The story of Tinks

I've talked here before about the story of PonyBoy and SodaPop, how they were rescued from a crazy-cat-hoarder-unheated-trailer situation. But I wasn't really sure of Tinks' story, other than that he was a feral kitten rescued from an urban setting in the city I work in.

So when the FC recently gave me the email address of the woman who originally rescued Tinks, I contacted her, letting her know how the Tinkster was doing. And she emailed me back, including some photos of him when she first rescued him, along with his story.

Here is what she said (unedited):

"I feel so good about Tink having a great life. He is the first cat I even came close to taming. He was sitting in my lap for morsels of chicken before he left me. What a great teacher he was for me. Of course, you know that I originally named him Tinkerbelle thinking he was a she. He is a Pine/Henry St cat. 1 of 4 feral kittens living in the back of a woodshed that butted up to a feeding station. Another woman, named Maureen who traps for the humane soc. , I think, or maybe acc, was sent out to nab a mom and kittens. In searching for them we found Tink and siblings. She wanted to trap them so badly but things got messy with another trapper and the humane society or whomever said no. Cat bodies were starting to turn up. Myself and the other trapper did some investigating to find out that 2 places were setting out antifreeze. One was where the wood shed was. The other trapper actually caught them. I took 3 kittens including Tink and she took one and who she thought was the mom. Having absolutely no knowledge of feral cats, just a feeding station of my own because I enjoyed the cats that were there and I was trying to befriend a couple of kittens that were regulars I was panicked by this entire poisoning situation. I ended up bringing in a multitude of cats for the fall and winter. I still have about 10 odd little adult misfits I assume will be with me forever. They were all housed in one spare bedroom and then the pregnant ones gave birth, it was a kitty Explosion. Tink loved the kittens and would come out to play during playtime but wouldn't let me touch him. The FC told me about CNY Snap and took many of the kittens for me. When I decided to switch the cat room in my house to another room Tink snuck out and refused to go into a kittenless room. We then became friends over chicken. He finally decided he could come on my lap to get the chicken and my world was altered. I continue to use SNAP as I am learning the art of trapping on my own now. I never realized that feral cats were wild animals before Tink. His siblings were much easier and trusting. I now am uncertain if they actually were siblings or just a bunch of kittens that stayed warm together. They were all so different. I am fairly certain I met his father the other night when I was trapping. He is stunning and regal, he reminded me of Bambi's father. He refused to enter the trap, but looked a lot like Tink. The other trapper said he has been around for years and refuses to be trapped. I will keep trying to get him to SNAP. I assumed all cats were just naturally tame and loving humans. Tink was my teacher. I couldn't believe how stubborn he was about trusting me.

Thank you, Thank you Thank you for giving him a chance at a great secure life. I am still not good at giving cats away, but honestly, I know he has a better life and it really, really helps. "



So! The story of Tinks, the woodshed cat.

Oh, now it's ON.

Okay, first off, scroll down, because yesterday I took on organized religion. Just ... because.

Now! World War III is about to go down in my yard.

Because the deer are eating my about-to-bloom hibiscuses. (Hibisci?)

This. Will. Not. Stand.

I KNOW there's been some talk lately about the deer coming to tell me something, and I'm totally down with that, BUT THEY CANNOT EAT MY HIBISCUSES WHILE THEY'RE HERE.

I put up with the deer this spring, when they ate half my damn (deer-resistant) (my ass) daylilies down to the ground. I put up with their gigantic poop piles in my backyard.

But they cannot have the hibiscuses.

I worked HARD to carve that hibiscus garden out of the sloping side yard last year. I CELEBRATED when the plants popped out of the ground this spring. I MULCHED and I WATERED and I delighted when the first buds started to appear.

The first buds. WHICH THE DEER ARE NOW EATING.

F*ck no.

So I'm arming myself with knowledge. I've looked up deer-repellent spray recipes, and I've learned that hanging aluminum pie pans in the garden, while cultivating the hillbilly look, may also help keep the deer away. I've heard the whole Irish-Spring theory.* I will sit out there with a f*cking FLAMETHROWER if I have to, to keep the deer away from those hibiscuses.

You're crossed the line, deer. You've been warned. It is ON.





*am I the only one old enough here to remember the old "Manly, yes! But *I* like it, too!" commercials?

This is what happens when you've got some time off

You're home when the Jehovah's Witnesses come around.

First off, yes, I am back to work, as of today. (insert raspberry-blowing sound here.) But last week, when I was off, I had some visitors.

You know, I was raised Presbyterian, a religion which is kind of against proselytizing, but now that I'm an atheist, hell, if some wack-ass religion wants to send people to my door, I'll talk to 'em.

And these were two lovely older women, very polite, who just wanted to talk to me for a minute on the doorstep and didn't ask to come in and were very pleased to meet Ponyboy, who was curious as to who was at the door.

So I accepted the July issue of The Watchtower and also the July issue of Awake! and also an invitation to the next local big Jehovah's Witness come-to-Jesus camp meeting, which I was amused to find was being held at one of the local casinos. Ha.

So I got started thinking about religions, and who's the wackiest of them all.

Is it the Jehovah's Witnesses? I don't know.

