dex, taken yesterday, still doing ok.
Sage in a drawer.
Still beautiful Sage.

Begging

I've decided to give corporate begging a shot.

Street corner begging is ok, for the common bum, but I am more ambitious.

That's why I'm going to upscale begging and beg directly from big rich public corporations.

Wells Fargo, for instance. They already owe me. They stiffed me on that $100 for those bad vaccines. I have no qualms about begging from Wells Fargo.

Give me some suggestions for rich ass corporations I can beg off of.

I have things I need. I need piles of cat food bags. I need cases and cases of canned food. I need free gas by the tanker full, for transporting cats. I need caseloads of Advantage and roundwormer, that actually works (I got a refund on the thin as water pyrantel--my first bad product victory ever! It was a little company, of course, giving the refund. A big company would never do that).

Am I just a little jaded on big companies and their ethics?

Slightly.

So I will beg from them. I got to work out my protocol. Like how do I even find these big companies, in order to beg from them.

The protocol for corporate begging will take some time to work out.

Someone asked me the other day about my beliefs in god and all that hereafter stuff. I said "All I know is we know nothing at all."

That was a damn slippery answer, wasn't it? I was proud of that answer. I was uninterested in e-mail debate on anything.

Then I said, "But take comfort in how absolutely insignificant we all are in the vastness of space and time."

We got a messed up world here, where most of us behave like sheep and let the assholes manipulate everything to make money off us sheep. I don't want to be a wolf but I don't want to be a sheep either.

I want to be a cat, an independent natured sleep in the sun ignore the wolves and the sheep cat. Damn right. And I'm going to beg from corporations.

More Cat Situations Arise

More cat situations that need fixing have come up. A woman in Crabtree has 15 or so needing fixed. Someone in Millersburg has four, and wants me to take them of course, which I won't. Someone in Lebanon has six. Anyhow....

I get discouraged. Means flea treatment and gas for me to pay for. People think everything's free or something.

I went over and bought some Advantage at Heartland. It's cheaper there, and I can buy it by the tube, instead of laying out for six tubes at once. I bought four tubes for about $33. That will do all the cats here once. Or it will do 40 cats I take in to be fixed for other people.

I usually take in about 15 to 18 cats per week to be fixed, if I can also scrounge gas money and if Poppa Inc. has the money to cover fixes, so that amount of Advantage lasts me a little over two weeks just for other people's cats.

There were almost no cats there at Heartland when I was there. I asked one worker, "What happened to all the cats?" She said a Portland area shelter, Cat Adoption, she thought, had said they had no cats and so they took them up a whole bunch and that Safehaven had also.

I sure wish I could get in on such things. The little people never catch a break, I swear.

The old insecurities, of feeling like a ghost, exploited, set in, after I left. I wish I could catch a break like that.

Someone from Corvallis did donate a bag of cat food today. I appreciate that greatly. I go through seven or so bags a month here, for these cats, then deliver three bags a month to the homeless campers for those cats they feed. That's a lot of cat food to buy on top of everything else.

I get usually about five or six bags donated a year, on average.

Having all these cats here, and trying to survive on my tiny budget is not sustainable. The cost of everything has skyrocketed, including power, gas and water/sewer rates here in the town where I live. My expenses skyrocket, my income is the same. There's nothing left to cut out.

If my car breaks down, I'll be in a world of hurt, unable to get cat litter or food for the cats or even food for myself. I know I am walking on very thin ice. I always just hope things will work out.

I need to get a dozen cats out at least. Two dozen would be even nicer. But how?

I have no advertising budget. Petfinder is not really much help, because if people look online, they search for a certain breed and otherwise, visit a shelter or other venue to see all the cats. Petfinder is helpful only if people call and ask what cats I have, then I refer them to see one particular cat, on my petfinder site.

I need an adoption venue.

Oregon Get Floods

Click the post title, out of state readers, to go to an article with amazing videos of floods that converted a road to the new river channel up near Mt. Hood, where temperatures warmed to spring levels suddenly, along with torrential rain, melting snow.

Houses were taken out, properties destroyed and residents stranded. There is flooding, as always, along the coast near Tillamook, near Newport I heard, too, and Waldport had winds blow sand around houses until the sand smothered houses can barely be seen.

The rain here, where I live, in the relatively mild mid valley, has finally stopped. On the drive to the clinic yesterday, I glanced over at the Santiam rest area, to see the river near the edge of the parking lot once again. Reminded me of just after Christmas a couple years ago, when I lived in the rest area for a week, after a lost Siamese. In the end, I trapped three other cats, including Feather who is still here. Then the rest area flooded. Feather, then a tiny starved kitten not much bigger than a large rat, would have lost her life.

Click the post title. Check out the flooding on Lolo Pass Road and up in Zigzag.

Six Cats Fixed Today

Rainy, spayed today.
Tame owned black Albany male, fixed yesterday.
Tame owned black tux male fixed yesterday.
Abandoned chocolate point Siamese female, fixed yesterday. It's her brother I still need to catch to be fixed over there.
Abnadoned tame brown tabby male, fixed yesterday.


