Where does the money go

 First off, thank you to Ginny!  For sending me a gift card to commemorate the arrival of Good Boy, which I promptly spent on this:

I mean, COME ON!! How cute is THAT?!





Since my sister left me money, the vast majority of it has been reinvested.  But I've been able to spend some of it in a "why not?" kind of way, like,

I sponsored a matching fundraiser for a local animal rescue, which raised almost three grand!

When an acquaintance of mine's mom passed away very unexpectedly, leaving my acquaintance to ponder the realities of, among other things, going from a three cat household to a six cat household, I placed a massive Chewy order and had it delivered to her, so at least she didn't have to worry about buying cat food and litter for a while.

I saw a facebook post in which a local wildlife rehabilitation outfit had trapped a small feral kitten for TNR, only to discover that the kitten had a prolapsed rectum and would need three hundred dollars' worth of surgery to correct the problem. The comments on that post were pretty dismaying, along the lines of "why bother? It's just a feral," and "do you KNOW how many spays and neuters three hundred dollars will pay for?", neither of which, as far as I was concerned, addressed the problem at hand, which was a little kitten with a correctable problem, so I contacted the outfit and paid the bill.  Take THAT, haters.  Haha.

I finally, FINALLY got t-shirts printed up for the little TNR group I run, and I'll be handing them out to the volunteers, i.e., my friends that I've sucked into helping, the next time we trap, which is coming up in a couple of weeks.

 

And finally, most of you know that I love summer.  I REALLY love summer.  And I love hot weather, as evidenced by the fact that yesterday it was approximately a thousand degrees here with one billion percent humidity, and I went and paddled a local river for three hours.

 

But!  What I DON'T love about summer is the nights when the temp doesn't leave the seventies and it's still one billion percent humidity, and all the fans in the world won't stop me from lying in my bed sweating.

 

So this morning I contacted my furnace guy, who also does plumbing and AC, to see about getting central air installed.  BECAUSE I CAN.  

 

And THAT's where the money goes.  :)  

Vacation, all I ever dreamed of

I've been on vacation for the last week and a half, and it's been awesome!  Beautiful weather.  God, I love summertime.

I dressed Good Boy up for the Fourth, because there's nothing better than a cat who will let you outfit him ridiculously:

Went to the Cornell Botanical Gardens for a day that was hot and humid and almost melted me:

Thank you Ginny for the new lawn art!:

The turk's cap lilies in my own garden aren't blooming yet, but I was lucky enough to find some wild ones to photograph:

Here I am at the Rockwell Museum in Corning, posing in front of a picture I absolutely painted myself using a Bob Ross video:

I walked a lot of waterfalls:

What's this?  Looks like Foster Camp is back in session!  

That is a potato chip in his carrier. Because people are dipshits.

And then there were two:

You'd better believe there was lots of paddling:

and snakes!

What a great time.  And the State Fair is just around the corner!   Summer is the best.

Gonna take you down to ... Dino Towwwwwwwn

About a week ago, I saw this in a store and could not resist:

 This?  Is gonna take a while:

It's Alive!:

How cool is THIS?!:

""Look what the cat dragged in," my butt!", Pony says.  "*I* didn't bring this thing home!":

"He DOES make lots of shade, though,":

"Say hello to my little friend":

Sodapop is decidedly unimpressed.  "Outta my way, buddy, coming through."

2019:  Summer of the Dino. :) 

The Good Boy Chronicles: Step By Step

First off, I'd like to thank everyone for your relocation ideas - very helpful!  You've definitely given me a lot to think about.  Feel free to keep adding suggestions!

I realized today that I haven't posted about Good Boy since his dramatic rescue, so let's get caught up, shall we?

One of the first things I did was take Good Boy to my own vet.  Seeing as the rescue does not follow as stringent a vaccination schedule as my own vet does, I wanted to take him in for a get-acquainted visit and to see what the vet recommended as far as further vaccinations.  I know that opinions vary widely on this topic, but it makes me feel better to err on the side of caution.  Are cats over-vaccinated?  Possibly.  Do I still follow my vet's recommendations?  Yes.

Long story short:  Sorry, bud, you're getting the needle.

