Dumpster Fire

 The world seems recently like a giant dumpster fire.

I was watching an fb video of some young folks having fun in New Zealand and one of them lamented having to go home to the dumpster fire that is the US.  I thought, "Is that how young people think of the US now?"

Wars, corruption, lies, greed.......

I try to ignore it all.   What else can I do?

My neighbors, red or blue, are my neighbors and I like them.   The people I meet who need help with cats, they're just people to me who need help with cats.  I don't care what their politics, religion, race, skin color, bank accounts are.

We're all trying to survive the toxicity of the dumpster fire.

Hawaii is flooded.  Nebraska is on fire.  The weather is going nuts.  Meteorites are falling.  Ha!   Bombs are falling.   An article yesterday said social security will be bankrupt in six years.  What a dumpster fire it is.  Instead of working together to solve problems, find solutions like adults, our lawmakers just lash out and blame each the other side and the president goes off to bomb another country.   Life goes on and hopefully the fire will go out on its own or it will get doused magically and a rainbow will appear over the earth.  Yes I'm a dreamer, an optimist.

My brother and his wife stopped in Corvallis yesterday evening and invited me to come join them for dinner.   This made my heart flutter.  Off I went.  Had a great time visiting with them.  They were on their way to the Portland area.

I delivered my second drop trap to an 80 plus year old in town two days ago.  My other drop trap remains at the trailer park.  The 80 something yr. old ran into someone from the trailer park in the pet food section of a store and lamented to the trailer park person she needed to get the cats she fed fixed but hadn't found a way to do it yet.   So the trailer park woman gave her my number and she called me.   I made appointments at the Corvallis private surgery clinic, for Wednesday.  She's now feeding the four cats under the drop trap and in a live trap.  Hope we can catch the four Tuesday.

I'm an old lady, a cat trapper.  I love cats, books, campfires, mountain lakes, dark nights, stars.  

We exist on a thin crust atop a large rock in space.  Our lives depend on a fragile layer of atmosphere hanging around this rock.  Let's not think too much of ourselves. We better be careful.

So Long Neighbors

 My neighbors in the rental next to me are not gone yet.  But they will be gone soon.  They plan to leave by May 1.

He is I think going to Georgia, with the RV, to live on friends property and she bought a mobile home over in NE Albany.  It's really nice.  I went there with her yesterday when the first paint contractor came to give her a bid.  She went back later when another came.  The inside needs painted and recaulked at seams.

Other than that, its in great shape.  Nice spacious kitchen.  Big wide open living room with lots of windows.   Two bedrooms proper plus a third room that can be a hobby room, extra bedroom or office.  Laundry room.  Fenced nicely maintained backyard and garden with a large storage shed.   The carport also has a storage shed.

It even has a lift to get groceries, heavy items, even her, from car level to door level.  It's only about five steps, if you use the porch steps but she is disabled. 

It has a covered deck too.  

He's got the RV out front right now.   He hired someone to clean it.   I don't know if its leaving from there to go to Georgia.  J, the lady, said he might be flatbedding it out to Georgia.  I don't really know.   It's a lot of work to move and they only have a little over a month.   

Then it will be new neighbor time again here.  I dread that.   It's a rental house. I think about people with dangerous or constantly barking dogs and also people with excess cars that then get parked all over.  Oh well.  Nothing I can do about it.  

He's trying to sell his classic car--a 93 Cadillac Alantra convertible.   I've only seen him drive it a couple times since they moved here.  It's very cool looking but convertible's in Oregon aren't practical.

Five More Cats Fixed Today

 I took five more cats up to be fixed today.   

I took up Splotch and Einstein from the trailer park.   Then from the sisters I took up Spot and Stripe, both teen girls.  My goodness there are lots of cats around that place.  I got most fixed a long time back though.  These are the last needing done there.

And I took another stray girl who had run into an open garage area and then they found kittens in an old couch.   She's very starved, poor thing.  The lady is going to hold her with her kittens and give her lots of food.

I saw three more unfixed trailer park cats as I left there yesterday evening.  Two big blacks and then a young black tux teen.   

I'll probably be working cats at that trailer park the rest of my life.   Just being realistic.

Today has been drop dead gorgeous.  Super wonderful.  Sun out!

I'd like to be vegging out by a lake somewhere.  

Later, staring into the stars by a campfire.

I didn't get home til after 5:30 p.m. though, from returning a few of the cats.  

Some folks can recuperate their own, which makes things easier on me.  

Spot, a girl

Stripe, also a girl

Starving mom Moon.  She overnighted in my bathroom, so I could feed her quite a lot.

Splotch, the hormonal boy, now neutered

And Einstein, a blue pt. boy.

Today's cat round up and fixing is a wrap!!!  Five more lovely locals fixed.    Which is good.

Shiny Headlights

 A few days ago I shined my yellowed opaque headlight covers.  They're plastic, like so many things are on the exterior (and interior) of a car.

Scratched up too.

