Scapegoats like Me. The Rats and Cats of Albany.

Funny thing.  Albany is over run in rats.  Of all kinds!  And species!

But now the "aggressive program" to control feral cats in Albany, is being cited by the mayor as possibly one cause of the city being over run in rats.

See the story here.

That "aggressive program" was none other than little old me.  And I wasn't paid.

I also rehomed literally hundreds of unwanted cats or got them to shelters and rescues who could find them homes.   But now, apparently all this effort of mine, is being blamed for a rat out break in Albany.  I can't do anything right here.

I'm also cracking up!  Laughing my head off. Giggling uncontrollably.

Sometimes you cannot please anyone.  Sometimes you find yourself the scapegoat for the strangest things.

Now I'm the cause of the rat problem here?

Ha ha ha ha ha!

Actually, too many people here live like rats, in their own garbage.  There are so many households where people don't clean anything.  They climb over mountains of garbage and rotted dirty clothing to get to say a buried couch.   The way people live in these parts, in filth, has shocked me!  I saw it everywhere when cat wrangling.  It's another thing I won't miss.

That's the cause of our rat problem in Albany, not a lack of cats.  But scapegoats can divert blame and avert worrisome city image problems.  Scapegoats like me.

In other news, I got my last filling Tuesday.  After the numbness wore off that day, pain filled in for it.  Pain that has become so bad, as of last night, I wanted to tear off my face.  The pain is on the inside up in the gums along that upper side and on the outside, along my cheekbone, where the pain is like fire.

I should have called earlier, I realize, but I kept thinking it was bruising or something, and would get better.  Instead it has only become worse.  I was going to go in yesterday afternoon, but my trip up north with the Millersburg Siamese boy got drawn out, due to the woman taking him not being there til afternoon, then nightmarish traffic that turned a one hour drive into two hours on the way up.  I did not get home until nearly 7:00 p.m.

Last night the pain was severe.  I'd taken Aleve, two of them, and they did not touch the pain.  This morning I finally called the office's emergency number, concerned my mouth is infected.  The dentist who called back said my cheek would be swollen out if it is infected and prescribed some synthetic pain pills, since I might be allergic to Vicodin.   I took one and the relief came within an hour, but the pain is already back in full force.  I slept last night finally with an ice pack across my jaw.

I am also quite worried it really is an infection and infection in the mouth can go to your brain or your heart.  It's too bad to not be something major.  I mean it was just a filling in the far back upper left tooth.  How come it hurts so bad now?  It didn't hurt before I went in.  Doesn't that have to be an infection to hurt like it is hurting?

I can't wait until Monday, when I will go to that office and hopefully I can find out why in the world this last filling laid me out in such horrible pain.  I just want it to go away.

As for the article's mention by the mayor, of the feral reduction program, possibly causing the rat problem, I take it as a compliment.

The program was progressive and super cheap for the city since my labor, time, bait, phone answering and vehicle use were free to the city.  It was a wise use of tax payer money.  The city and taxpayers got maximum impact for a very small investment.   I could have said "no".  I didn't.  I would do it again, too, because I'm eager beaver, and in some ways, not very bright, although I'd need a new car and possibly a new body.

KATA Fixes 17 Local Cats Today. Ben Zen Needs a Den!

I transported 17 local cats to be fixed in Salem for KATA today.

Among the 17:  Peso, the Siamese mix male I trapped at the Millersburg colony.  Oh, I forgot, was going to try to recatch the fixed ferals living there, due to impending development and the fact they have a place to go if caught.  Instead, after sitting out there all night, I caught an unknown skrawny Siamese unfixed male.  I'm talking super skinny, like he's missed most meals for some time.

Peso, the skinny Siamese trapped in a fixed feral colony.  Only 6.6 lbs.  Poor little guy. He was fixed today and will not be returning to where he was trapped since that area is about to be bulldozed under for development.

Would you not know it, once again there are unfixed cats there.  I saw another, a short hair brown tabby tux too.  Wouldn't you know it?

So this poor boy gets to go elsewhere, although he was not one of the originals I thought I'd be re-catching.

It's tough on unfixed males during heat waves.  They roam, as usual, looking for sex, and often end up where they can't find water, and it has been broiling hot in Oregon for weeks. A cat can't digest food without water.  That's probably why this boy is so skinny.

He got neutered today and he will not be going back.

Also, amongst the 17 I drove up (I didn't round them up, that job's over for me), Ben Zen, whom I caught in my neighbors garage, and Tonka, who ran into a local auto shop wanting help.  He was skinny and flea crawling and really really needy.

Ben Zen got fixed today.  He's really gotten bigger since I saw him last.  He wants a home now.  He's with KATA and spread the word!

I was waiting for the KATA volunteer to get home, when returning their cats and kittens, and spotted these two best friends, also KATA fosters, in her window.  Aren't they adorable?

Ben Zen from my neighbors garage, is ready for a home.  He'd love one with another kitten because he likes to rough and tumble play.   Spread the word.   Ben Zen needs a den and he is awesome and deserves a wonderful home!