Six cats went up to be fixed today, including Rainy, who is indeed a girl. How embarrassing. I told the clinic never to believe my cat sexing again, not until they see me with my reading glasses around my neck, to indicate I haven't lost them again, or stepped on them.

I purchased three more pair at the Dollar Tree two days ago, so for now, I'm good.

The other five were all from a nearby Albany complex, rife with drama and abandoned cats, many of whom are Siamese. One of the supposed Siamese strays turned out to be already fixed, the other was not fixed, and, in fact, in heat. Poppa's president is actually holding the one who is fixed on "stray hold" up there, since Linn County has no place where that can be done. That's on the outside chance she is lost.

Kind of pathetic in a way, that a tame stray must be held in case she's lost and maybe someone would look for her, clear up in Beaverton. Really pathetic. Thank god for Keni being willing. I didn't want to return her if she has no home. No reason for a tame cat to live right on an extremely busy street and be fed as a stray. Happens too much here.

Someone turned over a stray found in Vancouver to Keni, who today, had her scanned. Low and behold she's chipped, so the chip company will attempt to contact the owner and give her or him Keni's number. It doesn't mean she wasn't abandoned. I've found chipped cats before and in every case, the chip information is long outdated and the owner cannot be found.

One can hope.

I had both the Siamese and a tame brown tabby male scanned, from the Albany complex. No chips on either. I had hoped there might be, but I knew there was really no chance they would have chips.

So two tame owned males were fixed from the complex, then the two stray Siamese females, although one turned out already spayed, then the abandoned tame brown tabby male, and the sixth cat was Rainy, from Lebanon. There is also a male Siamese I didn't catch, abandoned with the other Siamese. Or so I'm told. He needs fixed.

I already listed her as Found with Heartland. But there are two other abandoned Siamese at the complex along with other abandoned tame cats, who end up sad, and living under the building. It hurts my heart to even go over there.

I want the one they call Turtle out of there. I got her fixed over there in 2008, when she was abandoned with her three kittens. She looked like this then:She's on the right, barely bigger than her kittens, whom I rehomed. She still lives under the building and has lost an eye to something and is one sad little cat. I can't stand to see her like that. I just can't stand it anymore.

Multiple Gunshots in Albany

I was out in my yard late this afternoon and began to hear gunshots. Sometimes they would be bunched closely together and sometimes spaced apart. They were to the south of me, but seemed to be moving, like someone shooting from a car.

After about ten minutes of shots, I called the police. I figured they would already know what was going on. I figured must be a workplace shooting, like has become common.

They said they already had officers out trying to locate the origin of all these shots. As I was talking to them, more were being fired. I went and got my neighbor, so she could hear them. Guess it was sort of entertainment. By this time, the shots were farther away and farther east.

Wonder what went on. She thought it must be bored kids shooting out a window or from the back of a pickup. Problem with bullets is, what goes up comes down somewhere.

I never heard if they found the shooter. People are so obsessed with guns and when a person gets mad and has a gun handy, that's what they reach for and god help anyone or anything in the path.

I've heard lots of random gunshots since moving here. I've almost gotten used to it and barely take note anymore. But this time, it was so many shots, I did notice. I ingored the first ten minutes of shooting, dutifully, and finally got fed up.

There are just too many assholes out there with issues and guns.

I got a new perspective on the gunshots when in back of an Albany apartment complex an hour later, after some stray cats, for fixing.

The woman I was helping said, "Lookee, the fire department. M, that's a fire truck!" This was when a large truck of some type appeared, in the dark, in the back parking lot at the far end of all the apartments. The woman disappeared outside then came back to announce police officers were out back, along with the fire department checking all the sewers because those bangs earlier were not gunshots but rather pipe bombs going off in the sewers.

Now I love a good story. I love some drama. But this wasn't quite believable.

If there were pipe bombs in the sewers for instance why wouldn't they be checking manholes in the street, not going back behind some fence at the back of a parking lot into some grassy yard behind it. And, for instance, if there were suspected pipe bombs going off, why would they have not warned the woman to maybe leave her apartment immediately for safety sake!

I wandered back to check a trap and ran into a guy coming back through the fence dressed in a yellow suit with a white hard hat and big flashlight.

He looked at me and implored, "Are you having flushing problems?"

This was not the question I was expecting.

"Um, no. My flushing's fine," I said, cheerily, trying not to act confused at all. "How's your flushing?"

"Well, we're having sewage problems around here."

"Oh, great," I said, still cheerful. "With the whole area?"

"No, it's a private thing," he grunted, unenthusiastically, and nodded towards the fence and backyard behind it.

Whatever, I thought. I looked down the back parking lot to what was supposed to be a fire truck, knowing it wouldn't be one, since this sewer guy sure wasn't a cop looking for pipe bombs. It was some utility type truck.

I go back inside and mention to the woman her 'slight' error in reporting who and what was out back. "Oh, really? The sewer is backing up, no pipe bombs?" She was disappointed her own tale was untrue. Hers was so much better than reality.