At home, I kept him in the foster room full time at first. Given his iffy past history with permacat Tinks, I knew I was going to have to take things slow as far as introducing him to the other cats.  But I would be lying if I said I wasn't VERY happy to finally have a cat who would let me dress him up in ridiculous costumes:

Time to explore:

We did site-swapping ala Jackson Galaxy at first.  I would only let Good Boy into a room when the permacats were elsewhere.  That way he could get the lay of the land without having to deal with cat drama.

"Well, there's the birdfeeder, but where's the birds, lady?"

 Blind date time.  "Do you eat here often?"

 I started introducing the cats at mealtimes, one at a time, at first placing the bowls on opposite sides of the kitchen, and gradually moving them closer and closer.  I doubt they'll ever be eating the same strand of spaghetti like Lady and the Tramp, but they can peacefully eat side by side.

The only glitch so far is that Good Boy is so eager to hang out with the other cats, and he's so big and, well, clumsy, that he tends to galumph toward them at full speed, and they get scared and vamoose.

Long story short:  It's going fine, if slowly. I'm so determined to do this right, as opposed to my usual modus operandi, which is slapdash and half-assed, that so far all is well.  Nobody is overly stressed, there has been no major cat drama, and I'm hoping that soon, it'll be like Good Boy has been here all along. 

What's one more, anyway?  :) 

Sell me on your city!

As some of you know, I'm planning on relocating within the next few years. Upstate New York is absolutely beautiful in the summertime, but the winters?  No way.  The older I get, the more tired I am of dealing with cold and snow and terrible, icy roads several months of the year.

So!  To where should I move?  Definitely south, probably quite a BIT south.  And here's where I could use your opinions.  Where do YOU live?  Do you like it, and why?  Is the climate temperate?  How about the cost of living?  Crime rate?

My current neighborhood is in a semi-rural area not far from a small-ish city, and that's kind of what I'm looking for, but without the ice and snow.  But if you live someplace completely DIFFERENT from that and absolutely love it, I wanna hear about that, too!

Sell me on your city!  your county!  your state!  What do you love about where you live?

Soggy Sunday at Salt Springs

It was raining pretty good this morning, but I decided to go for a hike anyway.  Around here, if I waited for the rain to stop before I went outside, I'd never leave the house.  So I grabbed a raincoat and off I went.

In a steady rain, I pulled into the parking lot at Salt Springs State Park to discover it ... empty.  Good!  More park for me. :)

Due to recent severe storms and flash flooding, the main picnic area was no more:

And the creek bridge which leads to most of the trails had been washed away and replaced with ... a rope handrail.  I crossed over on the rocks.  Onward! 

All the rain has made things green green green:

And I swear the rain makes bright things look even brighter:

An old favorite, Penny Rock:

I thought the orange part of this fungus would be slimy, but it was firm and smooth instead:

This big ol' tree had grown across a bigger rock:

In bloom:

Heart rock, in the midst of all the flood damage:

and raindrops on the flowers:

By the time I was done hiking, my boots and socks were soaked and my jeans were wet up to my knees, but that's okay.  It still was a good walk.

Well, if that don't beat all

Some of you may recall that I was hired for my current job in a provisional capacity, meaning that the next time the civil service exam for my position was offered in my area, I would need to take the test and finish in the top three positions in order to become a permanent hire.

Back in early March I took the exam.  Then, last month, still without knowing the results, I had to take a typing test, which is a requirement for the position.  I was surprised to find out that the passing requirement was only 45 words per minute, and even MORE surprised to find out that only nine of the original 20 applicants for the position passed the typing portion (which is graded immediately upon completion of the test).  Whoa.  But at least now I knew that I was one of only nine.

And then I waited. And waited some more.  And then, yesterday, the results were in.

Not only did I pass the exam, and not only did I finish in the top three positions,

I ACED THE TEST.

A perfect score.  The ONLY ONE.  The next closest applicants were ten points behind.

WHEW.

Now, I'll be honest here, the stakes for me were not as high as they once would have been, but still, this had become a matter of pride for me.  I really, really wanted to do well on the test, just to prove to myself that I COULD.  It had, after all, been many, many years since I had had to sit for an exam.

 But I did it!  and I ACED it.

DAMN I'M GOOD. :) 

It's just all so ... strange (edited because I realized I forgot some very important stuff)

First of all, Good Boy continues to do well!  He's been to see my vet and did fine, and I think I'm probably going to try introducing him into Gen Pop this coming weekend.  We'll see how it goes!

