Cats, Cats and More Cats

I had reservations at Heartland to get five cats fixed Thursday.  KATA had referred a Crabtree woman to me, who had a dozen unfixed cats, some pregnant.  She was very desperate.  In the end, however, KATA arranged with Heartland that all her cats could be fixed Thursday, except the one lactating Persian, and her kittens.  But the other ten were fixed.

I have been helping a Lacomb woman.  However, she's never caught any of her cats, not for this Thursday and not for appointments I reserved for her the week before.  I helped her a few years back get a bunch fixed, but there are more she has.   When she couldn't catch any unfixed ones, I told the Jefferson woman she could bring five.  However, she caught only two more.  Two others were fixed the week before.

Tommy was fixed last week, from Jefferson.

Tiffany, a pregnant cinnamon torti, was also.

Timmy was fixed from the Jefferson colony Thursday.

Teddy was too.  He's not a true Scottish Fold.  He just has severe hematomas that have bent over his ears, from chronic ear mites. Teddy probably cannot hear.

The Corvallis FCCO clinic was cancelled.  I am not sure why.  But the FCCO decided to make sure the cats who had been registered for the clinic get fixed.  An FCCO employee is coming down this afternoon to transport the cats to Portland, to be fixed tomorrow.  I ended up getting involved, when asked.   I got the traps the former coordinators had, on hand, to loan out, brought them here, and handed them out to the people who needed them.

A man called me wanting help for a friend of his, also in Lacomb, whom he said had lots of cats.  He said he is friends with a Lebanon man I helped and I believe expected the same level of help for his Lacomb woman friend.  I told him I couldn't do that, that his Lebanon man friend cost me a lot of money, time and that he didn't lift a finger to help and I can't do that anymore.  I got close to 30 cats fixed for his Lebanon man friend, over a year's time, built him a feral housing unit, and got five dying kittens out of there, up to a Portland rescue with the money to treat bulging dead eyes and ringworm.  The man donated, in total, $10 for all that effort and impeded my efforts on multiple occasions for unknown reasons.  Man games, I called them, to myself.

 I suggested he call the FCCO and make appointments and help his friend get them up and fixed.  However, I also gave his number to the FCCO woman who did call him and got his friends number or the friend called the FCCO back then.  Not sure which.  She's supposed to bring her ten cats over to the meet up place, to be hauled up to Portland to be fixed.  We shall see.  If she doesn't, take advantage of getting free transport and virtually free fixes, that would be really dumb ass stupid.

I helped one party in Albany trap.  I've got five from there so far.  The woman who contacted the FCCO is helping a friend who is in a nursing home.  I know the woman in the home.  I helped her get cats fixed there before.  And I helped people all around that area get cats fixed.  So being over there again is both traumatizing, since there are quite a few nasty people in the area, and nice, to see old cat friends.  The woman is returning home very shortly.  She fell and hurt herself and has been in rehab.

I had a new cat show up in my yard.  I saw him yesterday, a huge beat up long hair gray and white.  I don't know if he's just passing through, on the roam for sex this time of year, or will be a constant.  I set traps last night when I first spotted him.  If I catch him, it will be cat number 38 I've caught in my own yard, since moving here, to be fixed.  38 cats!!  Can you believe that?

I took the photo in twilight, through my kitchen window, so it's not a good photo.

P.S.  I CAUGHT HIM!

He is not happy, and charges me if I even approach the trap.  Too bad, buddy.

But I only caught Roger Roger last night.  I got him fixed last January.

Roger Roger!

This morning, it was Mr. Piss in my trap.  I got him fixed three years ago.

Mr. Piss was pissed again this morning.

I was called by old friends, a farmer and his wife, whom I've known for many many years.  Over cats of course.  I remember Vicki, from KATA, picked me up after my neck surgery, back in 2001, when I still couldn't drive after surgery and was in a neck brace.  We went out to their farm and netted cats he had contained in a double doored wire feeding room.  They were flying around our heads!  We got them all netted and into carriers!  They were fixed.!  He bet me $50 I couldn't catch the last female.  Guess who paid out!

I got seven more fixed for them last summer when a tame pregnant female was dumped off and had five kittens.  They were teens when he called.  Very carefully he made a big huge outside pen to contain them after surgery so he could tame the teens.  And that very night I returned them, all fixed, every one of them escaped that pen.  Poor Steve!  The big male I caught back last summer, is in the house, a big fat happy lap cat now.   "Well, he started following me around like a dog," Steve drawled, "so I asked my wife if I could bring another inside and she said ok so I carried him in."   Ha!  Lucky cat.  These are the nicest people you'd ever meet.

