Phew! I need a Vacation!

BLU - My Houseguest This Weekend!

Man oh Man.  My weekends just fly by lately.  And with the time change, I had less time to accomplish what I had intended to accomplish, which I didn’t accomplish at all.  And that task was to clean out my magazines.   Hi, my name is Janine, and I am a magazine hoarder.  Uggh.  I get these free magazines sent to me, and I love to cook, so I can’t throw away a magazine thinking I might miss a recipe, or a good article.  And I never have spare time to sit and read, I am ALWAYS on the go, when I am not cooking and cleaning on the weekends, so they build up.  So, that is my project.  Clean out the magazines stacked on my porch, and the piles on my desk in my office at home.

Peanut Butter Pie - DELISH

RUG and CHAIR

And every tax season – IF I actually get a refund,  I try to change my house up a bit.  This year it was a new chair and rug for living room, new end tables, lamps and quilt for my bed in my bedroom.  I know that seems like a lot, but I hunt for bargains too.  I can’t go on vacation, I can’t even take a single day off from getting up going out and feeding cats every morning, so I have to treat myself somehow, right???

And feed cats I do!  I get up at 2 am. every single morning, lounge around for an hour to wake my mind and body up, and head out into the cold and darkness – to feed stray and feral cats.  Many cats.  I have 19 locations I drive to.  I get in and out of my car with dry and wet food, and water.  Most times a bath sized towel to lay down under the plates so that the kitties can have something warm to stand on when they eat.  The food and water goes under the roof of shelters I’ve built around the city for these cats.  19 shelters to be exact.  These shelters can house an average of five kitties.  Some are large wooden shelters, and some are plastic or Styrofoam, but all go under a tarp that is positioned with a large board under it over the shelters.  To hold the snow, and keep the rain out.  I get out of my truck randomly and place a bowl of food and water for kitties I see on my way to each stop, knowing this could be their only meal.  Am I crazy?  Yes, I really am.  Who else does this???  There are a few of us, but not many! 

I’ve been seeing a few sick cats lately.  My heart breaks for them.    Like the mama cat of the six kittens I rescued on the side of Syd and Johnny’s garage on Bay Street a few years back.  She began as a black fluffball, very healthy looking, but something is wrong with her fur on the back end.  If I had more antibiotics, I would slip it in her food to see if that would help.  Whatever her ailment.  I know vets would frown on this, but I can’t just grab a feral/semi-feral cat and bring it to the vet.  There is also a black cat I’ve been seeing coming out of a shelter on Pennsylvania, he’s got something going on also.  He’s a cat I’ve never seen before.  He lets me touch him, but with a growl.  He seems starving, and not able to eat comfortably.  I haven’t seen him in two mornings now. 

I have also not seen Big Red since the last snowfall.  Some of you, or one of you may say ‘well if you had only rescued him when you had the chance.’  Well, I have had the chance to rescue many many cats over the years, but haven’t, due to one reason or another.   And I actually HAVE rescued many many cats over the years, I would have to say close to 1000 when I think back on it.  When I first started out – 20 years ago?  It started with maybe 10 the first year, 20 the next, 30 some years, and 120+ this past year alone!   Kristin started the count for me four or five years ago.  The cats I have in my home are cats I rescued that had one issue or another.  They were on my route, I could see them declining, I would rescue them, get them vetted, but never got them adopted out.  No one wants the sick ones, no one wants the not so pretty ones.  So I wound up keeping them, what else could I do? 

Buttons on Couch with me Yesterday!

Buttons this Morning!

Buttons is one example.  I rescued her 3 or 4 years ago?  (gotta check this blog – do a search and I can find anything that’s happened for nearly 10 years past).  She was, and still is, a timid kitty, and she was scared to death of her own shadow.  She stayed mostly upstairs in my house, only coming down for a nibble of food in the dark, or when I am not home.  She went to the vet last week to get rechecked after having blood drawn for Bartonella (sp?) disease, and when she got back from the vet, you would think she would go into hiding even more.  Well, for some odd reason, after all these years, she has been hanging out with me downstairs ever since.  And yesterday, total breakthrough.  She actually jumped up on the couch and sat with me.  I was shocked.  I don’t know what got into her, but I am very happy she is now joining the rest of the clan!

HERMIE!

PARSLEY!

Both are now playing!

Buttons baby boy Baby Buttons has been missing from this same colony – where Sam and Mr. Whiskers and Millie still hang.    Baby Buttons was getting thinner and thinner and getting closer and closer to me, and then one day, he was gone.  Its been at least two months now.  Its heartbreaking knowing I COULD have done something, but didn’t.  But I can’t always DO something.  I just can’t.  There are too many other factors going on in my life.  If I just had more people stepping up to foster.  I know I have one waiting in the wings – she offered to take Big Red, but I still had Parsley and Hermie to worry about and wanted to make sure they went somewhere where they could thrive.  And I knew this girl had a place where they could.  Big windows, lots of room.  Where they are now, there is a bed that takes up much of the room, and when anyone other than their foster enters the room, they hide.  I’ve been a bad ‘mom’ due to the fact that I’ve only gone to visit them once.  And when I did, they did not want to come out from under the bed for me.  I tried to DRAG Parsley, as he was closer to the edge than Hermie was, but it didn’t work so well.   The latest report is that they run to their foster mom when she enters the room, even to the point of sitting on her lap!  That is where they need to be with me, and other potential adopters.  Let me be clear.  I am extremely grateful to their current foster mom.  But she is also a rescuer, and will have room for more kitties off the street.  So I am grateful as well to the kind person offering the wonderful room for Hermie and Parlsey.  They will be able to be more easily shown at their new place.  So, fingers crossed all goes as planned.  Stay tuned.

Have a nice day.

"Feeling gratitude

and not expressing

it is like wrapping

a present and

not giving it."