And thank you so much to Ginny for the gift card so that I can pick out something special for him and let him know that it's from Aunt Ginny. :)

Thank you also to those who donated to the matching Facebook fundraiser I did for the rescue!  Together we raised almost $3,000.00 in memory of Arline!  I am currently looking for some smaller, up-and-coming local rescues who could use a wee bit of financial assistance.  All in my sister's name, of course. 

Ponyboy about gave me a heart attack the other day - I was petting him and felt an odd, hard LUMP in his belly.  Given his medical history, I took him to the vet right away, and it turned out that he had somehow managed to bruise his "xiphoid process".  Go ahead, google it, I'll wait ...

Leave it to PB to damage something I didn't even know EXISTED.  But he's doing great and will make a full recovery.

Now to the strange part ... well, first off, not being able to talk to my sister, of course.  I really, really miss just being able to pick up the phone and ... you know.  Anyone who has ever lost a loved one knows how tough that is. 

The other strange thing?  The money.  It just seems so WEIRD to have All. This. Money., and not to be able to talk about it.  I mean, talking about money is just kind of ... gauche, isn't it?  Not done?  Especially since I did absolutely nothing to actually EARN this money?

But, I mean, every month I open up the statements from my investment accounts and I just want to do a happy dance.  I understand, of course, that investments go up and go down, but right now, well ... my investment accounts earned more money in the first four months of 2019 than I will earn all YEAR at my job.

Whoa.

(And yes, these are solid investments - mutual funds and such - with an established firm with a proven track record of many decades.  No, I am not investing in oil wells in Texas or Nigerian princes.  It's all on the level.)

So I've got this money, and it's making MORE money, and it's all just such a KICK, and I ...can't really talk about it.  Except to YOU, of course.  I'm so glad I have you guys!

Don't hate me because I have money, okay?  :)

Easter Sunday, Taughannock Falls

First off, for all who are wondering, Good Boy is doing great!  He is chilling in the foster room, because I want to take introductions to the other cats very slooooowly.  But he is happy as a clam and purring it up. :)


Easter Sunday dawned cold and rainy, as so much of this spring has been.  So I decided a little road trip was in order.  Because why not?  Time to do some hiking.

Well, THIS looks promising!  :)

Stairs. Why does it always have to be stairs?:

Before you can see the falls, you can hear them:

These guys brought their shovels:

Past the main falls are the upper falls:

And the main event:

I headed across the street to the marina, empty this time of year:

and the lake:

and something totally unexpected:  Loons!

But soon enough it was time to head home, with a stop for Easter dinner:

A fine Easter Sunday, indeed.

Good Boy Chronicles: Extraction!

Okay, again:  Good Boy is FINE.  And also, this is the last part of a multi-part story, so if you want to start from the beginning, scroll down until you hit the "Good Boy Chronicles:  Disappeared" post, and read up from there.  Now settle in for a long read.

Here we go!

When I left off, Good Boy had been located.  He was alive and under the floor of the adopter's house.  Now we just had to get him out.

The firefighter knelt down by the hole under the sink, because he thought that one would be easiest to enlarge, and stuck his hand in the hole, feeling around to see how much material would have to be removed to allow access.  "He's headbutting my hand!," he called.  "His head is right here!"  

We all crowded around the hole, with the vet tech aiming a flashlight.  There ... he ... was ... just the top of his head, visible between the piping and the floorboards.

"There's not enough room," the firefighter said.  "He's right here, but he can't get out of this hole unless we get some of this flooring up."

The firefighter and the contractor started taking turns pulling on the floorboards and unscrewing the metal clamps that held the sink piping in place.  They didn't want to use power tools in order to avoid scaring Good Boy further back into the space, so just a prybar and manual tools were used.

 

Every time one of them would stick a hand in, Good Boy would rub it with his head. 

After several minutes, the hole was big enough to pull Good Boy through.  Except now he was scared, and every time the firefighter would try to pull him out, he would brace against the underflooring so that he couldn't be moved.

"Let me try," said the vet tech.  "I deal with stubborn cats every day.  I'll scruff him and pull him out."