I spent five hours yesterday rowing around the lake, in my raft, and swimming.  I had a blast, but I am paying for over doing it today, with soreness everywhere.  I must think I'm 18 still or something, to row and swim that long, without building up to it.  I may be in pain, as a result, but there's a big grin on my face.  So don't take my complaints too seriously.  I had fun!

Paranoid Nation

America is paranoid.

So paranoid over a million people have security clearances.

Billions of American tax dollars are spent on security systems now, and many of those spy on us--America's own citizens.

The police scan license plates and the information is stored in a vast system to track movement.

How did all this happen?

We spend so much on our paranoia and military, there's not much left for things that matter.

If you ask the average American if all this is necessary, I think most would say it's nuts is what it is, a nation gone crazy.

Seems super scary to me.  Secret police type scary.

Consider Oregon is so paranoid of animal rescuers the legislature passed a law allowing searches of our homes without a warrant.

Does all this matter?  Does if you live here.  Does if you're dumbfounded about how this all happened and the fact our nation would rather spend a zillion billion dollars on tracking its own citizens' movements and communications, than spending that on food stamps for hungry Americans or building new bridges and highways.

Paranoid nation no kidding!  Whoa nilly!

Also, someone on an e-mail list wanted to invite a breeder friend into the communication over opposition to SB6, the anti rescue bill that passed in Oregon.  I responded "No Breeders!"  She responded back "But there are legitimate breeders."  Really?

I see breeders like I see historical Nazi Germany.  The Nazis wanted to create a purebred race and gas the mongrels and undesirables.  Breeders breed purebreds and the imperfects are disposable.  As are the excess mongrel cats and dogs.  Same thing as the Nazis only with animals.

So do I want breeders on any e-mail list I'm on?

Are there legitimate Nazis?

There you go.

Just When I'd Almost Kicked the Habit......

I'd almost kicked the TV habit.  But not quite.

Yesterday I found myself idling in my backyard, sitting in my car, staring at the cable box.

Previously, I'd made this antenna.  Sure, you're supposed to use copper wire, but I had coat hangers.  I lacked a split end connector however.  I don't know technical part terms.  I mean the type of connector where two flat covered wires extend out and have prongs to fit under those two center screws, and the opposite end has a female or male connection to the cable that connects to the TV then.

Copper wire is nice if you can afford it.   Or re-steal it from the backyard of a busted meth head. Nice fluid metal.  I'd like to be more like copper, let things flow through me and be gone, instead of harboring them.  You can white trash test conductivity of whatever you use by putting one end of whatcha got into boiling water while holding the other end.  See how fast you burn your fingers.


Atop my roof, from previous renter addictions, sit both an old old rusted out swaying moss covered antenna and a dish antenna.

I opened the cable box and tried to figure out what might be what.  I could see where the dish antenna wires hooked in.  I could see another cable came in, while three went out.  'That,' I thought, 'must be comcast connections."   So I figured inside the house would be three outlets with former comcast cables, one for the Dish antenna and the 5th would be for that roof top antenna.

I checked the rooftop antenna out with binoculars and could see that the cables attached to both the UHF and VHF parts of the antenna, were deteriorated to quite an extent.  They then disappeared into the attic.

Inside, I tried all the cable outlets.  I knew that two were former comcast.  Others were tucked into the wall.  I pulled out the only one left to try.  I had an old 15 foot cable, with female connections on both ends.  I found a splitter, and after screwing one end to the TV back, I screwed the other into one of the two male prongs on the splitter and the single prong on the other side, into the cable I'd dug from the wall.  The end female connector from the cable in the wall disintegrated from age, in my hand.  I had to jury rig something then.

For now, I crimped a female connector I cut off the end of another cable to the end of the cable piece from out of the wall, since its end crumbled from age in my hand when I pulled it out.  The cable to the TV and cable from the antenna are for now connected with an old signal splitter I had in a drawer.  I'll get the right parts eventually.

For now, this is how the cable runs, from TV to the wall where the outlet for the antenna cable enters the house.  I had only a 15 foot length of cable, so it is stretched tight.

Eagerly, I turned on the TV, switched it to antenna and placed it on scan for channels.  I had channels.  In the end, I came up with something like 20.  Several are repeats, so I think I counted 12 different ones.  I have KEZI, from Eugene, though, and KPTV, from Portland.  I get OPB and OPB plus and OPB FM.  I get a channel called "Retro" which plays old movies, and a few others, including one shopping channel and one Spanish channel.  I like to watch Spanish channels because I'm trying to learn Spanish and that helps.

Just when I'd almost broken my habit, I'm back at it, full fury and unapologetic.

To think, that rusty, green molded swaying creaky antenna up there, that I decorate with lights for Christmas, now is catching TV signals out of thin air and shuttling them dutifully down that old cable into my TV.  Thank you Antenna!  My signal snatcher!

