Sunday, March 12, 2023

Danger Danger

 I get an email.  Its from an aol account.  Name is familiar.  I look the woman's name up in my records and she once donated to help the cats, years and years ago.   Hmm, I thought.  She said she was asking for a favor.   I  looked her up online, to see where she lives, then replied to the email and asked where she lives.  The answer came back in cut and paste block, line over line.

Ok that's a scammer for sure.  Another email came, this time with a cockamaney story about her bank not letting her use her card but it would all be cleared up in a couple days and  would I please buy a gift card for her friend dying of cancer for her birthday, on amazon.   She wanted a $100 razor card sent.   

Ok for sure this is a scam.   I spam labeled her email.    No way. 

How did whomever it was have access to her email account and password for it?  I don't know.   I've never had a scammer email like that before, from the person's actual email account/iphone.  I figure maybe its a no good relative or her phone was stolen.

I hear a knock on the door and answer it, thinking its a chewy delivery.   They knock after leaving the cat food.  But its a young adult man.   He says he used to live down the block.   I don't recognize him.   I tell him this.   I don't tell him I never recognize anyone I rarely see and that human names and faces don't really register with me.  Never have.

He wants to come in.  I say "no".  Twice.   He says he was one of the little kids who used to come to my door from down the block.   Still nothing is registering.  Over the years I've had a lot of little kids come to the door from down the block, selling things like little bracelets they made, or food their mother makes to sell.  I always bought whatever they were selling because they were little kids.   There was a boy amongst them.  Could this be him, I thought?    I felt old suddenly. This guy is in his 20's.   How could an adult standing before me be that little kid.  Little kids should never grow up to be adults,  with all the issues we adults have, I think to myself.   I still don't know who it was.   He said he was just out walking when I asked if he'd moved back to the area.  That group of kids and their adults had moved away years ago.   If it was that kid I am thinking of last I saw him a relative was teaching him to drive on the cul de sac.   

I was a little fearful that night, because I didn't know who that man was at my door or why he so badly wanted in.   Later, I rationalized that he was just back in town for something and wandering the area where he grew up and meant no harm of any kind.  Some men do not realize the innate fear we women must have to survive of men we do not know.  

Life has been lonely lately.  Most of my friends and I never had many have died or moved away.   Three more friends face housing issues (eviction for various reasons) but there's nothing I can do about that.

  I try to be friends with a Lebanon woman but its hard for me to do because her house is a disaster zone and if I go there I want to start cleaning it.  I can't help myself there.   OCD a little bit on cleaning.   She took in the latest dumped cat at the park.   I thought I had a placement for him but she didn't want  him to go to a shelter and be in a cage.   Good thing, really, since when I finally met him I realized he is too shy for a shelter.  He's tame all right but he's been out on his own for some time, you can tell.  Happy Cat Club will pay for his neuter on Tuesday, at her vet clinic.  HCC has had a lot of expense for January and February since in all 44 cats were taken in, during those two months, by their own people to be fixed at the OHSS clinic.  Instead of billing Linn County residents the $43 per cat fee, they bill Happy Cat Club.   It's hard to keep up the fundraising to sustain those numbers but I am thrilled so many people are taking in their own cats, for a change.  The bill for those 44 cats to be fixed was $1892.00.   You might think that is a lot of money and of course it is, but consider its what some of these rescues end up spending on one sick intake, at a private vet.   44 is a significant number of cats who now will not be creating more cats so the value for that money spent, for the cats, their caretakers and the public is extremely high.

The adult daughter of the Shedd colony caretaker has been advertising the tame boy I trapped out there on lost and found pages.   She and her husband took him home after he went to the FCCO along with nine others I'd trapped out there.  She's had no luck so far finding who could own him.  I had already gone to neighbors of the colony out there, to ask.  He too is likely a dump.  She'll try to find him a home or get him into a shelter eventually.  I'm happy he didn't go back out to the colony.

I'm supposed to be getting three cats living behind a gas station for tomorrow's appointments, but I'm not sure I'll get any of them.  A man living in a trailer in the field behind the gas station is supposed to get two of them.  I gave him two of my carriers to put them in on Friday.  But he doesn't communicate well, doesn't text and rarely answers phone so I don't know.  They're the adult kittens from litter before last of the female, whom the station attendant is supposed to catch, but she doesn't answer texts or phone calls either. So I'm blind on it, and need to determine early as I can if any of this will happen so I can hopefully find other cats to fill in, so the spots aren't wasted.

We "sprang forward" in time in the night.  Daylight savings time.  It's either off or on, I don't know.  The digital devices auto adjust.  But, I have two battery clocks in the house and the car clock that don't auto adjust.  I'm old fashioned and use a battery alarm clock that loudly ticks.  I love the ticking sound at night.   

That's it, nothing much going on here.





9 comments:

  1. The young man at your door was scary. He very well been the little kid down the block, but he just didn't give enough information to be sure of that. You were right to trust your instincts. However, after 50 years, a boy who used to live by my parents came visited them. But in that circumstance, they all had real memories. He was five when he moved, so I'm sure he looked entirely different. Wish I had been able to see him. He was my best friend when I was little.

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    1. Yeah, I don't remember the kids well enough who used to come to my door, as it was only a handful of times. If they told me their names then I would not have recalled them. Sounds like it was a bit different with the guy who came 50 years later, especially if he was your best friend when little. Too bad you didn't get to see him again.

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  2. I hate ticking clocks at night. During the day they don't bother me.

    That lady's email was probably spoofed. I'm not sure exactly how it works, though. Then again, it might have been a straight up hack.

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    1. Yeah, I don't even know all the scammer spammer correct terminology for it. But since it was the same email, same name, someone got ahold of her personal information.

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    2. I objected when a city lady said she couldn't email me further because my address had been hacked, when all the alleged hacker was doing was using the same user name, but the domain attached was entirely different.

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  3. I'm sorry about your friends. Things are tough.
    Coffee is on and stay safe

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    1. I feel helpless and unable to help them. Landlords selling rentals.

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  4. I don't like opening the door for strangers. It's only the local kids, as you've done, selling items for school or whatnot. I'm sorry you feel so lonely. Be well, my dear, and know you're loved from afar.

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    1. Thanks Darla. We get so many door to door sales people here, then package deliveries and they ring the doorbell for those. Not many complete strangers, except for that one. Yeah, having trouble here with so many friends either dead or in the process and many have moved away to other states.

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