Three more have showed up.  I caught one in about five minutes.  But then, with him in the trap in the back of the car, I pulled the towel off the cage to have a look, and it's big Scottish Fold long hair bob tail.  And he's tame.  Laid back within moments in the trap.  I pet him through the mesh.  He has beautiful golden eyes. KATA, up in Sweet Home, says they'll take him in, try to find him a decent home.

Scottie the Scottish Fold.

So I built some cat shelves, for carriers the cats use as beds.  I got these cabinet doors, for 50 cents each at the Restore, cut them to fit, painted them and installed three so far as shelves.  I have to install the cat ladder yet, so the cats can climb up to them.

I spray painted the carrier tops green for consistency.

My mower is fixed.  I took it to the Black and Decker repair center in Portland.  It took them about 20 minutes to fix it.  They replaced the motor and I was on my way.  Once home, I mowed my front yard immediately.  I was happy to have my mower working again.  While the company on Amazon who sold it to me was not helpful in any way, Black and Decker certainly was helpful, thank goodness.

The haircuts around here continue.  No one is safe from my clippers.  Lucky for the cats, the blade has dulled and the haircuts will slow down until I get that blade sharpened.  I usually take a dull blade to Densons Feed Store in Corvallis.  They had some FedEx guy who would sharpen blades for $5 each.  I hope they still have that going.  That's a good deal.

Sam did not get a full haircut.  But, you know, sometimes that's the way life is.  I think he looks good anyhow.  Miss Daisy and Electra also got partial hair cuts.   Bwah ha ha.

Danger at the Y

Several years ago, I took a drift on a river. And what happened that day, to myself and the friend with me, remains a mystery.

We have parted ways now.  We talked about the experience secretly, in bits and pieces, and gradually let it go.  But I'll never return to that section of the N. Santiam.  Never.

It started as an invitation.  My friend had a raft and wanted to drift a river and her friends had cancelled out.  She knew I rarely got to do anything fun.  So she invited me.  We headed out buying some drinks at a grocery store.  We left my car in Jefferson and drove hers to our put in point, at the Green River Bridge.

There were people playing in the water there.  It's also a big party location, the drinkers and chronically unemployed young who have nothing but time and lots of alcohol---many of those types were there, that day.  A few had rafts and were also setting out.

We blew up her raft using a pump she had that plugged into the car's lighter jack.  It was fast!  Off we went.

That was about the only normal part of the day, the first hour on the river, which was slow and lazy and running shallow.  We beached for lunch.

But something was askew.  Time was missing.  It was suddenly late afternoon.  We could not figure out where all the hours had gone.  It's not a long float.  The river was slow, sure, but not that slow.  I become uneasy, because I could not for the life of me recall what could have happened to all that lost time.

We came to the Y, where the S. Santiam joins the North fork.  As we approached, we saw something strange, in the middle of the river, just past the joining of the two.  It was like a spout of water shooting straight up, maybe three feet, like a hose was forcing water up.  Then it would subside, then spout again.  We stared transfixed.  We could not manuever that clumsy cheap raft to get over to look.  There was a guy with very manueverable boat behind us.  We yelled at him, and pointed at the water spout, asked him to go see what that was.

He went over, then rowed fast away.  He seemed shook up.  We said "What was it?"  He said, "There's a guy down there, with a scooter and like a rebreather on."  Then the man in the boat took off.  We looked at each other.  "What?"  That made no sense at all.  We searched both banks, up and down, for a car or anything that a diver would come from.  WTF.  We were now jumpy and paddling fast.  We just wanted off this damn river.

We finally got to the boat ramp.  It was dark and we could not understand what had happened to the hours and hours since we'd left Green River.

We drive back up to retrieve her car.  There, left leaning against the fence at the start of the gravel road down to the river, was a huge piece of bare plywood.  On it, painted in huge black letters, was written out,
"DANGER AT THE Y".

What?  We looked at each other.  Where'd that come from?  Who wrote it out?  Where'd they get the plywood?  Why did they go to all that trouble?  Was it the guy in the boat we asked to go check out the water spout?  Did that spook him out enough to make that sign?

Or was there another reason? Who else lost time on the river that day?

We didn't really tell anyone else about the day.  We didn't know what had happened.  I still don't know. I think it was something dumped into the water, some pollutant, that affected us.   Was there really a diver with a scooter and a rebreather there where that water spout was going on?  Who made that sign and why?

