To the woman who surrendered the beautiful purebred declawed cat to the shelter today:

Really? Nearly 11 years old, but he peed on your husband's side of the bed and acted "temperamental", so he ended up on death row?

Please get this straight. I was not caught up in the personal tragedy you must have felt at the time you handed him over to the executioner. Because sending a senior cat with behavior issues to public shelter is a DEATH sentence. No, I was so stung by the fact that you would let go of this beautiful, devoted companion that has shared your home for more than 6 years because he urinated on your husband's side of the bed. I bet your husband made you surrender him.

I pray to God that when your body begins to break down from age and menopause or Alzheimer's disease or a host of other infirmities, this husband of yours doesn't find himself a trophy wife and leave you in a nursing home. I don't know how old you are, but Madame, might I suggest that you might need to let the husband go before it gets ugly for you?

Your feline has a raging urinary tract infection - blood in the urine, visible in the paper under him in the Wild Cat room. Whaat? He isn't on display to be adopted? No, he is cranky and he is sick. He was scheduled to be put to sleep tomorrow morning, perhaps less than 24 hours from the time you brought him in, WALKING him on his dapper harness and leash (how many cats are leash trained?)! Too cranky for the shelter staff to expend the resources to take him to a vet to find out what is wrong. And yes, too cranky and hissy spitty to put him in the cat room for public display. Who wants to adopt an OLD cat with a temperamental difficulty? So for overnight tonight he would have had to go back into the cage in the Wild Cat room (which I have already established makes him even more freaked-out and snappy than if he were allowed to just be left alone in a comfy chair).

Can you even imagine what those last hours tomorrow morning would have been like for him after a night in that cage? I can promise you this, for a cat with behavior problems serious enough to preclude a visit to the vet, the process of euthanasia isn't all light and angels either. It is NOTHING like the way they do it at the vet when a beloved pet is gently helped up onto the Rainbow Bridge. Aside from using the same "Fatal Plus" or "Sleepaway"cocktail - the blue juice- your best hope is that he would have drawn a euthanasia tech that is compassionate. I have been told not all of them are..

So let's look a little more closely at what happened. You are this boy's second owner, I see he has been faithfully vetted, has gotten every vaccination. He has never had to live outside. He is friendly to small children, big kids, other dogs, other cats, in fact, just about everyone except your husband. But he hisses and strikes at a hand if the hand pets him too long or touches his backside. The husband....what is wrong with this picture? From his vet records, I see you moved him and the rest of your household across the country less than 4 months ago. Didn't anyone ever tell you how attached cats can become to their surroundings, how sensitive some can be if lots of things are even moved within the home?

Your old fellow sat in the office in a chair at the shelter most of the day with people and a dog wandering in and out. He was OK with that, so long as he wasn't confined to a cage. He may only need a simple Convenia shot to improve his physical well-being 100-fold. If he has bladder stones, that can be corrected with a prescription diet. I took him from the shelter and into SAFETY only ten minutes before they closed for the day. I couldn't bear the thought of him having to spend the night alone in a cage. Your husband's hubris should not be the end of his sweet life. Tomorrow he will see the vet and will be on his way to recovery. No telling how long it will take him to trust us after all he has been through. 

I write this not to make you feel better, but hopefully to cause those who read it to share with others and to remember that companion animals are not throw-away items. They have feelings, and I believe your boy here has a soul as well. May God have mercy on people like you. Since I am only trying to be less of a mess every day, I will pray I can soon forgive you for abandoning him.

Animal Rescue is probably not what you think it is

I joined a local cat rescue back in January. I was so enthusiastic after my one little experience with foster kittens from the local shelter (even though I lost one, sadly), that I wasted no time growing my little single cat, single dog household to a clowder of 31, and we still have the dog. I have NOT lost my mind yet, but my husband left town for a few weeks, and I nearly did. As I type, my left arm is pinned down by one of my "foster failures", a beautiful flame point, cream colored medium coat cat named Purrsia. Her blue eyes rendered both my husband and I completely smitten stupid after we nursed her back to health. When I pulled her from the shelter where she was schedule to be put down, she had a horrible URI and was drooling great stringy ropes everywhere. She was in the only available bathroom for two weeks. As I write she is licking the KMR (kitten milk replacement) that dripped onto my chest as I bottle fed my four orphans a half hour ago, then shed my shirt for the washing machine.

I've read some pretty good rants from people who have been in this business far longer than I. I have lived in their clothes. I have refrained from sharing their content on social media sites like Facebook, because they feel so strongly about their subject that their colorful language, whilst heartfelt, is not suitable for sharing with my grandkids, who also have Facebook pages.

Many people believe that people like me who rescue and foster animals enjoy lots of time playing with the pets. In fact, many foster pet parents do! But then there are those of us who have crossed some imaginary line, where we have taken more into our homes than we can comfortably accommodate, and as a group we are more numerous on the planet than you can even imagine. I have told my mother to stop coming over - she lives 40 miles away, and she doesn't particularly care for cats. I have made repeated apologies to prospective adopters on the state of my home when they have come to meet and greet a cat or kitten, and they have walked away. I often wonder if it was the cat or the house that turned them off. There is a couple in our rescue that have my cats outnumbered by 4 to 1, but at least they have the common sense to have a special room in which to entertain prospective adopters. The idea of an addition is appealing but unrealistic here.