The Catholics? Nah, they're more evil-wacky than woo-woo wacky. Want to know why the Catholics are against birth control? It has nothing to do with that whole life-is-sacred stuff. It dates back a couple of centuries, when Catholics were vastly outnumbered, religion-wise, and they started encouraging big families to have more soldiers in the religion wars.


And that whole priests-have-to-be celibate thing? Well, priests used to be allowed to marry, but they had a nasty little habit of leaving their estates to their wives and kids when they passed away, and the higher-ups in the church didn't like losing out on all that money, so they insisted that priests be celibate, so that they would leave their money to the church when they died.

Hey, you can look it up.

Okay, let's talk about the Mormons. Holy underwear? Yeah right. The Scientologists? Well, with the whole Tom Cruise-Katie Holmes breakup in the news, we all know about those wacky-ass Scientologists. Thetans, SPs, lalalala okay if it makes you happy.


So who's the craziest religion of them all? Ya got me. But if they want to come to my door and be polite and leave me some reading material, I'm down with that. Just don't expect to see me at the local airport, wearing a white robe and beating a tambourine.

Choconut Creek, Part 2

Today I walked the lower part of Choconut Creek, down by where I used to live. As I may have mentioned previously, we haven't gotten any rain for a while:

Reminders of last year's flooding were plentiful, and prevented me from walking all the way to the river:

Crayfish skeletons looks like prehistoric aliens, don't they?:

There were raccoon prints in the mud:

And lots and lots of blackberries.

Salt Springs Part 2

I went back to Salt Springs today. I went on Tuesday, and hiked several of the trails, but there was something nagging at me - I was afraid to climb the falls. It's kind of a tradition in that neck of the woods, to go to Salt Springs and climb the falls, and hell, I've seen entire families, including small children and dogs, do the falls, and so I decided that this was the year that I, despite my fear of heights and my utter klutziness, was gonna do it.

This was one of the three sets of falls to be climbed:

I'm going up:

I MADE IT!

ahahahahahaha I did it. I made it all the way up all the falls. Somebody, hand me a cookie.

Fireworks flowers:

People scratch their names onto the rocks underneath the running water:

Um ... "Crizabith"? Is that you?


Mr. Toad:

A calm spot in the gorge:

And here's a pretty picture. The sun was shining down through the gorge at just the right angle to illuminate the water:

Gosh, I love summer.

Okay, now this is just flippin' freaky

It's almost dark out, and I was just out in the backyard with the cats, enjoying the cool breeze, when a young four-point buck came out of the brush and into the yard. I kept talking to the cats, and he kept getting closer, and he finally ended up within twenty feet of me before finally turning back into the brush. He wasn't aggressive; he wasn't charging me, as bucks sometimes will (yeah, you can laugh about it, but it does happen); he just came really close.



And I'll tell you what, the fawns, like the one the other day, will often come quite close, and even the does will occasionally, but to have a buck come that close?



I don't know what's going on here. I am by no means a "woo-woo-supernatural" kind of person, but I had another dream last night about the house I grew up in, and now here comes another deer.



Shit. I'll laugh about this tomorrow.

Work

Yeah, today I had to go into the office.

*sigh*

And as usual, "just a couple of hours" turned into most of the damn day. But hey, that's six hours of work that won't be waiting for me on Monday morning.

And I met the Mayor, who is considerably better-looking and more amiable than he is on TV.

So it wasn't a total wash.

Taughannock Falls

Today, me and my banged-up toes did five-and-a-half miles at Tug Falls. Not too shabby!

I did the rim trails (refrain from jokes, please) (oh, hell, go ahead) first - these take you above the gorge itself. You start by going up a trillion stone stairs:

And then you get views like this:

And I will tell you right now, I was a brave little toaster for getting up this high. I am very scared of heights, and while a lot of the gorge is fenced as above, a lot of it is not.

Whoo-hoo! I took that photo from a bridge across the gorge, and I was all fine and dandy until I got OFF the bridge and looked up at the underside:

Yeah.

The main fall itself had very little water going over, seeing as how it hasn't rained here in a long time:



But it was still a fine day.

The gulls thought so, too.

Choconut Creek

Today I put on my creek sneaks and walked the Choconut, the creek that ends up running through my backyard when it floods.




It was calm today.

Look who came across the creek to check me out:



He kept coming closer, and closer:



Until I finally clapped my hands to shoo him away. I think he thought I was his mama.

There were tadpoles:



And a heron, and kingfishers, and pileated woodpeckers, and a hawk who circled above me and voiced her displeasure at my presence:

And when I looked down after snapping pics of the hawk, there were minnows looking to snack on my sneaks:

And there was a deer jawbone:

I'm tellin' ya, the deer always find me. I wish I knew why.

Salt Springs

Today I headed down to Salt Springs, one of my favorite places to walk. The toe I wanged up the other night is turning all kinds of colors, but I gingerly pulled on my hikers, and I was able to hit the trails, if a bit, well, tenderly. I've got some time off, dammit, and I'm gonna hike!

I started off meandering through the camping area, where I discovered this:

Whaaaaaaa?

I love this kid-built stuff. An altar to the stone man. Awesome.

They call this the "Endless Mountains" region of Pennsylvania. I think it'd be more apt to call it the "Endless Hills", but still, it's damn pretty:

And then I went and got ice cream. Blackberry soft-serve. Helluva day.