I avoid that section of river now.

Bad Hair Cats

I'm no whiz with clippers.  Um, I might be getting better.  Definitely am improving.

My long hair cats get the clip job twice yearly. To free them, and this house, of excessive hair.  Hairy more often because he is, well he's super hairy!  Sure he's feral, but he likes his hair done.  I start out with him in a fish net, reaching into the net with the battery powered clippers from behind while he hides his face under a towel (too cute).  Gradually he gets into the clipping, leaning into it, as I also massage his back, and the net can go.  He's really rough in asking for attention in the days and weeks after his hair clip job.  But it makes him feel special, loved, and for weeks after that clip, he demands it from me, by slapping at me with his paw.  He hasn't learned social graces enough to know to make me want to pet him, maybe he should retract his claws when asking.

I had not quite finished his hair cut in this photo.  The clipper battery went dead.

I'm updating the cats on their shots, flea and ear mite treatment, wormer and....haircuts if they need them this month.  Both Soloman and his sister, Panda, both seven years old, were clipped in the last two days.  Panda is easy.  She goes limp.  She loves it.  Soloman, not so much.   He doesn't like the clipper sound.

Afterwards, same old, they come searching me out, after not doing that for months, because they felt special getting that hour of personal spa treatment.  I think I did ok, on the hair cuts, an improvement over the last fall hair cuts, if you ask me.  But see for yourself.

Panda showing off her fab new do!

Keep in mind I'm running the clipper with one hand, while holding open a net with the other hand, and in some cases, holding her up by the scruff, like to get her belly clipped.  So there you have it.  Judge not before you know the details.  And Soloman, he chose to express his horror over the haircut adventure by peeing on me but I kept at it.

Miss Daisy was looking good today as usual.

I have three chronic herpes cats---Shady, from the BS, where every cat in that massive colony had herpes.  Brambles from the Hate Thy Neighbor colony, same thing there, every cat was born with it.  And Poppy, who came from over under a building on 34th st.   Since it is a viral infection, there is not a lot I can do for them when they have slurpy noisy outbreaks unless they get a secondary infection.  I do give them L-Lysine powder to try to keep outbreaks to a minimum.  Brambles gets the outbreaks the worst.

I had him confined for 8 days for clindamycin because his outbreak went into a sinus infection.  He got steamed twice daily too, and seemed to love the attention.  Now it's Shady's turn, but I don't keep her in the sick cage all day and night, just part time, or she howls like the end of the world is now.

Shady, with chronic herpes and crossed eyes.

Brambles also has chronic herpes.

Often,  I resort to antihistamines for Brambi, to dry him out, so he's not snarfling, which is also hard on his kidneys.

Tilly, one of the Albany business cats, and her brother Rogue, below, look much alike.  Both are becoming quite tame.

Pouring rain continues here in Oregon.  Chance of sun in May, I hear.

Time for Bed, Sam says.

Oregonian's One-sided Story about Mental Illness

I was horrified to read another one sided story about mental illness in a family.  The only side given, by the reporter, was that of a sister, long estranged from the brother who is the focus of the story.  In fact, it sounds like this family feud, between brother and sister, has gone on since childhood.

Nonetheless, the reporter appears to tell only her side of the story with no fact checking of allegations by him,  although the allegations were told by the sister, not the man who has been further smeared and probably made far more paranoid, with his story, along with details of embarrassing incidents, splashed all over a major newspapers pages.  WTF?

Read the Oregonians story here.

Readers are to, without question, believe the reporter and the sister.  Once again, mental illness sufferers are silenced and villainized.

When you get mental labels, I found out personally, in my stolen life time, you lose.  You lose your rights.  You lose your credibility.   You lose everything.  People can say whatever they want about you, and they're not questioned.  It must be true, since you are crazy.

When I read that story, my first reaction was, "this is a family feud and the entire family sounds nuts."  My second reaction was, 'This woman is going to use this, to remove the freedoms from people labeled mental.'  And you bet she is going to try.

There are many problems with the story.  The sister is horrified that her brother, whom she has hated their whole lives, suddenly believes in conspiracy theories, like the instability of cash and the dollar, so all assets should be in gold.  Well how may fruitcake survivalists believe this exact thing, in America, and they are Not the subject of "mental illness stories" but are considered mainstream acceptable patriot paranoids.  Including Glen Beck, I believe, who urges people to invest in gold for the coming crash.  She also sites his fear of contrails.  Contrails are the visible vapor trails left by jets.  OK, has she never listened to Art Bell, late at night, and all the contrail conspiracy people? There was even a show on Discovery featuring contrail conspiracies.  She mentioned his Canadian girlfriend, who claims her father was abducted by aliens.  Again, wake up lady.   There are a zillion people in this world who believe they've been abducted.  Where have you been?  Don't you watch reality TV, lady?