Now that I  am absolutely beyond my capacity, there is something I need to say....people, please spay and neuter your pets! I told the woman from whom I took the orphans last night, please call Animal Control and have them pick up the mother cat. She is not spayed and she is feral. There is no TNR program in our city, although the shelter is working hard to get one started. The shelter itself is so full that there is absolutely no wiggle room here, NONE. Our rescue has pulled more than we reasonably should have, and now we are completely overrun with beautiful cats that no one wants.

Social media is both a boon and a curse to those in rescue. Here are my suggestions. Follow and "like" all the lovely, cuddly, gorgeous cats you may encounter in your news feed. And "like" their rescuers. We in the rescues depend on "likes" to grow our outreach.

Please don't comment about how you are so sorry you cannot take in a cat or puppy. I am sorry I can't take more, and I have to remind myself of this every time I see one I cannot possibly help personally. We check our albums and "available for adoption" pages many times a day. I know you mean well when you say you would adopt the pet but you are out of state, or your kids or husband is allergic, or your landlord doesn't allow it, or whatever, but please don't put that in the comments. It just clutters up the page and makes it hard for us rescuers to find the posts of the people who may really want to adopt our little bundle of happiness. You don't need to post "shared", but please know that we love it when you do it! The more people that see our foster babies, the better, especially because the rules and privacy settings on social network sites are constantly changing.

Finally, there are some real ways you CAN help. If you cannot adopt, share. Donate to your local animal shelter or rescue. Advocate for spay and neuter. Encourage everyone you encounter with strays to get them fixed. Offer to help them find the low-cost spay/neuter programs in your area. There really is a solution to the euthanasia epidemic in our shelters...Trap Neuter and Release programs, public education, and promotion of adoption instead of breeding - all these will help. I started with a pedigreed cat from a reputable breeder, but my other two permanent family cats are rescues. You can make a difference. Our shelters can all become "no kill", but not without action from every citizen.

New Learnings

Sometimes you win battles by not picking them - by not making yourself sick over conflict or the stress of your day. There are things that you need to fight for, but many of the things that you think you need to fight for, you don't.

Experimental Cheese and Mac

Someday I am going to work out the proportions of this recipe...too bad the proprietor of Sage General Store didn't share it with Food Network.
Bacon Mac n Cheese

Devastating

My laptop hard drive died last night. I woke up to...nothing. What is the value of the pictures on that piece of machinery? Priceless. And they are gone. This feels like the time my house was broken into. You think you have leveled out and are coping, and then you think of something else you lost and fresh waves of grief break over you and take you back out into deeper water. My eyes aren't working - do contact lenses stop fitting with too many tears shed?

Too early for bed, but nothing seems to be all that compelling to do to take the place of this empty feeling. I guess sometimes you just have to feel the feelings. Worship this morning left me fragile, so close to Easter and my Stan is so very far away. Days like today are never easy, but somehow the sharing makes it softer, less stark, when you are able to cry to your beloved for comfort.

Bedroom blues and lost things

Not what you may think! Stan is in Africa, so I've begun tackling the nasty bedroom wallpaper in earnest. I spent most of yesterday removing the pink vinyl stuff that does not allow water to soak through it at all. Today's pictures show all that is left. Unfortunately the pink paper near the closet took the top layers of the wallboard paper with it, so that will have to be sealed before I can put on texture and paint.

The furniture is still a little too close to the walls for me to reach the last little bits of border visible in the pictures. I'm hoping my mom can help me get sliders under the armoire and the dresser to move them enough to get a ladder behind them. Failing that, I could probably call on the neighbor to help. I slept on the couch last night, too lazy to deal with the beds. The bed in Ritchie's room has clean sheets, and I'm saving that for my mom for tonight.

Mom is driving me to my medical procedure in the morning. I'm going for the second round of lumbar facet injections, praying this time it will "take". The one I had over spring break did not bring any relief.

I have a lovely gilded mirror with a bamboo frame for sale. If any of you are looking for this kind of drama, just let me know. Stan says he thinks the Chicken Ranch is closed so I won't be donating it to them. I'm also thinking that the swag chandeliers will have to go. The plan is to run the wiring for the lights through the wall from the ceiling and put lights on either side of the new mirror. That will have to wait for Stan, as he is the king of fishing with romex.

Getting that wallpaper off was a gargantuan task. Most of it has come off in small strips, little by little. I have read that I will need to shellac or otherwise seal off the bare wallboard paper to prevent it from bubbling. These are the times I wish I was retired (again). This house could be a full-time job.

Add to all this the fact that the Gospel Riders garage sale for Run for the Son is next weekend. Good in that I can get rid of lots of stuff. Bad in that I have to price it all and haul it over there.

I am frankly shocked at how strongly I miss Stan - I feel like a part of me is gone. Stan says can you imagine how Christ longs for those who don't know Him? That is humbling and something I had not thought about.

Two things are missing - my house/car keys and my Kindle. Both of them are somewhere in this house, as there is simply no other place they could be. Both have been missing since before Stan left. I need a week to clean everything up and find stuff. Alaina said she thought my house eats things. I think she is right.

Nairobi time