Friday Night Post

It's Friday night.  I better post.

The sun is shining in Oregon.  All is well.  Tomorrow maybe there will be something good enough to complain about.  Not today.  Sorry.

We don't get much sun in Oregon.  When it shines, it's like we're all high as kites and living in some cult like grinning tranced out euphoria.

We crash hard here.  So watch out.  The rain is making a come back on Tuesday.  We never believe that here, once it shows up the first time.  We don't remember it's schizophrenic spring.  All we want is sun.  When it vanishes again, we get mad, pop anti depressants, drink more coffee and grumble.

I finished the cat wheel.  The cats are totally unimpressed.  They want to jump on top of it, but then it spins on them.  Cracks me up.  I know it shouldn't.  But.....

 Who will be the first to figure out, now that it is old yoga mat lined, they can run in it?  Boy, they're so lazy, may be months before any of them try it out.  I'm thinking of making a cage front to it, with door.  Then I can just lock them in and spin it.  Forced work out!  I'm getting mean.

Cougie is getting better.  I gave her pain meds and antibiotics this morning and let her out of sick bay for the day.  She wasn't eating and was crying for her friends at the door of the bathroom, from inside.  Who lined up outside the bathroom door, concerned for her?  Not her family.  Was the Lebanon colony cats, very worried about her crying in there.  How sweet.

 Have had no more donations to help on her dental bill.  Was happy that people donated over $400.  Relieved.  Still have the fundraiser open if anybody feels generous, even to the tune of $5.  Even $5 helps.
 Click right here to visit the page. 

Share the link if you think it might help.

Cougie now has no teeth.  She can look at Poppy, to see how she soon might feel.  Poppy had the same affliction and became very skinny and ill, before all her teeth were removed a couple years ago.  Now she's so healthy and happy!

 That's her in the photo above!

Not only did I finish the cat wheel into the night two nights ago, but yesterday I gave away the big queen bed in the 2nd bedroom.  I never slept on it, preferring my little cozy home made single bed and ancient mattress.  I have a friend in Lebanon who needed a bed upgrade, frame included, so she came, with my other friend, and their pickup yesterday.  But first, they took me out to lunch.  We had so much fun, laughing and carrying on.  Oh my.  Might be illegal.

Then down to the work of taking apart the frame and hauling it all out and loading into the pickup.  Didn't take long.  The Lebanon cats who have called the 2nd bedroom home after moving in from the garage cage room when my electric bill during the December freeze out froze up my finances for months to come, got freaked out by the sudden loss of their hide under bed.  But that's one reason I needed it gone.  And it was too big for the room leaving no room for anything else.

I moved one of the two little beds then in from the garage cat room, creating more space there.  The little bed, which I got free somewhere at some point, was in the second bedroom before.  Now its back where it belongs and is the perfect size.  Been lots of heavy moving stuff around going on and my butt joint is feeling the ache.

Big bed out, little bed in.

Nights are no fun unless I Nyquil out.  Half a sip of that shit knocks me out til sometime tomorrow.  I can then get up for awhile, but before long, I'm dozed out again and useless.  Half a sip.  WHAT IS IN THAT?

So I try not to Nyquil out to deal with back pain and sleep on ice packs or count backwards into oblivion.  Counting backwards has always been a sleep trick of mine.  My mind will try to wander.  I won't let it.  Then it slips into this wave state  of dancing numbers and static.  I reach out to find the numbers but they drift away.

I don't like keeping things around I don't use.  I like open space and I don't like storing excess stuff.  So out it goes if I haven't used it in a year.  Two days ago, I took apart my old drop trap.  It was given to me years ago by Laura at Hubcats in Boston.  She sent it to me and didn't charge me.  What an honor.  Her dad made them.  She designed them.  I loved the thing and trapped so many cats with it over the years.  It was so much better than the fancy hard wire ones sold by Tomahawk, after drop trapping became popular, largely because of Laura.  Those are crap by comparison.   Interestingly, after only a few dozen uses, my hardwire tomahawk drop trap has parts falling off.  That's how they compared.  Laura's hand made drop trap trapped thousands upon thousands of cats while the other mass produced trap is dropping parts after I've trapped only a couple dozen or so cats with it.