My brother has a friend, who has married and divorced his wife I think four times, who wrote an alien abduction song (he is a believer!) that was featured on Art Bell.  My brother's friend functions very well in society, thank you, and is a delightful character, always has been.

Who you going to lock up, lady?  Everybody who hordes gold?  Contrail conspiracy believers?  Gonna lock up everybody, are ya?

If your brother is dangerous, yes, he should be locked up.  You going to predict that, your word only, take away his freedom so he can be "treated"?

Number one, there is no definitive test for mental illness, none of them.  It's all subjective.

Do you know how many people in the history of insane asylums have been put into those places of horror, died there, for dubious reasons?  These victims include but are not limited to:  wives, whose husbands want them gone, so they can screw a mistress;  wives, whose husbands believe they are not submissive enough; teenagers whose parents claim they are rebellious, abused women and girls, homosexuals, union leaders, discredited by companies who want to fire them, using company shrinks who give them psyche labels, so they can be fired. Etc.  Etc.  There was me, you know.  Remember me?  My life was stolen by this fake and brutal system.  Do I count?

Ok, and treatment.  The drugs don't work.  In fact, they cause all sorts of terrible side effects, including death, diabetes, weight gain, and...many of the symptoms usually associated with mental illness.  They make drug companies lots of money however and they make shrinks richer.

Your article lady, said it yourself.  Deputies talked her brother into voluntary admission to Portland Adventist.  After he got out, he brought several "friends" he'd met on the psyche ward home to live in his backyard, with him.   OK, that worked great, didn't it?

I hate Portland Adventist.  That's where I was beaten on their psyche ward and discharged into a snow and ice storm, with no shoes, coat or transportation.  I HATE them.  Well, actually I try not to think about that horrible experience.  I got no justice.  That's because nobody gives a shit about what happens to discredited labeled people.

There's no clear answer.  There are dangerous people out there who will kill other people. This includes governments who eagerly engage in wars that kill, distort and maim even little kids.  This includes religions who believe its ok to kill in the name of their brand of god.

  Parents don't know what to do with out of control and obviously dangerous kids.  There needs to be some place such people can be taken, with a clearly defined standard of behavior that would exclude non dangerous people from being carted off and confined in prison (institutions are the same as prisons).  Because what you're doing is wanting to cage people indefinitely.  Human beings.  Put them into cages, not for crimes committed, but so you can feel safe and can pretend they have an ok life like that, which they don't.

 So, if society is going to do such a thing, the safeguards better be in place.  Or you could be hauled  off screaming next because the labels are subjective.

For years I tried to get anyone to listen, about how abusive and destructive the mental system is, how utterly ridiculous and unhealthy it is also.  When people are put onto disability, then shut away in run down old hotels to live alone with nothing to do, day in and day out, nothing good will come of it. Boredom and meaninglessness are a recipe for trouble and escalating symptoms.

A healthy mental health system would include, for patients, all the normal things that create health--good diet, exercise, friends, family and a job.  As it is, the mental system drugs people and stuffs them away in isolation and boredom, forgetting/ignoring everything that makes a person truly healthy in mind and body.  Drugs, labels, stigma, isolation, boredom.  That's your recipe for mental health?  Give me a break!

The vast majority of those labeled are not dangerous whatsoever.  You wouldn't know that reading the crap in the frenzied media.  Your mind becomes what you feed it.  Adam Lanza's mind was fed a steady diet for years upon years of isolation and violent video games interspersed with the trips to the gun range.  Give me a break!!!  What kind of parents allow that?  Bad parents.

In the meantime, Oregonian, stop with the one sided articles.  Stop with the talking about someone like they're not even alive or can't understand what you're saying about them.  Talk about making this man paranoid.  Talk about demonizing the "mentally ill" like they have no feelings and no capacity to understand and should have no rights as human beings.  Talk about no fact checking a story.

Talk about bigotry.

Return to Slurpys' Clan

Chirpy Slurpy, my big loving humble torti here, who loves Starry, Electra and Miss Daisy, was not always so happy.  It has been almost three years since I pulled her out of the headlight compartment of an old dead car just outside of Lebanon.

