But now, in my bathroom and bored, while he undergoes ear med treatment, he's really come out of the closet as a tame boy.
Last night, he began to signal me he wanted petted by making muffins. He was in the cupboard and usually freaks out when he knows its med time. Not this time.
I knew I would not need the net. So I put a small towel over him in case I needed something inbetween his teeth or claws and my hand. He quickly began a game of hiding his head slightly beneath the towel, to ask I pet him more. I'd stop petting him, scratching his ears and chin, then even his back, and he'd quickly duck part of his head again beneath the blanket.
This morning, I let Sam in the bathroom and Hairy jumped down out of the cupboard trying to figure out how to approach me best to get petted like Sam. He'd move into a corner for awhile, then decide to be brave and come forward. It was cuter than heck.
He could also be conning me, since he's bored and wants out of the bathroom, hoping by kissing up he gets out of there sooner. And technically, tomorrow is his last day of meds.
Maybe the government is going to get funded again. I was thinking I should prepare myself, in case SS ended suddenly, as was threatened repeatedly, if the debt ceiling was not raised, and zillions of other starving and angry old people began stomping the streets, looking for cans and anyone to take out their anger and frustration upon. I could see cars being overturned and burned by the sturdier older crowd while people in wheelchairs or with canes cheered them on.
I have several cases of top ramen, enough to see me through awhile, and I figure I can always trap and eat nutria if I have to, and make shoes and clothes of their pelts. Last resort though. I don't want to trap and eat nutria.
In Oregon, there is hatred for the poor. We feel it, loud and clear. It mostly comes from the extreme right.
I didn't mean to end up poor. I really didn't. I grew up lost with parents who never talked to me about anything. We went to a church grade school where we spent hours daily in a game of who can look up a bible verse first and playing volleyball or dodgeball. I got my first concussion in the first grade playing volleyball, when an eighth grader backed up into me, knocking me over. She landed on my stomach and my head slammed back onto the cement. I woke up in the backseat of a car and was taken home. People didn't go to the doctor then like they do now. My second head injury occurred when I came out of the community swimming pool and a girl, waiting for someone else she didn't like, threw a large rock right into my face. My nose is crooked now, from that, on the inside. I couldn't swim all the rest of that summer.
We never talked about anything at home, futures, nothing. We were supposed to figure it out on our own. My father started fondling me nightly when I was just over ten. I didn't know that wasn't normal either, since we lived in such isolation. I was already climbing out my bedroom window to seek solace in the forest but when he started doing that, I spent a good deal of my time hiding out in the woods. I didn't have summer jobs like my brothers either I worked, starting at 13, for my father at his office, dawn til dark, for no pay. My brothers got pay jobs and I became further depressed. He really mocked me one summer. I was older by then, in high school (also a religious school). He told me he'd pay me that summer, but with a camera. However, after letting me use it three months, he took it back.
I went to college, two years down at a religious college in California, but the biology instructor told me I was wasting myself there, that I was genius level bright and I would not get a decent education there. But he had no idea what all my problems were with my home life, that I was alone, had no one normal to turn to for advice of any kind. I transferred to OSU and almost immediately was referred for counseling and then to a shrink who took me out of school, told me I was nuts, and ruined the rest of my life, because I believed him.
So that, in a nutshell, is how I ended up poor. A county caseworker, signed me for SSI, and having had such a childhood, taught to conform and believe authority, I didn't question that they might be wrong, that I might not be crazy after all. Well that's how I ended poor for life. And after I finally left the mental system, after that beating that nearly killed me, I've been in pain in and out, from injuries after that beating, have had a series of surgeries, and got involved helping cats until that ended when Poppa closed and that's my story. I do the best I can.
I'm poor and at my age, there's probably no way out of it.
Nutria are an invasive species in Oregon that are wildly prolific. They were released here by former beaver trappers, who had destroyed populations of that animal, for their skins, and were looking to find a cheap replacement with a similar pelt.
You don't want a nutria sinking their huge yellow front teeth through your ankle if you step on one, in the dark. They can become quite large, especially the mature males. They eat grass and reeds and stuff but they also eat cat food and I've had two nutria, big males, come at me, which doesn't go over well with me. I charged right back at them.
Their meat is oily and musty and most people would probably throw up on it or gag. But if you're hungry, you'll eat pretty much anything I suppose. I also know I can raise mice, if I must, to feed the cats. I don't want the extra work and mess of raising mice, but if I had to, you bet I would do just that, rather than let them starve or sit wringing my hands.
I think last minute the government people are going to change their diapers and stop howling and get things going again.
You never know. But I have something of a plan devised if they don't, so me and my cats can survive.
For two and a half days now, I've stayed home, nursing this cold and achy sickness. I don't want to spread my misery. By this evening, I'm feeling better but I will continue with the extra rest and fluids for now, to get over it. I drink tea, with honey, and read, then sleep some more. I really want to feel good again so I can get out there and finish projects and get some things done.
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