Bad Attitude Back

I'm grumpy today after not sleeping well last night. Then, the farm woman, who was to have three more unfixed cats there, contained and ready for me to pick up this a.m., in carriers, didn't have any of them contained, and had only one filthy carrier. So I was late. Then, the old couple supposed to be trapping two strays they feed, hung up on me repeatedly last night, when I was attempting to call to see how it was going. I'd left them one trap after I went over myself and trapped one of the two. The other one was nowhere to be seen. The husband answered after I called the couple upon returning from Philomath late last evening, after setting a trap in a barn there, for a stray.

He said he didn't know anything about a woman helping them catch the cats, and I must have the wrong number. I tried to get him to put his wife on, but he hung up. I tried two more times. He'd answer, then hang up without saying a word. I finally went to bed.

His wife told me today, he shouldn't answer the phone because he can't hear and might be demented or something, with his memory and thoughts. Guess he once told some carpet people, that they'd already paid and ordered a carpet to be installed, to just go away, when they called, to let them know they were on their way over.

Turns out, a neighbor cat was in the trap all night, but I couldn't convince them this was bad, that it would deter getting the other cat they feed caught. I couldn't convince them it would be good to catch her today or to reset the trap, because if they wait until I return the one getting fixed today, then they'll just be recatching that one over and over. It was useless to try to talk to them about it. They were supposed to call the vet and arrange to pay for the cat being fixed today and the shots they wanted the cat to have, but hadn't when I called them again at noon.

The calico wrecking yard kitten is losing her battle with coccidia. She's in the process of dying. Her mother now has it also. I kick myself hard for taking in those Shedd kittens. The brown tabbies brought in coccidia. And I put those wrecking yard kittens at risk, not knowing they had it.

I should have let them die there, in Shedd, in the care of that man, who still is angry I bugged him until he finally donated a hundred dollars towards fixing the six adults, half of them completely tame, that he could have gotten fixed, and prevented these kittens from being born, and all this work and expense on me. And now the sadness of watching kittens die.

I gave the little calico sub cu fluids but she is too far gone. Dehydration and blood loss--coccidia's hallmarks, kill kittens quickly. Especially the teensy kittens. I can hear a flap, a whoop almost when she takes a breath and I'm thinking it could be her heart, might be congenital defect, happens a lot, so I might be kicking myself over something I had no control over. Or is it her lungs? Does she have pneumonia? Her chest seems enlarged and why would that be, I wonder.

She has no ability to even move much. I was going to take her in this evening, to the vet, to end her struggle, but I can't get her away from her mom right now, since her mom is mad at me, for re-containing her in the hutch, and wants to lash out, me being the target there, too, although she ate the tuna I gave her as a peace offering. She likes her food. Likes it lots. (the tuna got laced in Albon, which she didn't notice). If the kitten lives the night through, which is unlikely, it being unlikely she lives even another hour, I'll take her in. I hate it, ending a sparkling little life, all full of promise and fun and hope.

While Smokes and the brown tabbbies are doing better, it has hit the Wrecking yard kittens the hardest because they are the youngest. And now their mother also has caught it, which was inevitible. I don't have pet tinic anymore and don't know where to get it. They're on Albon but it isn't helping much.

I had to catch the feral mom, loose in the spare bedroom, to re-contain her in a rabbit hutch, with her kittens, so I can mix meds into her food. It wasn't easy and she created a big scene, in her fear, tearing at the window blind, visible to neighbors. I guess they wouldn't understand a feral cat. Most of my neighbors hate cats. Goes along with having fancy chemical green grass and flower gardens, I've come to notice.

Then some guy from College Park drive calls just when I had laid down to take a nap. I am totally exhausted. I don't even know him or where he got my number. He was mad because a neighbor at that drama/drug complex was mad at him for mowing his lawn late at night, and apparently had done something with three of his cats in retaliation. I said "but what am I supposed to do about it?" I also felt like saying, "So why were you mowing your lawn late at night?", out of curiosity, because that would irritate any neighbor and seems really stupid.

I guess he wanted me to find them, or shake down this neighbor to make him tell what he did with the cats. I don't know. The neighbor has a live trap and probably took them out and dumped them along a road or killed them. I told him if he thought the neighbor trapped them, that that was illegal and he should file a police report.

Then one of the MIllersburg colony people called wanting me to take five kittens of a cat that wasn't fixed. I was mad by this time at all the interuptions in my very much needed sleep.

The woman said safeHaven wouldn't take the kittens, because they are full. I said "I'm not taking them. You were supposed to watch for any cat unfixed or not eartipped and it could have been fixed and now, although I've gotten 16 cats fixed for you, and you haven't so much as watched a trap yourself for one minute or donated one dime, you want me to take on the costs of more kittens and getting another cat fixed." Boy I gave it to her good. But then, she really did deserve it. I should have let her have it over their nonparticipation and failure to donate long ago. She bragged once about how long they've had unfixed cats, knowing who is descended from what mother they got where. Boy.

I told them they need to find the kittens homes and they need to borrow a trap from someone and trap the cat themselves to be fixed. She didn't sound happy at all, that I was asking something of them. They're Christians which irks me more, when fleeced by loud and out Christians, for some reason. I suppose it's the hypocrisy, the inhumanity of stealing from people, which is what's going on, really, when they want me to be their slave.

They once dumped a dozen kittens from mothers there, at a neighbors barn without asking the neighbor, but the kittens all walked back home. When people are outspoken Christians, I guess I just expect some sort righteous humane honest behavior out of them. You know. Because otherwise, their outspoken Christian beliefs just make me double over laughing.

The Shedd man came by for the antibiotics for Bad Black Mom, who got mastitis. He wanted me to deliver them to him at his workplace. He didn't seem happy to be asked to come here to pick up his free antibiotics. He is about the most nonempathetic soul I've run into for some time. I'm in dire straits, exhausted, in pain, fall off the couch when he finally comes and the doorbell ring startles me, have an icepack on my head, from an inflamed nerve, and he just does his glare, with his hand out, for the antibiotics.

Boy, no mercy for the slave of Linn County. No nice words when in pain, nothing. "Serve me, you bitch, for nothing now".

So I turned off my phone and my answering machine too and for now I am shutting everybody out. Everybody. Every crazy out there, who didn't fix their pets, who won't fix their strays and suddenly, there are kittens everywhere, and now want them gone, want someone else to take on the costs and labor of the kittens they allowed their cat or the strays they feed to produce, because it's just not right they might have to do anything at all.

Tuning out. Sometimes I dream of tuning out forever.