It was a stressful time for me.  When I was called by the daughter of the property owner, who had just moved up there, I didn't know the problem was as big as it was.  Her dad had been feeding strays for a long time.  And raccoons.

The kittens, I think about 22 of them in all, were sick and many had ringworm.  I found them everywhere, in boxes up along the woods, under pallets out in the field and in hard to get at places inside old cars.  They'd come at me hissing and spitting defiantly in their fear.  Others purred their heads off from the start.

I also trapped maybe 18 adults and returned them.  I didn't catch them all. I knew I hadn't but I became exhausted, trying to save all those kittens and find anyone willing to foster sick kittens or sick kittens with ringworm.  Not easy.

In the end, I begged my friend---Poppa's president, for help.  She invited me to come up, with kittens.  I think I carted 12 up to her.  She had invited friends to dinner and passed them out to those present to foster. She took on most, as she always does.

Heartland took in seven also.  But later, they asked me to take back three of those seven, who had again become sick.  Slurpy was one of those three.  In the end, I got the three over their colds again, and returned one to Heartland.  I adopted out the other torti, but Slurpy broke out in ringworm then.  She's still here.

And I returned to Slurpy's Clan two weeks ago, to trap more.  I trapped 8 who were fixed at the FCCO, three big boys and five little girls.  I saw at least four more.  I went up yesterday hoping to trap all four, but they were still spooked out from the previous trapping and I only caught two---the second brown tabby teen and the Chocolate Point Siamese male, whose sister was fixed a couple weeks back.

I saw old friends--cats I got fixed three years back.  Some fixed then are now missing, but most are still there.

I took this photo May 24, 2010, when this Lynx Point female, lactating, was fixed.  I stole her kittens, then about six weeks old, and living under a pallet in a field.

I took this photo of her yesterday.

I took this photo yesterday.  Four of these cats are fixed while one, the short hair brown tabby with back to me, in photo, is not.  On the far left, you see the head only of a black and white female, fixed three years ago this May.  Then there's the orange and white male, also shown in photo below, fixed three years ago.  Next is a Lynx Point female, fixed three years ago, and to the right of the unfixed tabby male, is a Flame Point female, also fixed three years ago.  Her profile is just like Slurpy's elfin face upturned nose profile!

Orange and white male, quite sick when fixed three years back, now looking much better.  Surprised he survived.

Taken three years ago, this picture is of a young female, who had three tiny kittens, whom she abandoned.  When found, they were near death from dehydration.  I think only one survived.

One of the black and white girls three kittens.  This little girl did not make it.  At least one of her two brothers, one shown in photo above her photo and the other one below, didn't make it either. You can see the ringworm on the boys photos.

Add caption

This is the black and white female now, three years later.

This Flame point female was fixed in May of 2010 also, and that's when this photo was taken.

This photo was also taken three years ago.

But this is her yesterday, with a Lynx point fixed male.  She has Slurpy's face!

This is one of the two I still haven't caught.  She's a girl, a torti lynx point Siamese.

And this male, the brown tabby tux, needs caught and fixed still.

Sultan here, a big Chocolate Point male, is getting fixed today.

As is Brownie, the little long hair brown tabby teen.

Some moments from first time around.....

Big boy face off! (both got fixed)

The property owners' daughter had given one kitten away, before I arrived on scene.  I later ran into her and got her fixed.  She'd been adopted by the girlfriend of a Circle K clerk, who, when she dumped her boyfriend, dumped the cat with him.  He was having housing issues, still is, and lost her at one point, but she knew where he worked and found him there.

Slurpy in June 2010.

Slurpy as a Kitten!

Slurpy, from the Clan of the Raccoon, is doing OK here in her new clan.

What To Do About the Car....

It would not start today.  Made some horrible whacking sound.  Not the clicking of a dead battery.  A whacking sound.

Later on, it started as if nothing had gone on.

I don't like that.  I want something not working to stay not working so I can figure out what is wrong and fix it.  Now, I know it will happen again, when I'm least prepared for it to happen.

I had the battery checked and the battery was fine.  I wish the battery hadn't checked out.  That would have been simple enough.

It's still dripping oil too.  I can't pay out a thousand dollars or more, for a little seal to be fixed, on a car with 220, 530 miles on it already.  I shouldn't do that, should I?  And now, likely, I got told, it may be the starter or starter switch leaving function, or even the fuel pump or timing chain going south.

220,530 miles.  10,000 plus cats hauled.

It's done its job.  I know that.  Been a great car.  But don't leave me now!

