Getting Out of Albany

I need to move out of Albany. It's very clear to me now. The unfixed cat problem is overwhelming here. Living smack dab in the middle of such suffering is killing me. I need to move to somewhere nice, with hiking parks, walking and biking paths, and fewer unfixed pets and less animal abuse. I can always come back to Albany, to get cats fixed, but living here is literally tearing my heart out on a daily basis.

I won't survive the year if I stay here.

I have to figure a way to get out. I don't know how I'll do that yet.

The finaly two males from Clover Ridge are up being tested, then fixed if negative. If positive, they'll be euthanized. This will cost me. It costs $32 for each cat tested and another $30 to euthanize. I will then have to find someplace to bury them, if they are positive. I am just going to get it done, because I have no choice now. The woman who will take the black and white brothers has a house cat male who is extremely territorial, despite being neutered. She can't take the boys if they're FIV positive. They would not pick a fight with her cat. They're young enough that they wouldn't do that, plus they've been around lots of cats, so they're cat friendly. But he might try to fight them, so they need to be tested, which is why they are being tested, despite the cost. They can't live in my garage in traps.

The second torti is wild. Her diarrhea cleared up quickly because it was worm caused and I had wormed her right off. Her poop was full of dead roundworms, but it is now solid. What a quick resolution of her misery. The bad eyed torti is a little darling, tame and sweet and very young. I am treating her eye problem twice daily. Heartland might take her, but they would prefer to take some kittens. I am going to show her to them. If they see how darling she is, maybe they'll take her on.

Twister, the medium hair orange creme male is also very tame. The only wild ones are the second torti and the short hair cream male, Smolder, who may also be tame, and might be hissy spitty due to the pain of breaking off his tooth. The broken piece got pulled yesterday and he's already feeling better.

The final male, the huge seal point Siamese, is going back to his hood, if he's negative, because someone else is feeding him.

If the black and white boys are positive for FIV, which is epidemic in Albany, then the torti and the orange boy Smolder, who are negative, will go to the barn home instead. They are brother and sister.

I was late arriving at Countryside this morning. I still got the cats there before 9:00 but it was only a few minutes before, so the receptionist wasn't happy with me. Their appointments begin at 9:00, so they want surgery cats there before 9:00. She was right to be mad at me.

I should have arrived earlier and would have, had an Albany woman who had been e-mailing and leaving messages periodically about adopting the tortis, called, just as I was about to leave. I answered only out of my desperation to find these Clover Ridge cats homes.

She said her three year old cat just died of liver failure and that another cat died there, too. I asked where she lives. She lives in the Oakville trailer park. I told her the manager at one point there had thrown, allegedly, two kittens of an abandoned calico, Sierra, into a bonfire.

A man and his wife had brought three kittens to a Eugene FCCO clinic and told the coordinator about this event, stating the kittens couldn't come back or the manager would kill them.

The FCCO coordinator took them in and adopted them out, and asked me to help Sierra. This family fed her but feared she too would be killed horribly. I spent about three weeks trying to trap this savvy calico, trapping a few others, too. I relocated those cats to a woman's place out in Burnt Woods.

She was nice, had a very remote property a mile up a logging road, and claimed she was going to start a sanctuary. A year later, she abandoned them herself, when her place was busted for a very large pot farm. She wasn't going to start a sanctuary, she was pot farming. She called me, on the run, from New Mexico, asking me to go find and save her cats again, which I did. Two are living wondrous lives, up with a WA woman, who really does have a sanctuary.

Anyhow, the Oakville woman who wanted the torti then said she knows the manager still traps cats, but, she claimed, only the wild cats. But I already was wondering if someone there hadn't poisoned her young now dead male and the other now dead cat. I already knew I wouldn't adopt a cat to anyone living in that trailer park, but I couldn't get her off the phone gracefully. I told her I had to leave, to get to the vet, but she didn't take the clue, so I finally just had to hang up.

Then I couldn't find my keys anywhere. I was panicking, knowing I might be late to the clinic if I didn't find those keys. It took me fifteen precious minutes to find them. So, I was late arriving. I still arrived before 9:00 with them and was pulling out of the driveway to leave before 9:10, but I knew she wasn't happy with me. I should have been there by 8:30.

There are people screwing me over, but Countryside Vet Clinic's staff are not those people and I need to be sure and get there on time with the cats.

So I felt bad driving away, and being so tired and stressed, I starting sobbing as I drove. But by the time I got to Jefferson, I got over it and just determined to be there way early from now on, no matter what.