It's all happening in my neighborhood

So, the other night I was washing dishes, when I started hearing this "whoooosh, whoooooosh" noise that sounded like it was coming from outside, from out of the sky, and I was all, "oh, great, I KNEW I shouldn't have watched Independence Day the other night", and then I saw my neighbor L. running though my backyard, pointing at the sky and yelling for me, and I was, "Oh, CRAP, it really IS Independence Day", except it was just a hot-air balloon, which landed in the park next door.



And then LAST night, I'm out in the front garden, digging a hole for some daisies, when I heard the screeeeeeeeech of metal on metal, and my neighbor L. yelling, "Oh my God! What did I hit? What did I hit?!"

Well, what she hit was the fire hydrant at the end of her driveway. I ran over to make sure she was alright, and she got out of the car, crying and yelling, "I can't believe I did it AGAIN!"

She was a school bus driver for over thirty years. That's all I'm gonna say about THAT.

And! In other, almost unbelievable news, I messed up ANOTHER toe last night. Motherf*cker. On the opposite foot this time. You know what? I think it's time to start wearing shoes. ALL THE TIME.

Well, I finally figured out where that bad smell in the kitchen was coming from ...

... it was coming from the dead mouse underneath the stove.

Blech.

Seen on Craigslist

"cat is in-tacked (not fixed)."

hahahahahaha oh Craigslist I love you.

Baby, you're a firework

So, after an evening of the neighborhood kids playing with firecrackers, the big guns kicked in about twenty minutes ago.

There's a family about a half-mile away from here that does a great fireworks display. And it's kind of awesome, 'cause I can watch it right from my living room, due to neighborhood geographics.

I was kind of wondering how the cats would react. So I made sure they were inside, and shut the pet door, about a half an hour ago, just in case they got freaked out. The verdict?

Sodapop? "Meh. Noise? What noise? Let's play!"

Ponyboy? "The firecrackers were okay. I can deal with THAT noise. but wait ... this BIG NOISE? Holy shit where's the underside of the bed oh wait I'm okay let me come out hahaha I was just kidding OH MY GOD here comes the noise again WHAT THE F*CK where can I hide?"

Tinks? Okay, I kind of figured that Tinks might be okay with this shit, seeing as how he spent his kittenhood last summer, before he came into rescue care, about two blocks from the local AAA baseball stadium, meaning he heard fireworks about three times a week last year.

Aw, Tinks. He tried valiantly to hold it together at first, all, "Oh yeah, I remember this stuff from last year, when I was a kitten, it's all okay, no big deal, HOLY MARY MOTHER OF CHRIST I NEED TO HIDE RIGHT NOW." So he is holding down the fort underneath the bed in spare bedroom right now.

Don't worry, kitties. You're safe and sound.

The start of some time off

Right now, I'm watching 1776 on TCM (best musical EVER!) (Mrs. Jefferson is singing "He Plays the Violin" RIGHT NOW!), and listening to an afternoon thunderstorm roll through. And the cats are doing this:

and this:

Hell yeah, we're doing it right.

Oh, great, now I'm getting slammed on facebook ...

... and on the Fourth of July, no less!

Okay, so an acquaintance of mine posts little sayings her vitamin store sends her on facebook all the time. And today's was, "The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has it's limits."

And at FIRST I was all, it's a joke, right? It's gotta be a joke, writing about genius and putting that apostrophe in the "its".

But it just sat there, and sat there, and I couldn't resist myself, so I commented, "I don't think genius would've put that apostrophe in the "its", though ... "

and some chick who I don't know from Adam commented, "Wow, Rocky ... bitter person much?"

*---*

Whaaaaaaat? This is why I've gotta stay the f*ck off facebook.

Now scroll down, for lots of random stuff. Yippee!

Random

The portable AC unit, which was supposed to arrive at my local Best Buy on June 28, finally showed up on July 2. Funny, I didn't know "covered wagon" was a shipping option.

I accidentally ate a piece of dry cat food the other day. Don't ask. It tastes just about how it looks.

I set the kiddie pool up in the backyard and when it gets hot enough, I wear my bikini and sit in the pool. It's all about comfort. I hope none of the neighbors sees me and, like, turns into a pillar of salt or something.

But! My kiddie pool sprung a leak last night! Oh no! I've gotta buy a new one, TODAY. Priorities, peeps.

I'm taking a break from fostering. I'll still be volunteering for the local rescue groups; I just won't have any fosters in my house for a little bit. I'm really, really close to burning out at this point, and I need a rest. Kittens are exHAUSTing, guys. For me, anyway. If I had a couple of little kids who could play with them and burn off some of their energy, it'd be a different story. My fosters went back to the FC's house, where they've got plenty of other kittens to keep them busy.

I always feel guilty when I have to renew library materials, and I don't know why. It's not like there's a line of people waiting to take out that three-month-old copy of GQ.

Yeah, I read men's magazines. I'll read just about anything.

I kept finding pieces of grilled food (chicken, sausage) by my back door. I was kind of dismayed, because I was afraid my cats were filching it from my neighbor L.'s grill, but when I went over to apologize and pay for what they'd taken, she told me that no, no, she'd been feeding the cats little tidbits left over from when she was done grilling. I'm glad she likes my cats, but I kind of wish she wouldn't feed them, but I'd be a total asshole if I asked her to stop ("Stop being nice to my cats!"), so I guess my cats will continue to feast on her leftovers. I wish she'd give some to me, actually. She used to bring me over dinner quite often, but then that whole pizza-allergy thing blew up on me, and now I don't get any more neighbor-food.

