Saturday, February 23, 2008

Zoned

I am zoned. I am a zombie. I am the walking dead. I am staring empty eyes. Zonked. Conkled.

I got up at the crack of dawn, or maybe before, fed all my cats and cleaned their litterboxes, then I cleaned the litterboxes and fed the five ferals from Whitey2, now housed in three rabbit hutches.

I had to be in Tigard by 7:30 a.m. with 8 cats from four households in Albany. Three of the households reside on HTN street of nightmares. I believe the count on those two short little Albany streets is now at 83 cats fixed.

I was not able to get up early enough to also transport the five whitey2 cats fixed yesterday back to Corvallis. So I housed them in the hutches.

Off I went. 6:35 departure. I still got to the clinic by 7:40 a.m.

Afterwards, I wasn't sure how to kill the five hours til pickup. So I went over to Keni's. She was headed off to work however. I talked to her briefly before she left. I had breakfast with her husband and grandkid. We had cinamon French Toast. I made some coffee after spilling the coffee all over their counter.

Keni suggested I head out to RG. The owner of the property just had a birthday. I think it was her 81st and Keni said she'd been asking about me. She wasn't there when I first arrived, so I wandered over to the nursery. The nursery has drastically changed. The area available for stock is much smaller. Keni no longer manages it. Someone else does, for a salary. The two volunteers there were worried, because the stock is so low. I noticed a motorcycle inside the barn and asked if it was for sale or something. One person told me it wasn't, that a friend of the salaried nursery manager is storing it there. At least I think that's what the person told me.

I guess I'm slightly worried. I don't know the new nursery manager. Nobody has ever been paid before at Poppa. This was a desperation measure to get someone to manage it, since Keni couldn't anymore. Great loss for RG, to lose Keni's love, organizational skills, work ethic and dedication to that place. Keni is a doer, too, not a talker.

Paying one person in a nonprofit can create volunteer resentment sometimes. Especially if it is perceived ever that they are not earning that salary. Well, I hope it works out, because I rely on the money made by Poppa to keep fixing cats here. There are no programs in the mid valley.

So anyhow, soon D, the property owner got back and we chatted awhile. I did a few small chores for her, in her place. She had to leave again almost immediately. She offered me lunch, which I made myself, from things in her frig. Then she headed off. By this time, it was time to pick up the cats at the clinic.

I stopped at the rest area on I5 south and someone came up to me at my car. She is homeless and lives at the rest area, along with almost three dozen others. Some of those folks have lived there for years. She invited me over to her lawn chairs, set up around her truck, next to another truck. Inside that pickup, a man on disability has lived for a few months, just in the cab, with his spayed calico kitty.

This woman left Nevada, she said, due to domestic abuse by a husband. She used to live in Oregon. She lived briefly with someone in Salem who kicked her out after awhile. She does try to work temp jobs, clear in Portland, which is a bit difficult to maintain, when she's living in the cab of a pickup way to the south. She is registered with several temp agencies, but can't find permanent work or save enough to get a place. She's lived there since last Thanksgiving that way, mostly just sitting in the cab of her pickup, since it's been so cold and wet, if she hasn't found a temp job to work.

I felt very fortunate after talking to her.

I came home and delivered all the cats back to their owners. I am very very tired and my back and right leg hurt very badly, so much so that it is painful to walk. My right shoulder is hurting too, and my neck.

I am going to bed. Tomorrow I'll deliver home the Whitey's.

14 cats fixed in the last two days.

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