Fried

The Solomon adoption went bad. The young woman knew he was former feral. I had told her also I had not worked with him a lot, because of my intense schedule. She only gave him a few hours chance, too, saying her own cat, which she didn't know was deaf until yesterday, attacked Solomon.

She'd stated she had experience working with stray and feral cats. She said she had the time to work to socialize him. She only gave him a few hours, before she began sending me e-mails about how her cat hated him. Anyone with cat experience knows it takes time for an established cat to accept another.

I picked him up this morning. He was traumatized and had drainage from one eye. This is from stress.

When I got home, I had a vicious e-mail awaiting me from this woman, accusing me of all sorts of things and telling me how lucky I am that she's a nice person and hadn't hurt Solomon.

People are always telling me what I should do, like they do anything at all, or try to do anything at all. It's hard. I do the best I can. I do a lot.

It might be time to quit. I've thought about it for a long time. But what would I do then? And who would step forward to help the strays?

I was talking two of my neighbors about it, just briefly, when driving out. One began about how he hates animal abusers and used a racial slur to describe a man caught abusing horses on Animal Planet, like animal abuse is the domain of blacks. I didn't know how to respond to that one either. I lit in on white ass animal abusers of Linn County, is what I did then, because for gosh sakes mr. white white conservative neighbor, around here, the animal abusers are mostly white. I want out of Linn County! I want to live somewhere nice. PLEASE!

I like this house I live in. It's so much nicer than any place I've lived before. Now if it were nestled in near Bald Hill Park, I'd be in Heaven. Can't have everything. I know I'm lucky to have a roof over my head these days.

If I were not going through menopausal symptoms and tired, I suppose this would not be a big deal.

Telling people what they are or are not doesn't do shit. Better to let it go. Sometimes you got to vent. Tonight I'm venting.

I'm also tired because a cat got dumped on the Highway 34/99E interchange. She's having trouble and will die, like the other cat, a muted calico, did. But it is a dangerous place to try to trap with no place to park close by.

I've had no luck trapping her. With it such a large area, she traverses, she'll have to stumble upon a trap. Or I'd have to set a lot of them in a large area. But it's only safe to do so at night, when there is no traffic. This has cost me in sleep the last few days. Lost sleep makes me cranky.

I finally pulled the trap last night. Then I saw her again, white against the green of one of the on ramp triangles of grass, this morning, when I was on the way to retrieve Solomon, who no longer will be up for adoption. I can't put Solomon through that shit again. That little calico is a ghost cat now. She won't be among us much longer.

Anyhow, it's been a long day. I returned the five cats from the barn I caught the other night. They were glad to be gone. Three girls. Two boys. The sixth cat I netted over there was taken by the barn owner to her vet and I haven't heard yet what the outcome was. He's the one whose head twisted funny to the side and he walked like one side didn't work. I imagine he's dead now. Something awful was wrong with him.

Tomorrow I'm taking up five more cats, all from the Old Salem and Main area of Albany.