I cleaned them off then applied PlastX to a scrubber spunge and rubbed them down.  I did this twice on each headlight, wiping it off after each scrub job.   After that, I applied Turtle Wax, let it glaze over dry, then polished off.  So far so good.

Yesterday afternoon turned beautiful.  I'd received my second plug in device from my car insurance company.  I plugged it in, packaged up the old one to send back, and took a 20 minute drive.  I thought once I got back I'd have that email from insurance company "Good job.  You plugged in the new device."  I didn't.

The first one worked on my end, beeping when it should beep, lights on it were on.  But apparently it never communicated (via cell tower) with the company.  I kept getting alerts that I hadn't plugged in my device when I had it plugged in.  My insurance company had doubled my rates without even telling me they were going to do that when I've never had an accident or ticket.   I had called them and asked for an explanation and a cheaper rate.  Well this was their solution.  Plug in this device, you get a discount.  Only the device never worked.  At least it never communicated with them that it was working.  It seemed to work on my end.  So they said they'd send a replacement device.

I fear this second one will be the same.  The first one pissed me off royal.  It triggered all those emails about me not plugging it in, when I had, so I'd call them up, tell  them yes its plugged in......like my insurance company is my new clingy friend, the one you want to ditch.  And maybe its a scam anyhow.  Offer a discount if you plug it in, but they don't really work, they try to blame me somehow, tell me to send the device back, lose discount, pay even higher price for nothing.  That's what I started thinking last night.

My neighbor got the app type driving monitor, also when trying to find a cheaper rate.  She said she turned it off because of the constant alerts and beeps from her phone.  They're extremely intrusive.  Hey insurance companies, we're out here just trying to survive, with high gas prices, high everything and you insurance companies raising rates like crazy.  So nice your execs have yachts and second homes.  Please don't be jerking us around for sport on the side.  I don't know that my insurance company execs actually are that rich to have yachts and second homes.   I have a resentment to the ultra rich and their manipulative control freak tactics on us peons and their control over politics too.

I think its funny sometimes that conservatives howl about socialism and call health care insurance socialism but fail to see that car insurance is certainly socialism.  Good drivers paying the price for bad drivers.   The insurance roles are full of both good and bad drivers.

Here's what AI says about car insurance and socialism:

• Arguments Against It Being Socialism:
  • Not Socialized Means of Production: True socialism involves state ownership of the means of production (e.g., government-run car repair facilities and insurance companies). Private insurance is not state-owned.
  • Risk-Based Pricing: Unlike socialist distribution (based on need), insurance premiums are tailored to individual risk—higher risks pay more.
  • Profit-Driven: Insurance companies are private, for-profit entities, not public services.
• Arguments Linking It to Socialist Principles:
  • Pooling Risk: It involves a collective pooling of resources, similar to social insurance programs.
  • Mandated Coverage: Government-mandated insurance can be seen as a "social construct" to ensure collective safety, where all drivers contribute to cover the costs of accidents for a few.
  • "Privatized Socialism": Some consider it a hybrid—a private system using socialistic methods to spread costs. 

Trailer park lady with my drop trap caught an unusually marked male, we'd hoped to get for awhile.  He's extremely hormonal.   He is black but has white flecks and streaks in spots.  After she caught him, she covered the drop trap and called  me to come transfer him out.  I did.  She had a couple 2x4's atop the dark brown blanket covering the drop trap along with a small potted plant between them.  "Aw," I remarked, "how decorative." 

I got him transferred into a live trap.  Calling him Splotch.  I first met him at the park when he suddenly jumped up onto my car hood, before he realized someone was in the car and took off.

Splotch makes an appearance

Caught last night

Some of Splotch's unusual white 

Cloudy day again.  Not fair since we had some hours of sun yesterday.  Made me sun giddy.  But then there's today.  Up and down.

Passing Rainy Days

 Oregon has been very very wet the last few days.  Portland and the coast more so than here.  Today the atmospheric river is allegedly ending.  Won't that be nice.  Very windy today.  I sit in my chair, reading mostly, and watch the wind whip the arborvitas back and forth at the back of my neighbors yard.

Jack says hello!  Jack is a sweet boy who can also be a big ass.   Hormones flare when I have an unfixed male running around spray marking and fighting outside.  That was Rascal.  He's fixed now but it will take awhile for his hormones to diminish.   He hangs out around my place a lot, especially when hungry.

I don't think he has a real home.  If he does, whomever it may be is quite a negligant owner.

Hopefully in a month or so, Jack will calm down as Rascal's behavior changes.  I hope so.

My cat yard has "windows" and so strays, neighbor's cats, etc, can interact with my cats.  For the better or worse, depending on if they're fixed.

The moved cat structure has caused a lot of excitement for the cats.  They love its new place.  Well, for once I'm not in the dog house over something with my cats.