Oh, except for T., across the street. When the local supermarket has one of their buy-one-get-TWO-free deals, (usually on potato chips) sometimes she brings me over something. Thanks, T.!

I didn't put out any flags for the Fourth. For one thing, I'm working today and didn't have the time to do it last night, and for another ... well, I'm lame.

I saw a deer and a cat having a playdate in my yard the other morning. True story! I'll tell you about it soon ...

The Village Idiot Strikes Again

Did you know that portable ACs have drain plugs? And while setting up the unit, if you look at that funny little rubber thingie in the shipping box, shrug because it's not on the itemized list of parts in the manual, and toss it back in the box, you'll end up with water all over your floor?

Dudes, it's a wonder I can walk and talk at the same time. I'm actually kind of ashamed of myself at this point.

*sigh*

Put on some damn pants!

Okay, so I'm sitting here watching Breaking Pointe, the reality series about a ballet company, and ... man, those men's tights don't leave anything to the imagination, do they?

Stone walls

I see a lot of stone walls when I'm out hiking. (These photos were taken early this spring; thus the lack of foliage.)

And all I can think of when I see one is, "Maaaan, that must've been a LOT of work."



And I wonder. I mean, I know that farmers had to clear their fields of stones, so they had a ready supply of rocks for the walls.

But wouldn't it have been easier to just heave the stones out of the fields, and then cut down some trees and make wooden fences? Or wait, were farms close enough together back then so that if you heaved a rock out of your field, it'd end up in your neighbor's field? Or did they figure that the rock walls would last a lot longer, making all of the work in the beginning pay off?

All I know is, long after the farms are gone and the forest has reclaimed the land, the walls are still here. And it makes me tired just looking at 'em, thinking of all that work.

I'm that person

I just opened up my phone/TV/internet bill, and it was sixteen bucks more than it was last month, so I called the cable company to find out why. And when they explained that I had been under a special promo offer when I signed up three months ago that had now expired, I dropped the HBO and Showtime to get the bill back down to where it was.

Yeah, I'm that person.

I'm the person who will get home from grocery shopping and, upon discovering that I was charged twice for a $5.99 package of chicken, will take my receipt and go right back to the store.

I'm the person who knows who's got the best price on cat food, and whether the extra gas I spend to get to that store will pay itself off in the lower cost. Yeesh. Yeah, that's me.

I'm the asshole ahead of you in line who counts out her change. I'm sorry. I really am.

I clip coupons. I scour store flyers. I buy generic paper towels. I purchase my clothes at thrift stores. I've never owned a brand-new car in my life. My nineteen-inch TV is now twenty years old.

I was raised upper-middle-class, but once I went out on my own, I was low-income for so long that I think this stuff is ingrained in me now.

And honestly? It hurts me to buy something one place, when I know I could get it someplace else cheaper.

I'm not proud of it or anything; actually, it's kind of embarrassing. My name is RockyCat and I'm a cheapskate.

But you know what all those years of scrimping did? It bought me a house.

I never, ever would have been able to save up the money to buy a house if I hadn't already been so used to cutting corners. All I had to do was a cut a little further for a couple of years, and I had my down payment.

Now, of course, I don't own the house. The bank owns the house. But I'm building equity, and someday I will own that house, flat-out.

All thanks to generic paper towels and the thrift store.

How about you? Any good money-saving ideas? Let's hear 'em! Maybe I can save another five cents. Ha.

and speaking of kittens ...

... Panko and Ponza, the two white boys, have been adopted. That leaves three.



Chobani says, "Why has no one adopted me yet? LOOK at me! I iz adorabuls!"









and Kikko says, "YOU?! What about ME?! Look in my pretty, pretty eyes, and explain to me what I'm still doing in THIS dump!"







and Princess Kamiko says, "I don't know WHAT you two are going on about! Everyone KNOWS I'M the prettiest kitten in the world! WHY has no one claimed ME yet?"





Yep, they're still here. Come and get 'em!

and then I broke my got-dam toe

Okay, okay, it's probably not broken, but maaaaaan, it hurts like a mother.

I was getting ready to feed the cats this morning, and at the same time getting their meds ready. For Soda, it's an antibiotic pill. For Tinks, the same. (Did I mention that a week after Soda got sick, Tinks came down with the SAME THING? No? I forgot to mention it? Sorry, I've been a LITTLE BUSY. Ha. Over the weekend, Tinks was on THREE different meds. Fun.) For Pony, it's his sixty-dollars-a-teeny-bottle (I just can't get over that) eyedrops. (It's seventy dollars when you add in the refrigerated-shipping charges.) (NOT OVER IT.)

So! Okay, I'm getting the cats' breakfast ready, because once I feed and pill them, it's time to get the fosters' food ready, and did I mention that it's five-blessed-thirty in the morning? No? I forgot to mention that? *sigh* THIS is what happens when you have cats AND foster cats AND a full time job.

