Sunday, January 15, 2017

Cabin Fever!

The cold outside lingers, but I hear today the warm up may begin.

I'm cabin fevered!   I watched the netflix series OA and enjoyed the first season.  I find it poignant and charming.

I finished reading The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck.  I enjoyed every minute of that book.  I didn't want it to end.   It contained so much wisdom.  The book's secondary plot is a study of the economics of change and in particular, the devastation wrought on little people by bank ownership and control of land and housing.  A banks ability to throw people off property, and even to manipulate the prices of commodities by holding loan threats over farmers, who then must bow down, to survive, and cast their own woes onto the backs of workers, desperate to eat, with slave level wages, are eery echoes forward to today's world.

I enjoyed especially Chapter 11's essay on what becomes of the houses taken back by the banks, then by the land itself, after the tenants are forced from it.

There was also a chapter, told with Steinbecks' delightful genius, about a diner along Route 66, the route many of the dispossessed migrants took, from their former homes, to the promised land---California.

If you succumb to Cabin Fever, during this endless freezing winter, pick up Grapes of Wrath and read it with half a mind to events today.

I've cleaned and cleaned and slept and slept and looked out the windows again, to see if maybe its warmed up and the cold has eased, still in pajamas, fresh from a package, because my brother bought me some for Christmas, but they're way too big, so big the pants cuffs cover my bare feet when I try to walk and hang off me like a sack and the sleeves hang down off my arm and cover my hands.

I wear them though because it reminds me somebody thought about me, wearing those sweat pants for ten years at night, same ones too, and got in their car and went to a store, and fretted for awhile over which ones to get, what might fit, what color, what material, this set or that one, and finally settled and stood in line and paid and went home, and wrapped them up in Christmas paper after pulling the old rolls from last year from the back of a closet, tied a ribbon around the pretty paper, decided it looked o.k. enough, remembered to put the package in the bag in the car, on their trip, when they stopped on their way, to say hello, and finally set the package in my lap with a grin and a "We hope you like it".

I wear them with certain warmth provided, that has nothing to do with the material they are made from.

One of these days I'll sew up the hems to fit proper.  One of these days...

Maybe now that I finished Grapes of Wrath and everything's cleaned four times over.

I've been caring for Barcellona, from the rural trailer park, whom I trapped and got fixed but then was told by the clinic he had severely bad teeth.   I knew he couldn't go back like that.   But he's got a vet appointment next week and afterwards, a new place to call home.  It's just waiting now, and chatting with him, (he's in a cage in the garage), and hoping his lice die off soon, because he can't even be in my bathroom til I'm sure they're all dead.   But they'll be dead by week's end, he'll have had his vet care and he'll be gone too.  In the meantime, I pamper him and baby talk him, and feed him everything he will eat.  I can tell he's gaining weight fast too.   Maybe he's 7 lbs already now instead of the 6 he was at fixing.

I've been trying to tame these stubborn three girl kittens from the Albany colony too.  I moved them to the foster cage.  It's Arizona, the black tux, being the hold out, the tough girl.  That kitten loves to play!!!   Rum and Jamaica are coming around, but will they ever be tame enough to go to a shelter to be seen, to be fallen in love with, to find homes?  Panic sets into me.  I don't want three more cats here for life.
Rum, she's getting big


It's so hard.  People don't get involved around here much.  Hard to find anyone that might help with taming that hasn't already been overwhelmed.  If you're willing to help, immediately, a zillion people want you to help them right now.  There's just too few involved!

I hear its going to warm up all of a sudden and it could melt all the snow out there in the Cascades and the Coast range all too suddenly and all that rain we're supposed to get plus all that run off could mean floods.   Ok.   That's just fine.   If the weather people are even right.  They're so often wrong I'm not worried.  I won't worry about that til it happens.  Or doesn't.   Only a few more months til the too short summer.

I just got a call, a cat call.   Unfortunately, the camp host who cares for the county park cats, got laid off.  She's still feeding the park cats, but has to park her RV along streets til she can get back in, to pay camp, and she's overwhelmed by too many rescue from the county park in her RV.  She's wanting to give up the two kittens born in the berry vines that she has, Susie Q and Little Simon, plus Darkly, the sweet male I took to be fixed just a couple weeks back. I got the kittens fixed too.

I told her I'd come get them.   I know she can't handle them all and I'll help her but I got to find somewhere for them to go, so they can get homes.   I wish the big shelter in the county would help more.  But if I tried to get them in there, it would cost money, a lot of money.

Susie Q from the county park now needs a new home

Little Simon, Susie Q's brother, needs a new home too

And Darkly needs a home.  He was left by campers and helped by the former camp host and I got him fixed a couple weeks ago.  






9 comments:

  1. I've never read "Grapes of Wrath" although I know my education won't be complete until I do. Right now I'm reading "Catch 22". Another classic that is written by Joseph Hellar's very clever mind.

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    1. I read Catch 22 a long time ago. Don't remember much about it except I don't think it made much sense to me back then.

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  2. Anonymous1:18 PM

    Ahh...excellent reading. I read Grapes years ago and remember it vividly. Thank you for all that you do. I truly wish I could adopt every one. I mean that. Hugs.

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    1. Wish you could just adopt three little wildish girls!

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  3. I really like Grapes of Wrath. And Catch 22. I should reread them both.
    Thank you so much for everything you do. I too would like to adopt each and every one you feature (particularly the black babes).

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    1. I wish I could somehow bring you the black girls. They need somebody to call their own badly.

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  4. Anonymous5:43 PM

    You are right. At times we need to remember the effort that goes into giving something rather than whatever the gift is. Grapes of Wrath is an outrageous price for an ebook. US$11.24 or in Australia AU$15. I like the look of Little Simon.

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    Replies
    1. That is a crazy price. I got mine almost free, at the $5 for a grocery bag full of books, at the Hammond library. It's kind of ratty, an old paper back.

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  5. Thank you thank you thank you for all you do.

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