January 5th! Jason and Ryan!

CONGRATULATIONS to JASON and RYAN!!!  Thanks to Joan and Skye, you were able to feed well over 90 cats today.  GREAT JOB!  I want to thank everyone who helped to make this campaign - Feed a Cat For Christmas - a success.  I have enough to feed until the end of January - and will continue to mention those that donated.  And I want to thank Carrie once again for her help in coming up with the idea.  Great job everyone!

Quick note:  Murphy, the buff fluffball I rescued Sunday morning, passed with flying colors at the clinic, negative of all disease, and is ready for a home!  He went to foster care with Jennifer and her family.  Thank you Jennifer, can't wait for the first report today.

Buddy, still waiting for adoption!

The kitties were waiting this morning, and it was a cold one.  No new snow, but bitter temps.  I think yesterday's temp when I went out was 11 degrees, today, it might have been 15?   A woman named Andrea and her sister dropped off a homemade shelter to me yesterday, and I placed it this morning at Melville, where there are at least four cats still there.  I tucked the shelter into the corner of the carport in hopes no one sees it, and the kittens will take shelter in it.  Someone mentioned me placing shelters in the woman Heidi's yard.  She is the nice lady next door there.  I did ask her, but she declined, saying her dog goes crazy seeing the cats outside.  I understood.  I didn't like her answer, but I understood, and backed off.

If you will recall Julius, the young man I met on the street early in the summer.  Julius is transgender.   I don’t think he has changed his body, but he is very feminine.  As I was getting out  of the truck on Second this morning, to go behind Paul’s house to feed the kitties back there, he walked up to me – I didn’t recognize him at first because he had his hood pulled over, and I said “I don’t know you” because he acted like he did.  Its 4ish in the morning, on a bad street, and I am always leery.  He said ‘yes you do, its Julius!’.  Here is how the conversation went:

Oh Julius, how are you!  I didn’t recognize you with the (feeling my chin) hair there!

Yea

Whats going on with you?

I just got out of jail.

Oh!  What were you there for?

Prostitution.

Oh!  Dear...! 

Do you have any money I can give to Miss Laurie (pointing to a house down the street)?  She said for $10 she will give me a meal and a place to stay for a day.  You can come meet her!

No Julius, you know I never carry money!  I wish I did this time for food.  Why don’t I bring you to a shelter.

OK.

OK, so what is open, House of Mercy? 

It opens at 6.

OK, why don’t you get in the back and ride around with me while I finish feeding the cats.

OK.  (he gets in the very back of the jeep, as the mid seats are full of stuff for the cats).

Here Julius, take my coffee. 

Thank you.

Julius, how did you get arrested.  Were they undercover, or street patrol cars (asking because I am curious! – my friends know me as Detective Wagner, I love to ask questions) – how long were you in jail for?

Patrol car, they pulled up on us.  Two weeks.

Whats it like in there, good food?

Nasty, nasty people, nasty food.

Oh!  You know Julius, you have to stop this lifestyle, have you talked to your family (knowing they were in Buffalo)?

Yes, they don’t want anything to do with me.

Oh Julius, I am sure they do, they probably just don’t like your lifestyle.  You do need to stop doing that and find something, even McDonalds, apply there, it’s a first step at normalcy!  Do you have any felonies?  (hoping he would say no)

Yes.

What for?

Burglary.

Oh.  Well, you can still be employed.  You are young, bright, well spoken, and have a lot of potential.  Please don’t waste your life with this.  You will die young.  OK, we are here (House of Mercy on Hudson).  Take this change (under $1), take this brand new hat, and take these gloves, you have 40 mins. to wait for it to open.  And here is my number – JUST IN CASE.  How about a hug?

He nodded.  HUG.

I drive away very sad.  Still looking around for cats as I leave.  Always looking around for them.  Last time I was here I saw two in the dark, pulled over and placed the only meal they probably have had in a very long time down on the ground.  Nasty area it is.  I saw the fire station across the street, thinking ‘are they open?  He should go in there and wait’.  Looked closed up.  I pulled up to check.  Julius sees me do this from across the street and stops and waits – probably hoping for something better than his 40 min wait outside in this bitter cold.  I drive away.  Sad.

Of course the morning started with me turning the corner from Goodman onto Bay, and nearly hitting Mary, the white prostitute that lived next door to Crazy Maryleigh who clued me in on the kittens buried in the lots surrounding their homes. Mary has since left there - the house boarded up, with her husband in prison, and son out on the streets a junkie.  Mary was out hooking for her next fix.  She was wild eyed as I pulled up to her and said ‘Mary, what are you doing’ – FREEZING she said – and knowing she was homeless, I said well let me call the police and they can take you somewhere warm, at which she said NO COPS and hightailed it away and down the street.

Its sad, this existence.  I have to thank my mother AGAIN for her fortitude in raising my sister and I like she did – her strength and determination.  My father passed when I was very young, so it was just us three.  I could have easily have turned a dark corner, but because of her, and the rest of the family, and their examples, I stayed on a fairly straight path. 

But I never forget, there but for the grace of God go I.

Pics here are of our other little guy Hermie who needs to find a home.  SWEET.  Totally sweet boy, but frightened to death.  But he loves to be held and stroked!  Thank you Melissa for giving him this chance!  

"Being humble means recognizing that we are not on earth to see how important we can become, but to see how much difference we can make in the lives of others."