And oh! There are still three adorable fosters in my spare room, waiting for adoption, if anybody's interested. HINT HINT. Two gray/black tabbies (Kikko and Chobani) and one little white princess (Kamiko). (I DID NOT NAME THESE CATS.) They have been to TWO adoption events so far (there went my weekend) and there are still NO TAKERS, which would be mind-boggling, except for the fact that there are approximately nine million free kittens being advertised on Craigslist right now. Thanks, Kitten Season!

and this train is going off the track now, isn't it? OKAY. Back to breakfast. Tinks and Pony are in the kitchen, and I'm getting ready to med them, when I look out the window and see Soda meandering through the backyard. I figure I'll go call him in, quick, so I can med everybody at the same time, so I rush out into the garage, in the process falling down the garage stairs.

All two of them.

There are all of TWO stairs leading from the house to the garage, and I fell down them.

Olympics, here I come.

And am I the only person who, even when being observed by no one other than CATS, still tries to go for the save and not look like a total idiot? Still tries to maintain some sense of decorum as my big toe is bending underneath my foot and hurting like hell? Still tries to get to the damn back door so I can call in Soda? No? That's just me? That's what I figured.

So yeah, I'm limping like hell and my toe hurts like crazy and it keeps falling asleep in a PAINFUL way and I briefly thought maybe this could justify a day off from work but even I'M not THAT lame so here I am at the office, telling you about my broken toe.

The end.

Anybody got any good broken toe stories for me?

Hoping I'm not making a big mistake

"Refurbished".

On Friday, I bought a "refurbished" portable air conditioner. On line.

Here's the deal. A while back, I put a window AC unit in the spare room.

To keep the foster kittens cool, doncha know. SHUT IT.

And ... well ... we had a couple of really hot days last week, and stepping into that cool, cool spare room? Was awesome. And I was feeling guilty, depriving my OWN cats of AC, while the fosters basked in cool comfort. SHUT IT AGAIN.

I thought about getting another window unit, for either my bedroom or the living room, but I hated to lose a window to the air conditioner. So I started looking into portable units. They are not, I discovered, really all that "portable", but the only window space they use is the space for the drainage vent, so ...

I started pricing them out. The cheapest model that could reasonably be expected to do the job was up around three hundred bucks, which ... no. Nope. And as it turns out, upstate New York is not exactly a hotspot for air conditioner sales, so I couldn't even FIND a local store that carried them.

Time to turn to the internet! Where doing a simple thing like pricing out an air conditioner can suck up just as much time as you want it to, which in my case turned out to be half a day.

Which is where we come to "refurbished". I kept seeing these Best Buy air conditioners that were a hundred bucks less than at the other stores. Because they were "refurbished". It turns out that when someone returns an air conditioner to Best Buy, either because it doesn't fit in their window or it doesn't work right or they're just really, really stupid, it goes back to the Best Buy warehouse, where they test it, fix anything that's wrong, and then sell it at a discount. In the case of the air conditioner, an over-thirty-percent discount. The unit still comes with a warranty, and you can still return it, but it's cheaper than buying a brand new unit.

So I bought one. Which will be shipped to my local Best Buy store in the next few days at no charge. They will call me when it gets there and I will go and pick it up and somehow I feel like there is some giant catch to this someplace, that I am reprising my role as the Village Idiot for buying a "refurbished" air conditioner, but I guess we'll find out in a few days, won't we?

Stay tuned ... and in the meantime, if anyone has any stories about (a) "refurbished" or (b) Best Buy, feel free to regale me with 'em in the comments.

I really should start up Freaky Friday again ...

... because this stuff just keeps finding me.

The bus monitor

Okay, by now I'm sure you've all seen the video or read the reports about the elderly school bus monitor who was ruthlessly taunted by her middle school charges. I have not seen the entire video and probably will not; you only have to watch for a couple of minutes to get the gist of the thing.

I have a couple of thoughts:

1. Someone commented on a web site that this exact same thing happens on school buses every day, except with a fellow schoolkid as the person being tormented, and a couple of other people commented that no, this level of tormenting doesn't happen to kids, to which I say, "HA!" Those people obviously never rode the schoolbuses I did in the seventies, when the level of verbal evil being perpetrated upon kids by their fellow students was truly astounding. The only difference between then and now? Back then, I don't remember "f*ck" being flung about. I don't know if I even knew the word back then, and if my fellow students did, they weren't using it, because of the knowledge that they would surely go up in flames if they ever uttered it.

2. Where was the bus driver? Oh, wait, probably the same place MY bus drivers were back in the day, driving the bus and ignoring anything and everything going on behind them. The only way to get a reaction from the bus driver? Throw something at the back of her head.

3. Why did this lady sit there and take it? Obviously, she couldn't beat the shit out of the thugs like I'm sure she wanted to (or maybe that's just me), but why didn't she ask the driver to pull over? Why didn't she call dispatch or the school and hold up her cell so they could hear what was going on? Once the ride was over, why didn't she tell someone what had happened? Why didn't the driver tell someone what had happened? (Oh yeah, that's right, drivers only react to being beaned in the head.)

4. She was the monitor for the bus. What, exactly, was she monitoring? The number of times the little darlings could hurl "f*ck" at her during one twenty-minute bus ride? And since she refused to stand up for herself, it makes me wonder what she was doing when the little darlings were tormenting their peers or beating the sh*t out of them in the back of the bus. Isn't that what monitors are supposed to prevent? Or had she remained silent for so long when they went after each other that they finally got bored and turned on her?


