Good News All Around

There's good news out there.  I see it sometimes even out in the world.

And there is good news for me.   I have the car, although I haven't driven it outside of driving it home after purchase.   That's because I haven't switched over the insurance yet or rigged it for cat hauling.

My knee, good news there too.  I suffer from a ruptured bursa and the previous chronic pain has been bursitis I guess.   The doctor today said, with a firm authoritarian voice, "I'm going to cure you."   In my mind, I was skeptical.  "Yeah, right!"  I thought he was joking.

But I wanted to believe.  Who wouldn't.  I want to walk again, without pain.  

He brought in the needles.  Yes, needles.   He gave my knee some anesthetic then injected some steroids into it.   He said it would feel better for a day, then it would get much worse, to just get through that.  Then it should get better.

I reached for the crutches to use to leave the office.  I thought wait a minute.  I have to believe.  And carried them instead.

I wonder when the anesthetic will wear off and it will get worse, before it gets better.  I won't think about that.

In other news, the cooling system here hasn't worked for awhile.   I've been scorching yesterday and today.  Got to about 85 degrees inside here yesterday.  Today, closer to 90 degrees inside the house.   Yikes!

A friend had left me her old roll around air conditioner, with an air intake tube you stick out a window.  Today with my knee still comfortably numb, I rolled it in the house and rigged it in a window, after spraying the window edges with WD-40, so I could open it.  It had not been opened in years, due to inadquate screening, to keep the cats contained.

It's already got the temp in the living room down to about 80 degrees, but the coiled heat vent tube is really hot.  Hope that's ok.

It won't cool the entire house but maybe I can have one cool room.

And I have a surprise! Remember the little black tux mom I trapped, Louise, at the Lebanon street, then had grabbed 3 of her 5 kittens in a big pile of junk, that was icky, but the other two vanished down into the far recesses of the junk pile?  Remember that?

I have trying to find those two kittens.  Setting traps when I can over there. Listening.   Yesterday, still on crutches, I had gone out to a remote Lebanon location to catch a female, who had six kittens.  I let the guy do the work, setting up the drop trap.  The little girl waited hungry, patient, watching.  Took all of 8 minutes to catch her.  But no sign of her six 3-month old kittens.  I left him the drop to feed under, since he had to get going to an appointment.  But still he's seen no sign of them.  

He thinks maybe they're in a neighbors barn or shop.   But he said they usually come a bit after their mom, since she's weaned them.

Grenadine is being fixed today at whs.

After catching her I stopped by the Lebanon street, where we took all the cats out in March, about 14 I think, and had most recently caught Louise and 3 of her kittens.  I talked to a guy, one of many in and out there, who helped me set another trap and claimed to have heard one kitten crying piteously.  He promised to check the trap and find a phone somewhere, if I caught one.  He doesn't have a phone.  Nobody does there

I didn't hear anything and by afternoon, I was worried and agitated.  So I took off to go check it myself.   Nothing!  Empty!  But there was the old woman, tough as nails, doing laundry.   "Have you seen the kittens?" I asked, hopeful.  "They're not around," she said.   "My grand daughter caught them."

"What?" I gasped, not ready to believe they were safe.  "Yeah, they're in the trailer with her."

I went and knocked.  "Who is it?" a woman's voice called out from behind a worn curtain covering a broken out window.  "The cat lady," I responded.  She came right out smiling.  "I've got two kittens for you," she grinned.

This was too much for me.  I was on the crutches.  I was hot.  I was tired and now I felt like a million bucks, like a weight had lifted off my shoulders.  She brought them out, after I had her come get the trap I'd just taken from their carport.  Then I asked if she was ready  to get one of her two girls fixed.  They both had litters.  She handed over Oreo and I nearly cried again.   I told her how much it meant to me, that she got those kittens and that now Oreo would be fixed.   "You saved my faith in humans," I blurted.

The last two kittens.  They are already mostly tame!

Oreo, who is being spayed today

The third cat being fixed today is another from Mountain Shadows.  Willy was trapped, then held by the trapper as I struggled with car and knee issues here.  She had told me he is very tame, but extremely skinny, with diarrhea.  Well,  he will be tested, fixed if healthy enough, and I don't know if he will be alive or I will be told he was euthanized later today.

An Albany woman, who took up a cat to be fixed she's trying to help under my reservataions, is picking the cats up for me.  This is so helpful.

Willy of Mountain Shadows