Worn Down and Out

I am worn down and out. $21 more bucks for antibiotics for the orange male with the absess, from Clover Ridge Road. No leads on homes for either him or the sweet black and white male--Frap. They've been in my garage in cages. They'll have to move elsewhere due to the extreme heat in the garage. It will be too hot for human or animal now in the garage until fall.

I have given up that I will ever have a cat yard here. My brother's too busy but he doesn't want me trying to make one out of scrounged materials. And the logistics with the garage in the way make it nearly impossible anyhow.

Doesn't matter.

I want to leave. The cats hate it here, without cat runs or a way to enjoy the outside.

I want to live where I can see the stars at night, where I can walk to downtown and have parks to hike in. The concrete and crushing traffic, the noise of Albany, is killing me and not softly. The culture here is completely different than I am used to. I just want a hideaway along a river. I had so many places in Corvallis and around there, that I could run to, to get away. I miss having my window wide open nights, to the night air, cold or hot, and the stars in my eyes as I fell asleep. I miss that so much I just want to cry.

Living here is so far from who I am, what I like, that I can't even recognize my life anymore.

I am convinced the lack of greenery, the concrete and car culture is what makes people turn to drugs, crime and angry outbursts.

I told my brother I want him to sell the house today. In an e-mail. He did not reply. I know, he doesn't have time for that sort of shit. It's his house. I guess he can rent it once I"m gone if he decides not to sell it. I have to stay here a year, to keep HUD. Stay here, here, until next February. The thought kills me.

Some woman called today, was insistent I get her cat fixed immediately, that she's had kittens, and she wants to go join her husband in the mountains. So, I have this feeling, although she says she's going to keep the cat, that she intends to dump the cat on me, because she was just insistent about me picking the cat up to take up to be spayed. I told her she should get a SafeHaven voucher to get the cat fixed. So, I am fairly sure if I took the cat up to be fixed, this woman would not be there when I got back with her--forcing the cat on me. So I won't be getting her cat fixed. I don't trust her. Besides, I did give her a way to get the cat fixed, through a SafeHaven voucher.

Another woman who adopted a kitten from me a year ago, says she got another kitten from a friend and would like to know a free way to get the cat neutered. I haven't returned her call because she calls on a long distance number cell phone and I don't have long distance.

I trapped five more cats, four of them females, two of whom are pregnant, at the Millersburg colony. The third and fourth females are the mothers of the two sets of kittens Heartland now has. And the fifth cat is a black male. Total adults fixed there as of tomorrow--12, with seven kittens removed.

Frap, the black and white male, also had an absess, but it ruptured. I thought he was fine, good to go, UNTIL I had him on my lap in the garage tonight and looked into his mouth. Most of his teeth look just fine. But a front top tooth, the long sharp one, is unbelievably brown and disgusting, looks a quarter inch wide and has the appearance of a chunk of wood. Maybe it is a slice of wood up in there and not a tooth. Just made me want to sob.

Both boys need tested. And if negative, Frap needs whatever that is, pulled out. But I'm broke. And to further complicate matters, my vet officially quits his practise in just a few days. He can't get this cat in, even if I had the money, since his schedule, up to his last day, is full.

I don't know what I'll do for a vet after he quits. He says he has an option when he sold to lease the clinic for use up to a year. But I"ve heard from others he plans immediate retirement and a move to Tennessee. I could hardly blame him if that's true.

I keep asking clinic staff what's going to happen with the new vets, if prices are going to skyrocket, if they'll keep taking Poppa funds, but nobody knows. So my future is also up in the air.

For now, it's these two boys who need tested and treated. I have neither the money nor a vet now where that could be done. The Clover Ridge cats, second time around, have broken me. Just like the first experience a few years ago did, on that same road, only a block away.

For cats, that road is better termed Hell Street and the occupants, who just seem to turn their eyes away from any suffering without a problem, I call "Albany devil's helpers". I got to make up these fun little labels to just be able to keep on going.

At 10:30 tonight, the phone rings, waking me up and it's V, the former Boondoggie, which means only one thing---she wants something of me, probably to take on all her cats because she's decided to leave, or some other huge cat favor. I hung up on her, telling her it was rude to call someone that late. They never call unless they want something of me, right now, this minute, that will cost hundreds of dollars. Maybe that black cat she claimed was fixed, then let loose, and watched get pregnant, but would never even watch a trap to catch her, over a months' time, has had kittens. I don't care. I am not V and M's 911 or open wallet. I am sick of them leeching me dry for a year now.

Doesn't anyone at all ever think that maybe all the work I do for free to help them, maybe they should return the favor or pay back the money, or even make payments to POPPA, say when POPPA pays to get their 15 to 20 house cats fixed? What is wrong with people around here? Why do they think they are entitled to free fixes, paid for by the hard work of volunteers, and that they should do nothing in return?