That's my half-assed thoughts, upon viewing a couple of minutes of the video and reading some of the news reports. Investigative journalism, RockyCat-style! What's your thoughts?

Oh yes I said it. Oh yes I did.

"Hey! Kid! Get off of my lawn!"

Okay, so it was more of an, "Excuse me! You've got the entire park to play in! Would you please stop playing ball in my front lawn?"

It was a holiday - Father's Day - and so of COURSE my elderly neighbors were throwing a party. And the problem is not them. Well, a lot of the time it IS them, but during their beer blowout parties the problem is their grandkids, who are now in their tweens and teens and evidently inherited the "no boundaries" gene from their grandparents. The parents and grandparents, who are busy getting their drink on and don't want to have to mind the kids, send the kids to the park next to my house. Instead of walking down the road to the park, they cut through my yard. The front yard, the back yard - makes no difference to them. ALL DAMN DAY Sunday, I had herds of yelling, screaming, shrieking, shoving kids and teenagers running through my yard.

The older grandkids were sneaking beers from the party and sucking them down in the park, just over the brush line from my property. One herd of younger grandkids was playing paddleball in my neighbors' front yard, with the ball bouncing into MY front yard every thirty seconds or so, followed by a pack of shoving boys trying to get to the ball. Another herd of younger ones were playing frisbie tag in the park, next to my yard, shrieking and screaming so loudly you'd have thought they were being killed.

And they almost were, I'll tell you that right now.

You know why I never had kids? BECAUSE I DON'T LIKE KIDS. And having a couple of dozen of them tearing through my yard, yelling and screaming, was making me insane.

Finally, finally, I'd had it. I looked out my living room window to see that two of the secret drinkers were wobbily tossing a ball back and forth, in MY front yard. When one of them tromped through my front garden to go after an errant ball, I snapped. And yelled. And the kid apologized, and stumbled back in to the park. Bastid.

I think I'm gonna invest in some fencing. Electrified fencing.

Look who's home!

I guess they don't have scratch posts at the vet's.

Catnip, either.

Five days, an amount of money I'm not about to discuss, and no real definitive diagnosis other than "Fever of Unknown Origin" later, our bud is back home.

Good to see ya, SodaPop!

Monkeys in a tree

No, this is not one of my masterpieces. I saw it on a walk this morning. (See? I'm not the only crazy one!)

Soda update: As of this morning, he's doing well. The vomiting has not returned and his temp has stayed down. Provided he doesn't relapse again (crossing fingers), he'll be coming home tomorrow. We miss you, Soda!

Soda Update

So! Soda was supposed to come home this afternoon, but then his fever spiked again and he had to stay at the vet's.

She called a couple of hours ago to say that he'd since gone full-on Exorcist, with vomiting and diarrhea and the whole nine yards. And in a valiant attempt to blow smoke up my butt, or maybe it was just a kind act to try to comfort me, she assured me that this was the last gasp of whatever was laying him low leaving him, that the illness was finally exiting, that he should be feeling much better soon. She gave him something to stop the puke-fest, and the IV meds continue. She is going to call in the morning with an update.

Soda, buddy, stay tough. You can get through this. And I miss you. And so do Pony and Tinks - they're waiting for your return. Get well soon!

Kind thoughts for SodaPop

SodaPop is in the hospital tonight.

He'd been off his food for a couple of days, and yesterday evening and last night all he wanted to do was sleep and sleep and sleep. When he was still lethargic when I got home from work tonight, and still not eating, I called the vet.

She said to bring him right in. It turns out he had a temp of 105, which I guess is quite high for a cat.

The vet seems confident that this is just a one-off, that he picked up a bug somehow (because God knows he's been vaccinated for everything known to man), and with an overnight stay and some IV fluids and something to bring the temp down, he will be fine.

It just seems awful quiet around here ... get well soon, SodaPop!

Peelin' the easy way. Oh lord.

I was watching a slideshow on somebody's blog the other day, and they had it set to "Time for Me to Fly", by REO Speedwagon. An old classic from my high school days. *cough*

You know how it goes ...

"You got me stealin' your love away
'cause you never give it
Peelin' the easy way
and we can't relive it"

And I was thinking, like, "Dude canNOT be singing "Peelin' the easy way". What the hell does that even MEAN? I know that I've always THOUGHT that's what he was singing, but it makes no SENSE."

So I googled. Of course. I don't think the internet even EXISTED when that song came out, so excuse me for not doing it sooner.

"Peelin' the years away".

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh.

hahahahaha I'm an idiot.

Remind me to tell you some time what I thought the lyrics to "Landslide" were.

A perfect life. A perfect mind.

Okay, I was reading something about someone having to apologize after describing something as "gay". And then, someone in the comments described his apology as "lame", at which point the commenter was lambasted for using a euphemism for, oh God, I don't even know how it was phrased, but it was along the lines of "lame" equates to "crippled", which is making fun of the differently abled. Something like that.

And I just ... sometimes I want to give up. Sometimes there are things I would like to talk about here, that I don't even know how to start the conversation, because I know somebody's gonna jump on my stuff. (Want to know an example? Fine. I hesitated to post pics of my cats outside, because I worried that it was just gonna start a shitstorm of "How DARE you let your animals outside?" And if I had more readers (ha), if I was a Dooce, it probably would have.)