I don't have a Plan B.  I live too far from even grocery stores.  I can't exist without a car here.  And how terrible would it be if I could never ever escape this place again?  Be like being in hell would be, I guess, caught in eternal suffering.

Ok, so having no transportation isn't acceptable, or even survivable.

What do I do to get reliable transportation?  Do I sink thousands into this car that has already so many miles on it and reeks of hauling too many male cats?  (I don't have thousands to sink into anything). Currently, I can't say it is reliable transportation.  I don't know, when I set out, if I will make it there, or back from there. Which is scary.  And much like not really having transportation now.  I can walk 12 or 15 miles if I have to, to get home.  That's my range. That's how far I go now, in the car,  pretty much.

I gave up on getting the electric mower fixed.  To get it fixed under warranty, it has to go to Portland.  But shipping it up and back, which I'd have to pay for, negates the benefit completely.  So I'd hoped to drive it up.  I don't think that will ever happen now.  I suppose that mower, used under a dozen times, will end up in the trash.  Not green, I know, but I'm not paying to ship it to Portland either.  My car might make it up with the mower, but it might not.  And even if it did, that cuts short other trips I might make with the car before its death.

That means I'll have to kill the lawn.  With grass killer.  Which will make me mighty unpopular on the street, but then I have no friends on the street as it is.  So who cares.  Kill the grass, people will talk for awhile about it and about how strange I am, then they'll forget it.  I'm not so strange.  I'm just trying hard to survive.

I might be stranger now than I was before I got sick with that stomach thing.  Yeah, that did a number on me.   I got better using anti nausea pills that dissolved on my tongue.  But then.  BUT THEN, I broke out in hives an hour after taking one.  My face began to itch.  Then I felt the bumps.  I ran to the mirror.  I watched in horror, like I was in a scary movie, as the right side of my face began to enlarge before my eyes.  Transfixing!  I couldn't take my eyes from the sight of my face transforming.  I tore myself away and ran to the cupboard and got an antihistamine and I chewed it, so it would work faster.  Tasted awful.  You go eat a chlortrimeton tablet.  I didn't want to die of anaphylactic shock.

I got it in my head I could stop the diarrhea then my own way.  I'm lactose intolerant.  Cheese shuts down my intestinal tract.  I got some cheese.  I ate the cheese.  Pain followed.  Days of it.  I must have overdone the cheese.  I love cheese.  But I can't eat cheese.

After all the sickness shit the last three weeks, I'm stranger now than I was.  That cheese was good though.  Really good.  Now it's back to carrots.  Fun.  I might be eating carrots but I'm thinking of cheese.

I've not found a dentist yet either.  Not only did that one tooth break when I bit on popcorn, but a front tooth filling cracked and part fell out.  Now there's decay at the under edges in two places.  Front top tooth.  My life is dribbling from my hands.  I have no one to consult, on the car or anything else.  I'm in this alone.  I have to be an expert on EVERYTHING.  I have to know how to fix EVERYTHING myself.

Wish I had a giant trunk in a basement wrapped up in chains.  When I need dental work done, I'd dress like a pirate and put on reggae music and go down in the basement, taking gulps straight from a bottle of Rum. Finally I'd open up that chest which would be piled high in big denomination bills and stuff a bag full and climb back up the stairs.  Then I'd get my tooth fixed and pay cash or the car a new engine and pay cash.

Ah, the pirate's life.  That's for me.  A big old trunk buried somewhere, wrapped in chains and full of cash to pay for my day to day needs.  Down the dimly lit stairs I go, down the cobbled dark, damp corridor, holding a flickering candle lamp I am, grinning ear to ear, singing a pirate hag song, cats at my feet a following.

I was going to make one more Portland trip, had said yes to it, to helping the FCCO transport Corvallis registered cats up to be fixed in Portland.  Something happened so the Corvallis clinic had to be cancelled but after some people had made reservations, is the thing.  I wanted to help, still do, but I'm not sure I really should, given the state of my car.  Would be a risk.

I hate sitting home, going nowhere.  I  hate having no human contact at all.  I just hate it. So I guess I will risk the trip, that it might be the last great adventure in the car, rather than sit here another day.

It's like gambling, to drive out my driveway.

What the hell, anymore.   Everything costs so much.

And we're so spread out in this country, we can't even feed ourselves unless we can get to a store that's often miles away and to get to one, you got to have a car and to have a car, you have to have money.

I guess I just hope for the best.

There's no Plan B to be had.  Not around here.

There's only wishful thinking and duct tape.

I've got to score a cheap half decent car.