She knelt into the cupboard, stuck her hand in, and scruffed Good Boy.  And then started to slowly pull.  Slowly ... slowly ... and all of a sudden, she leaned back out of the cupboard and onto the kitchen floor with Good Boy in her arms!

 

 Good Boy was out of the hole!  Covered in sheetrock and dirt, but alive!  And purring!  And making biscuits in the vet tech's arms!  She quickly looked him over and then popped him in a carrier and she, her boyfriend, and GB were off to the vet.  I told her I'd finish up in the house and then come there.

The adopter kept saying, "I'm going to get him back, right?"  Ummm ... sure.  SURE(LY NOT).  This woman farted around for almost TWO WEEKS, making no substantive effort to find Good Boy, while the rescue and I scrambled desperately to try and find him.  While the rescue volunteers canvassed the neighborhood and printed up flyers, she did nothing.  She claimed she didn't have five dollars to have flyers printed up on her own ... How on earth was she planning on paying vet bills?  Buying him food?  This loving cat had been so traumatized by her family that he lived in the FLOOR rather than come out.  She had falsified her application (by putting down that she had three children when in fact she had five (and another on the way), for one thing. I'm not really at liberty to discuss all the details, but trust me, that application stunk like a three-day-old fish.)  She had breached the adoption contract, and voided the agreement. 

The contractor repaired the hole in the wall and the hole under sink, all the while saying things like, "Gee, Good Boy will never get back in there now!"  Heh.  The contractor and I left together, I told him to email me a bill, and I headed for the vet.  I stopped on the way and texted the woman who runs the rescue to let her know that we had Good Boy, and she needed to immediately contact the adopter and tell her that since the application had been falsified, the cat would not be returned.  I told her to tell the adopter that I would mail the $500 reward to her (as soon as I knew that she had been informed that the cat would not be returned).  I figured that if the adopter was planning to make a fuss, accepting the reward money would negate any possible claim she would have.

I got to the vet's office and they took me to where the vet was examining him.   There he was, on the table, purring and kneading and rolling on to his back for belly rubs.  He was dehydrated and somewhat thinner and filthy dirty, but otherwise fine!  The vet thinks he may have been eating rodents that wandered into the crawlspace (shudder), and he had either found a dripping pipe in the wall or was able to sneak out at night to drink out of a leaking faucet.  (Remember, even though I had advised the adopter to leave out food and water in the house just in case, she did not do it.) The vet gave him some some sub-q fluids, and kept him overnight for observation.  Tired and dirty but happy, I headed home.

As soon as I got home, the rescue texted me and let me know that the adopter had been informed.  And right after THAT, the ADOPTER texted me.  She wanted to come pick up the reward money.  NOW.

Jesus Christ.

I let her know that we could meet someplace (I didn't want her and the skeevy people hanging around her place to come to my house) (Aside: Two days later, someone was STABBED IN THE STREET in front of her house. I'm not even kidding).  She said the local WalMart.  I said fine.  (You don't get much more public of a place than the entrance to WalMart.) She said it had to be RIGHT NOW.

Just like I figured it would when I offered to give her the reward, it had all come down to money.

 

She didn't ask about Good Boy or how he was.  She wanted to know how fast she could get the money.  I advised that I did not have that much cash on hand, but I would write her a check.

I texted the rescue and let them know what was going down.  "Get a release!," they said.  "You have to have them sign off on the cat in order to get the reward."  I typed something up real quick, made a copy, and messaged my friend Sarah to let her know what was going on.  "I'm on my way," she said.  The adopter texted me; it would be her husband meeting me, not her.  Inside the entrance, by the pharmacy.

I got to WalMart at the same time as Sarah.  We walked inside, and there was the husband.  Standing there with a cart full of crap he had picked out while waiting.  Now keep in mind, this is the same family who claimed they did not have five dollars on Monday to print up some flyers and had no way of getting money until Friday.  And there he was, on Wednesday night, with a cartful.  They had money, all right.  They just weren't about to spend it on Good Boy.

I handed the husband a clipboard with the releases.  "Just sign the releases, please, and I'll give you the check," I said.  He looked surprised, but signed both copies.  I took back the clipboard, kept one release, and gave him the other.  Then I pulled the reward check out of my pocket and handed it over.  And he went back into the store (never once asking how the cat was), and Sarah and I walked out and headed directly to the nearest bar for a beverage, now that the extortion, er, REWARD money was paid.  As we walked out of the store, Sarah pulled her phone out of her t-shirt pocket.  "I recorded the whole thing!," she said.  "Just in case."