So ... here's a question: Is free speech dead? Are we now supposed to self-monitor to the point where we can't even mention certain terms ("lame") anymore without the shit hitting the fan? If someone calls someone else a "dumb blonde", should they then be expected to make a public apology? If someone gets their feelings hurt because someone else referred to someone ELSE as a "retard", is it the end of the damn world for everybody? And is this the way it should be?

Because I'm starting to worry that if that's the case, there won't be any good insults LEFT.

Grazin' in the grass is a gas, baby, can you dig it?

I can dig it he can dig it she can dig it we can dig it they can dig it you can dig it

Oh, let's dig it - can you dig it, baby?

Oh, let's dig it - can you dig it, baby?

Everything here is so clear, you can see it

And everything here is so real, you can feel it

And it's real, so real, so real, so real, so real, so real

Can you dig it?

Can you dig it, baby?

Youth in Asia

This post was originally written back in March. I just found it in my drafts folder, and I don't know why it never made it to the blog (probably because I NEVER STOP TALKING), but I thought it was worth putting up. (and NO, I'm not out of posts, do I EVER run out of posts? I just thought this one was interesting. So there.)



So, anyway, last Saturday (Ed: Three months ago) I drove out to East Jeezus, where I ended up adopting two cats, and how the hell did THAT happen, anyway?

And the house where I went, it belonged to the woman who was rescuing all of the trailer cats. She volunteers for a small rescue group, which suddenly found itself completely overwhelmed when a call to come and get "a couple of pregnant cats" turned out instead to be, at last count, fifteen cats of varying ages and feralosity, with another five or so still to be caught.

And oh, what a story I got! About how the woman who owned the cats was living in the unheated trailer along with them. About how the dining room alone had about three inches of cat shit on the floor. About how, when the rescue worker was talking with the woman, one of the woman's dogs lifted up a leg and nonchalantly PEED on a basket full of laundry, and the woman said nothing. About how at one point the cops were called ...

But ANYWAY. So I go to the rescue lady's house, and of course the first thing that hits you when you walk in the door is eau de dirty litterbox. Maaannnn, that is one smell I do not like. But when you suddenly find yourself caring for a bunch of random cats, I guess it's kind of unavoidable. The healthy cats were upstairs in the living room, and the cats with respiratory viruses were down in the basement. The unfinished, gloomy basement. In cages. And I swear, for a minute I wondered if they wouldn't have been better off back in the trailer. But the rescue woman explained that they would be brought upstairs as they recovered; she couldn't risk infecting the entire group with respiratory disease. It was just ... sad.

Also sad? The rescue woman was sad. Because, as it turns out, that very morning, she had to make an emergency trip to the vet. To have her pet mouse euthanized. The mouse had been very sick, you see, and the day before it had taken a turn for the worse, and she couldn't just let it suffer ...

I ... I ... I kept a straight face. Here she was, in a house full of feral CATS, and she took a MOUSE to the vet to have it euthanized?

hahahahahahahaha oh she's a better woman than I am, that's for sure.

hahaha oh wait, it gets better - NOW WITH AN UPDATE!

Okay, so the FC wanted me to do a solo meet-and-greet, which I declined. But this afternoon, I went the extra mile, lined up another volunteer to go with me, called the potential adopter, and rearranged my Saturday so I could take two kittens to the potential adopter for a meet-and-greet tomorrow morning.

Twenty minutes ago? I get an email. The potential adopter's landlord allows adult cats, but not kittens. REALLY? You've been contacting our rescue group, wanting to adopt a kitten ASAP HURRY HURRY RIGHT AWAY, and just now you've checked with your landlord to see he'll even allow it?

Oh man. This shit makes me tired.

UPDATED! I just got an email from the FC - would I like to go to a meet-and-greet on Sunday night with one of my fosters and three of hers? You know what I wanted to respond? "Are you high?"

I just ... I like helping out. I do. But this not my whole life. Gah.

Am I crazy?

I got an email from the FC (foster coordinator) tonight. Someone had seen the kittens I am fostering on a pet adoption website and was interested in meeting two of them (the person was looking for a specific gender and color). The FC asked if I could contact this person, and take the kittens to the person's house for a meet-and-greet.

Ummmmm ... no.

I emailed back, explaining to the FC that I did not feel comfortable going alone to the home of someone I did not know. I offered several options for a meet-and-greet, including having someone else from the rescue group come with me; meeting in public; or meeting at my place of work.

So, am I just paranoid? I've been on meet-and-greets before, but always with another person along. I did offer to go to a meet-and-greet alone last week, but that was with a person who had already adopted from us and was familiar to the FC.

I mean, regardless, I'm not budging on this one. I am too familiar with the weirdity of the internet to do anything like this. But I'm curious - what would YOU do?

Movie Review: "The Fighter"

"The Fighter" stars Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale. Mark plays a boxer on his (sort-of) way up, and Christian plays his brother, who used to be a contenda but is now a drugged-up mess. It's kind of hard to like Mark Wahlberg after his dick-shittish comments about 9/11. I mean, he's always been kind of a toad, but that just pushed it over the edge. A day after watching The Fighter, I didn't remember how it ended, so meh. Unexpectedly funny in spots. Christian Bale was amazing.

My Nexflix queue is nearing bottom - up next, I've got a doc about Irish jig competitors. Anybody seen anything good lately?