I'm thinking about moving around more items.   There's a big tall thin cabinet that was never any good but they use it to jump down to the top of it, then on from there.  I'd like to rid myself of that completely but first need to think of something to replace its current use, as a jump off point.  Same goes for a very ancient dresser, whose drawers are long gone and their space once used for cat beds.  But they no longer use its interior and the exterior is beat up from age and use.   It needs to go too.  Same issue---its top is a jump off and sit point.  Both those items were cheap used crap to begin with.

I've been watching episodes of the Great Canadian Baking Show.  It's very civil and polite just like the British version.   

I have watched gas prices around here skyrocket, cringing each day as they climb higher, wondering how I should be doing things in order to survive.  The thing with gas prices is when they go up, so does everything else, because everything gets transported.

Food prices are already quite high.  I fear they will go up too.   I get a food box once a month.  It contains nothing fresh but usually has a couple cans of corn.   I make mexican street corn, with it, not the exact version popular since I don't like mayonaise, but its close.  It's quite good.  I also like corn mixed into mashed potatoes.  Today I made peach cobbler with two cans of peaches that came in the box.  

My neighbors will be gone soon.  She finally bought the trailer she originally looked at in the park over by the fairgrounds.  It's a very well maintained mobile home, with a fenced yard, deck, all kinds of nice things.  I think she'll love the location too, very near a dog park.  I'll miss her though.  She'll still be in town but its not like being able to run next door for coffee or whatever.  She's the first neighbor on the block like that.   Her roommate, the former truck driver, I don't know where he's going but I think he's taking the RV back east or south, somewhere.  He has friends I think who want him to move onto their property with them.

It won't be for awhile.   She's been gone for weeks down south visiting her family members.

Monday is my day with five spots at the OHSS clinic.  I had to switch caregivers late for those spots and am happy I was able to do that so close to them.   A Mill City friend and if we're lucky, a Salem friend and myself are going to breakfast after cat drop off.   I'm super excited about that.  I haven't seen anyone I know in a long time.

According to my weather app, it will rain all night tonight, but then we will have some days without rain.  They won't be warm or nice, but at least its not supposed to rain again until (according to my weather app) next Friday, after tonight.  I checked a different weather app that isn't so positive and says there will be days of rain in the next week.  

Dreary Forecast

 Gloom and rain today.  Really depressing weather situation.  

Next three days I think we're supposed to get 3 to 4 inches of rain.  That's way too much.

If you want my opinion. 

 But my Idaho brother tells me they really really need rain where he lives.

Please, take some of ours.

Anyway, I got shell shocked at the gas station this morning, with the extremely high cost per gallon of gas.   It's been going up at rates I can't believe.  I only bought four gallons.

P's latest war is the problem, the internet says.  I wish someone would take away his war toys.   And costs will likely get worse, as the cost of everything is tied to transport costs.

So I am hunkered in, at home, bound here by the weather coming in, and the high cost of doing anything or going anywhere.   My cats will be sick of me soon.  Ah, just complaining about nothing really.

Sun, I need you.  Badly.

Clean Up Days

 

Gigi likes to take over my lap when I watch TV.  She now tolerates the presence of old Fantasia, who also likes to be on the chair with me.   Fantasia has a constantly flicking very long tail.  Gigi exhibited extreme patience, I thought, with that tail whapping her in the face.

This morning I got one weekend chore out of the way and changed the cat hauler car cabin and engine air filters.  The cabin filter was especially overdo for change but I've put it off, because for some reason, those little thin filters cost a small fortune.

There was an unknown long hair black cat out front of my place when I got home from getting the cabin filter.   Oh no, I thought, not another.  The cat took off instantly when I just looked his way.  Another male, is my guess, out looking to get himself in trouble.

I've been involved in the big clean up, which takes me awhile.  Cleaning 19 traps.  Laundering all those cage covers.  Cleaning up in the garage where the cats were, before surgery.  Cleaning the car inside which is really stinky, after such a large number of cats caught a ride in it clear to Portland.  The 19 cats I took up were largely males, many were very large males.   So you can imagine.

I only have five more appointments this month, which is good, to take it a bit easy.   I start PT for my back end of the month.  I have to have at least six PT appointments before I see the neurosurgeon again.  Strangely, my back seems to be improving after a few weeks doing simple exercises I found on youtube.

I'm really happy about that and hope improvement continues.

Other than that, life goes on.  I read books, catch cats, enjoy my own cats and long for summer.  I lead a simple but busy in spurts life.  I do love helping people solve their cat issues.   But I also enjoy my home life, with my own cats, very very much.

I love youtube.   It's so helpful.   Today doing errands I got honked at twice, after red lights turned to green and I struggled to get the car into first gear.   It's been slipping out of gear, hard to get into first gear---linkage very very loose.  So I get on youtube and discover quick cheap fixes for a loose linkage cable or a broken or missing bushing where it attaches.   Hoping its that simple.  They don't sell the bushings, just a replacement cable so youtubers have all kinds of DIY's for that bushing.  One of them just uses plastic bumper clips.  Plastic screw anchor might work too, with a bit of remodeling.