Spies like us, man.  We get the job done.  We had a signed release and a recording of the whole thing.  

And the following night, Good Boy went to his new home.  His true FOREVER home this time.

My home.

Sarah took my foster kittens to stay at her house so that I could put Good Boy in the foster room.  I plan on working on building up his confidence, and then working with him and Tinks to get him integrated into the family.  I think that now that Good Boy is actually INSIDE the house, and soon will SMELL like the house, and Tinks will be able to see that Good Boy is welcome to BE in the house, things will go more smoothly.  And if not, we'll just keep working on it.  And working on it.

Because THIS is Good Boy's home now.

 

 

Good Boy Chronicles, in which a contractor and the fire department get involved

Okay, first off, again:  Good Boy is FINE.  And also, this is Part 2 of a multi-part story, so if you want to start from the beginning, scroll down to the entry titled "Good Boy:  Disappeared" and read that first.

Ready?

So!  When I left off, it was apparent  that SOMETHING, very possibly Good Boy, was in the floor of his adopter's house, was possibly unable to get out, and had potentially been trapped for ten days at this point.

 

OH NO

I called the rescue.  I told them I needed a contractor (in order to rip up floors or walls if necessary) and someone with a thermal imaging system to meet me at the adopter's house as soon as possible.  Within an hour, the rescue had the people and the equipment rounded up, and we made arrangements to meet at the house at 3.  The thermal imaging system was being loaned by the one of the rescue's vet tech volunteer's boyfriend, who volunteers for a local fire company.  (Most professional fire companies will no longer assist in animal rescues, claiming their liability insurance does not allow it.  Volunteer fire companies, however, tend to be more flexible, especially if the offer of a hefty donation is made.)  The vet tech was coming along, too, to rush Good Boy to the vet as soon as he was extracted.

Waiting for 3:00 to come, I felt sick.  As far as I knew, Good Boy had been without food or water for ten days.  A cat can go without food for a long, long time, but water?  No way.  Kidney damage would begin to occur after just a few days.  Even if he was still alive, which would seem to be indicated by the food disappearing, would he be able to be saved?  Would his kidneys still be functioning? 

At 3, I met everybody across the street from the house.  I briefly explained the situation, including that while the adopter THOUGHT she was getting the cat back, she was, in fact, absolutely NOT getting the cat back.

(An aside:  Once I knew the cat was most likely trapped in the house, I had to get access to the house in order to rescue the cat.  I was afraid that if I told the adopter that she was not getting the animal back, she would deny me access, and all would be lost.  So I made up a cover story that once the cat was found, it would have to be taken to the rescue's veterinarian and checked over, and once it was given a clean bill of health, it would be returned to her.)

At this point it was me, the contractor, the vet tech, and the vet tech's firefighter boyfriend with the thermal camera.  We went in.  

The firefighter started by aiming the camera at the ceiling of the first floor.  He moved slowly through the house, concentrating on the area underneath the sink on the second level.  Nothing.  We went upstairs to the second floor kitchen, where the adopter showed us a second hole she had found, in the wall behind a microwave stand.  The firefighter started imaging underneath the sink.  Nothing.  Then he moved over to the wall where the second hole was.

"I've got something!"  he said.  "There's something alive and moving in there!"  

Could it be?

And then the moving image disappeared.  The firefighter did some more scanning and discovered that there was an area several feet long and a few inches tall, in between the flooring and the subflooring of the kitchen.  Wall partitioning meant that whatever was in there could move for those several feet, but no further.

We all stepped back to discuss which hole we were going to enlarge first, to gain more access to the area.  As we talked, all of a sudden the contractor said, "I hear something."  "I hear it too," said the firefighter.  "It sounded like a meow!"

I felt like I was going to faint.  I rushed over to the hole in the wall, put my head next to the hole, and starting softly calling.  "Good Boy!  Good Boy!  Hey, buddy, remember me?"  The firefighter put the camera above and behind me, to see if he could pick up an image.

 

 

And then we all heard it.  Meowing.  Again. and again.  Every time I called to him we would hear it. Meowing!

To Be Continued ...