Recovery

I am in recovery. No, I'm not talking about the economic recovery the nation is attempting.  I don't know much about all that.  I've been in survival mode for as long as I can recall, always scrambling for little things, reusing broken parts of this to fix that, and scrounging for free items I can put to use.  I am poor and always will be poor and things are getting bad, with gas prices skyrocketing and now food prices too.

I still scheme and dream.  Who doesn't?  I try to think up ways to better fund the care and feeding of the cats left here every single day.  I dream of travel or even just camping, but I'll never travel.  It takes money.  It's just reality.  I'm stuck here, in this city I don't like much, probably for the rest of my life.  At least, in this brilliant age, I can travel through google maps, although their latest version update, is tragically, shit.  I can travel through the eyes and experiences of other ordinary people, with cameras and blogs.

I love the people of this area.  I just don't like the town, devoid of any recreation or nature, and quite a distance from available recreation.  I suppose that too is the reality of ending up in a freeway town.

My car has too many miles and my pockets are empty. Even camping is beyond my financial capacity, due to the gas of travel and the cost of campsites.

Food price increases are shocking and scary.  I probably won't have internet when this deal I've got from Comcast runs its course.  Comcast isn't going to decrease prices.  Only in my dreams, eh?  That's no fun to think about, but that, too, is reality.

The recovery I am talking about is from the deaths of Electra and Hairy.   It makes me sad to lose friends.  I know lots of humans, but I rarely see any humans.   People I know are so far away, or just online friends.  So my cat friends are my rocks of support in an otherwise pretty barren landscape.  It hurts to lose them.

I try to stay busy.  Yesterday, I took the legs off the old brown table I'd moved into the second bedroom once I moved the big bed out and flipped it.  I'd already created new tall legs for the "high bed" I intended to make from the old table, out of boards I had in the garage.  I had to splint them together to achieve equal height for all four.  Two of those boards used to support the big bed I just gave away.

The cats needed something in the second bedroom.  So I attached the tall legs I made, with the table on the floor.  Then, I attempted to flip the whole thing upright.  Was not easy.  I was straining with it partially hoisted upright and thought about just letting go.   But I hung on, and got it on its feet.  Once it was partially lifted onto its new legs, there was no turning back. It would have fallen on me, if I'd let go. And finally, it was up.

I made a lower shelf of the table's third leaf, that had been in the garage, used in the garage cat room cage, as a bed shelf, for awhile, then as a weather barricade outside, in the yard.  Now it's got a new life as a shelf again on something else.

I can tell you factually that some things do experience reincarnation.  LOL.

That's my old brown table, way up top, flipped upside down.  It's third leaf is that shelf with the two carriers on it.

The cats loved this instantly, unlike the cat wheel, still unused and unappreciated.   But it was the regulars here who took it over immediately, and the Lebanon colony cats were mostly shoved out.  You can see Vino there, in the photo if you look close.  He's sleeping on the yellow blanket between the two carriers on the lower shelf.

For the most part, since the big bed left and disrupted the security of the Lebanon cats whose main living space was the second bedroom, they have moved out and occupied other areas, which has caused some tension.  I knew I needed to make cat furniture for the second bedroom as soon as I could.

Mona Lisa, a.k.a. Owly, is petite, curious and has those huge eyes!

Mona Lisa and other colony cats on cat runs in the living room.

Slinko

I continue to look for safe permanent homes for cats here including for Slinko.  Slinko got in bad with Slurpy and Starry to begin with, and Starry won't let him on the bed nights, in revenge.  He really wants to sleep on the bed nights, with me, but first impressions last, and he wasn't nice to Slurpy when he first decided to come in the house and Starry has not forgiven him his behavior towards her best friend.  She is not going to risk him on the bed, not until he really makes up for his previous sins.

Slow Friday, worn out from all the heavy work yesterday.  Woke up with my right arm and hand completely numb from inflammation in my shoulder.  No work today, have to rest up.

I'm going to create a memorial space for friends lost.  I'm not sure where it will be yet.  I think it will help in recovery.