Gratuitous Cute Kitten Pics

Princess says, "Meh. I'm so TIRED of the paparazzi":

Tabby Girl says, "What IS this fascinating device?":

And all five chow down:

There. You're welcome.

Here I go, being all inSENsitive again

Pic from a recent local obit:



So, who died?

I'm sorry, but I can't go along with this shit. Not unless they did some kind of whack-ass sacrificial pyre in the backyard, and the dogs went with him.

Oh, there are LOTS of things that bother me about obit photos. The ones where the subject has been cropped out of a larger picture; you can tell because he's got a phantom hand on his shoulder. The ones that are out-of-focus, or were taken several years ago., or were obviously the only photo anybody could find of the dude.

You know what? If nobody gave enough of a shit about the dude to snap a decent photo of him in the last twenty years, chances are nobody's mourning him too awful hard. Just skip the photo.

And oh, man, I was was reading one the other day that read, "He passed (passed what? Gas? Final exams?) at his home ... while playing hymns on his piano." My, my, my. Aren't WE a tad bit holier-than-thou? They shoulda added, "And then he went STRAIGHT to heaven, where God loves him BEST." Jeez.

Oh boy, and one more thing. A line like this - " In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to a charity of your choice in Marion's name." - is tasteful. A line like this - "Donations are being collected to help defray the financial needs of the family." - is AWFUL. DO NOT GET ME STARTED. THROW A SMALLER FUNERAL, PEOPLE.

Look. I get it. Dying people are expensive. Funerals are expensive. And maybe the family is poor. But begging for money in the obit? NO. WRONG. I am also not a big fan of, "Donations may be made to a trust fund for the children." ALSO WRONG. For one thing, how much money do these people think they're gonna get? A couple grand, tops? And that's worth whoring out your family in an obit? "We're so damn poor, we gotta beg for money in Dad's death notice"? I don't THINK so. GOD.

Have a little dignity, people. It's the last damn thing you can do for the deceased.

and just to cap it off ...

... I got poison ivy on my neck. No place else, just my neck.

and it looks like a big ol' hickey.

*sigh*

... and then I forgot about my ceiling fans

First off, scroll down to view my latest adventure in stupidity.

So! After illustrating yet again what a Village Idiot I am, I got the new AC unit home before my friends came over to help with the install, i.e., do all the work while I stood around helplessly.

And at one point one of my friends mentioned how they have a ceiling fan that helps on hot days. And a little something *clicked over* in my mind, and I thought, "oh yeah ... I have ceiling fans."

Because I do. I have one in the living room, and one in each of the bedrooms. Which I had totally forgotten about.

In my defense (and I wish I had a buck for every time I've used that phrase - I shoulda just named this thing "In my defense"), I actually TRIED to use the ceiling fans, back when I first moved in, and The Runt and Little Girl FREAKED. They acted like they were being strafed by enemy aircraft every time I turned the fans on. So I just ... forgot about the fans.

Oh! And let's not forget that the ceilings in my house are disgusting old ugly-ass acoustic tile which I cannot afford to replace, so I try not to look up, which may have contributed to my forgetting about the ceiling fans. Hmmm ... the ceiling fans which also have LIGHTS in them which I turn on and off EVERY DAY ... okay, forget that argument.

So! I had been reminded that I have ceiling fans. And I decided to do a little experiment. Waiting until all three cats were in the same room, I turned on one of the fans, staying clear of the exit in case they were going to go mental. And ... nothing. As the fan started to turn, the cats glanced up once, and then ... no reaction. Evidently the "freak out at the ceiling fan" reaction was limited to The Runt and Little Girl's family gene pool.

Yay for ceiling fans! I'll bet I'll be using them a lot this summer. Now that I've remembered that I have them.

Stupid is as stupid does

Last Monday it was time for the big window air-conditioner install. I had purchased the unit a few days before, and some friends were coming over to help me put it in the foster room.

That morning, I decided to unpack it and browse through the instructions, just to get a heads-up, although as possibly the least-mechanically-inclined person on the planet, I'm not sure what good I thought this was gonna do.

I pulled out the manual, started to unpack the unit, and saw that the instructions kept mentioning a "top rail" that had to be installed first. The top rail was supposed to have been shipped on the side of the unit, and there was even a handy little diagram showing where the top rail would be.

There was no top rail.

I looked, and looked, and checked the instructions again, and poked around some more, and ... no top rail.

Well.

I looked at my watch. I had an hour before my friends, who were traveling a little distance to get to me, were supposed to be there.

I put the foam stuff back in the box around the AC, threw all the parts in on top, hoisted it into the car, and headed back to the store.

I got to Returns, explained the situation, and they asked me to take the unit over to the Service area. I got to Service, explained the situation again, and the guy started looking through the box. "Hmmmm," he said. "I don't see the top rail. Let's open up another one." So he got another AC unit, opened up the box, and started looking. "There's no top rail in this one, either," he said. "Maybe we got a bad shipment ... let me just lift up the unit. Maybe ..."

You know where this is going, right? He lifted the unit up, and there, in the bottom of the box, was - ta-da! - the top rail.

Lesson learned?

Take the damn thing OUT OF THE BOX before you conclude that parts are missing.

I'm like the village idiot or something. I do all the stupid crap so you don't have to. You're welcome!