I'm going to tell you other reasons Laura's trap was better designed than tomahawks.  The transfer door was smaller, on the front and on the front edge.   Tomahawks transfer door is huge and in the middle on the side.  What difference does that make?  Lots.   You have to have far more space for it, because when you transfer, you have to account for the width of the drop trap and the transfer trap in the space you have, since that transfer trap is going to stick out to the side.  The transfer door being in the middle means you have to use transfer traps, with back doors and cannot transfer into carriers or traps without transfer doors.  You could with Laura's.  You could jam a carrier against the transfer door with the carrier door down the side of the drop trap, since the transfer door is right against one edge of the front.  You could lay a non transfer trap on its side, opening against the transfer door and the open trap door top down the side of the drop trap, for the same reason.   And the transfer door being on the front meant you could set it up in narrower spaces.  Far superior and more useful practical design.

Here's to Laura and Hubcats, Boston, although she's moved now.  You were an innovator who made drop trapping popular, who published online selflessly your design so anyone could make one.  You and your dad also made them and you gave me one of your awesome traps because you said you knew I'd use it for good and I did.  I used it and used and used it.  Oh, I'm going to cry.  You are THE BEST!  Thank you again and again.

But it was falling apart.  I'd had to reattach parts of the frame, tie netting back on with string and zip ties, repair holes.  I lost the sliding drop door somewhere sometime, and made a fako with plastic.

It was so sad to take it apart, like taking apart the last pieces of my old useful life and discarding them. I'll use its hinges and screws again.  I kept one part of the frame and I'm going to make some artsy something out of it, a keepsake of what I accomplished in the time I had the means (Poppa Inc's spay neuter money) to make a difference and do something splendid.

I saw a wreck before my eyes today.  I was at Napa Auto Parts trying to find brake pads.  My pads are grabbing and grinding.  Time to replace.  I was leaving the parking lot, and two cars were ahead of me.  One was going to make the easier safer right turn.  Traffic was heavy and turning left means crossing two lanes of traffic going the other way while timing it with a break in traffic going the other.

The Napa parts delivery car was trying to make a left turn, across those two lanes.  At first I thought I'd try it, then saw it would be too dangerous and too long a wait for breaks in traffic from both directions and decided to make the right turn.  But the Napa car was going to make a left turn.

I see a car in the right lane of the two lanes she must cross to go left stop.  I think, "What is he stopping for."  He motioned for her to go.  She did go. But in the left lane, here came a little car and slammed right into the rear of her car as she crossed that lane.  The car that hit her started to smoke.   Both women got out and got on their cell phones immediately.  I just stared.  Then, because two cars were behind me also wanting out of the parking lot and because cars were now backing up, I made the right turn and left.

I felt sorry for the woman who struck the Napa car. Wasn't her fault.  Her car was toast, in the blink of an eye.  I thought about how it could happen to anyone, and you'd never expect something like that, a car just appearing in front of you, like that.  No way she could avoid it.  Then you have no car anymore.  Sure, the Napa car is insured, but usually the insurance company will just total your car and you'll get what they claim is what a similar car is worth in your area.  But it's never enough to get a similar car and in the meantime, while you wait for even that pittance, your life is just screwed.

The Napa car driver has her own car to drive home, no loss to her, unless she loses her job over it.

That idiot driver who stopped in the right lane and motioned for her to go, and she did go, and there was an accident, what a moron.  Did you do that, stop to let her make the left turn across traffic, to be a nice guy, mister, to feel good?  How'd you feel when she got smacked by the car in the left lane?

Slinko's in fine form lately.

Vanishing Act

I'm going to smack her.  I can't help it.  Her butt's right there asking for it.

Lip Smacking Good, Comet says.

Guess who?