11 More Cats Fixed and a Funeral

Saturday I drove  two hours down to a funeral for my brother's mother in law.  I didn't know her.  I may have met her twice a long time ago.   She was about 80 I think when she died after a lengthy struggle against cancer, of various sorts.

  I was late to start, too busy, doing everything for everyone else, as usual.   I received the sixth cat from the Salem colony at 11:00.  Mr. Big.  They had two more to catch but didn't catch either.  Then it was off to deliver a carrier to someone with a stray porch male in Lebanon, then on to feed the park cats.

I got home with barely enough time to shower and jump in the car to have a chance to make it on time to the funeral.  It was a two hour drive down there.

 I don't know what I was thinking, going all the way down there.  I guess I wanted to support my sister in law, who lost her mom.   I didn't think what the consequences might be of going.  I had a lot of trauma doled out by the church of which she was a member.   Not that particular one but in Portland.  My neck got ruptured when they beat me on their church's hospital psyche ward.  It was almost two decades since that happened so I thought I would have no problems with flashback feelings and memories, that do haunt me still but not nearly as much anymore.  I did end up having a great desire to get  out of there.  I stuck it out.  I'll just say that was enough for me, of being inside a church again.

I get down there with just enough time to get seated next to my niece.  Nice to see her again.  Hadn't seen her in years.   My stomach was growling as I hadn't eaten all day.  I had some gum in my purse and had to chew on that, as quietly as I could, to try to keep my stomach silent.  The hard pew began to hurt my butt.  Badly.  I don't know how people sit on those things.

It was a nice service, but quite long.

Once it was over, I did not stay long.  I talked to my brother briefly but he was quite busy then.  They had to be tired out.  I said my goodbyes and left.   On the way home, I stopped at Burger King and finally got some food if you can call french fries food, lol.  I was kind of happy to be alone again.  The number of people at that service was more than the number of people I usually see in two years time.

I didn't get home til 9:30 p.m.  Much of the drive was through dense fog.   I had only six cats in the garage and ten reservations for Monday.  I don't like going short to a clinic.   I'd have a seventh cat in the Lebanon stray male.  But that left me three short.

Sunday after sleeping in, I decided to go out to the Griggs Road colony, if I got permission.  There were still at least 7 out there in need of spay neuter.  By now the weather outside had changed.  Rain pounded down in a deluge.   I went out to the colony mid afternoon and was charged by a herd of  hungry chickens, wanting cat food.  Ducks soon joined in, clamoring and quacking.   I saw a few cats darting in and out of junk and set up a trap, with a bottle holding up the door, and a string tied around it.  I didn't want to waste time, at this stage, and in this weather, catching already fixed cats.

I had to throw handful after handful of dry cat food out for the chickens and ducks to keep them from the trap.   Otherwise they would attack any cat who was out and might eat some of that food.

I caught a long hair huge black male, then a smaller black, whom I think also is a male.  Then I caught one of the two mackerel tabbies and finally a huge brown tabby male, as a short hair unfixed black male roamed about.   I only had the four traps so left with four.  I'd be one over my allotted reservations already.

I was soaked by then, from the rain.   I went over and picked up the Lebanon male afterwards and called it a day, with 11 extra cats under my care.  Most of them seem to be massive males.

So this morning I took up 11 more cats to be fixed.  I'll post their photos later on.  I have no more reservations now until January.

I don't see a funeral as an event to honor the deceased.  The dead have lived and what they did in their lives speaks clearly and stands alone.  A funeral is an ending for the living, a put to past and a look forward.