It's busy space up there, in the wave world I can't see, but I believe in it!  I am true blue wave energy believer!  They're dancing through my space anyhow.  May as well grab at what I can grab.

I also took 15 cats, 14 of them rescued kittens, from Lebanon to Salem to be fixed this morning, for KATA.  It's not much, but at least once in awhile, I do something.  Boredom is taking its toll on me lately.  And extreme isolation.   It's not good to have no job, even if my job was self-appointed.  It gave me a mission in life, something to do, a reason to get up and live!  Now what, you know?  NOW WHAT?

Another Starved Kitten

Early this morning, barely awake, still stiff and sore from yesterday, cell phone is ringing somewhere.  I don't get many calls anymore.  They are all still people wanting me to help them with some cat problem, so I don't even answer anymore, or check messages.  I rarely know exactly where my cell phone is lately.

I'm a disconnected person and I like being disconnected.

But how I wish I could still be helping people with their cat problems.  How I wish I still could be doing that. I'm going to cry if I say much more.

There's nothing good going on out there in the world.  If there is, it's so little good, it won't be mentioned.  Only do you hear of the bad.  I'm glad I get no TV shows anymore.  I don't bother looking at online news.

This morning I answered the phone.  Lonely I guess.  Still aching for human contact I guess.

It was the mechanic, at an auto shop.  A little kitten was following two people then ran into their auto shop.  He yelled at them to come get their kitten and they just turned and laughed.  I asked what they looked like.  He said they looked like Albany tweeker heads.

I went over after KATA told me they'd take him.   He had all these fleas and clung to me for dear life once in my arms.  Poor little guy.  He's probably three, four months old, skinny and once I put a bowl of food in front of him, he started purring his head off, like "omg food and all for me!"  Poor little guy.

I named him Tonka and vaccinated him and flea treated him and gave him wormer.  Then I carted him off to the work place of one of the KATA volunteers.  He's in good hands.  Poor little guy.

Tonka eating!

They have Ben Zen over there too, from the neighbors garage.  He's doing a lot better.  He was really happy to see other kittens there he could play with.  He's gaining weight and has that happy look to his face now.

Over in Lebanon, a friend had one of the cats she fed disappear.  She was a sweet girl, a stray, I got her fixed for her, along with many others.   I was helping her look when her husband tells me, through his drunk, he knows what happened to her cat but he's not telling his wife.  "What happened?" I say, the ire rising inside me.  "Neighbors coon dog killed it," he says, but don't tell her.  I told her.  He'd known for over a week and watched his wife search and worry.  He doesn't like cats much but that is not nice to not tell her and to not stick up for his wife in that godforsaken drug and bullshit infested area where the only thing you could love, if you could muster it, would be a stray cat.

In another part of Lebanon, the place Blueberry came from,  two cats so far have been lured into the road with a laser pointer then struck and killed by cars.  It's a sick twisted game played by some tweeker heads too.  There's nothing sacred in this area, no love of much of anything I think to myself.  How'd I end up here I wonder and how do I make it out alive?

Old Electra in the Window

Mouth Anew

I found a dentist.

I am so lucky.  Because my luck tends to change rapidly, I am taking advantage of this find, by eagerly offering up my mouth anytime they have cancellations.

Yesterday in fact, I went in twice, both opportunities came from cancelled appointments.

I had the broken tooth pulled.  I had the one next to it, that had also lost a large filling, refilled.

On the bottom, I've had numerous small fillings mostly from decay around or beneath old fillings or from fillings that have fallen out.  All my teeth are now fixed on the bottom.  I have a few left to be fixed on the top.  The dentist said it would take three more appointments.

This is a great office with really nice staff.  The dentist who pulled the root of my broken tooth was kind and very gentle.  They all are. They seem so competent too.  I was very nervous starting in with a new dentist but I had no reason for concern.

Like I say, I am so lucky.  So few people now are able to get their teeth fixed like this.  I can't believe it is really happening for me.

I do know several people who do have insurance and could get their teeth fixed, but don't.  That's hard to fathom.

Teeth are important!

I've gone up to the lake twice now, with my raft.  Both times, I had to pump it up by hand.  The first time, it was almost 100 degrees out, while I pumped up the  raft.  The second time, around 90 degrees.  While at the dental office, this week, I was chatting with a family, and told them about my raft and pumping it by hand.  They have a raft too and also had to pump it by hand when they visited the same lake, but not because they lack a working cigarette outlet in their car, but because they had forgotten the pump's adapter.  They told me Walmart has an apparatus that clips onto a cars' battery that has an outlet on it, that can be used, for, among other things, pumping up a raft.

Holy cow, I thought.  Today I'm going to go see if what they described exists.

I don't mind pumping it up by hand.  It's good exercise I figure.  But it does make me think twice about going, if it is super hot out, like 90 plus degrees hot.  If I blow it up tight in that heat, when it hits the cold water, the air contracts and it's not that tight anymore.  Can then be kind of squishy.

I also need a way to get the raft onto the lake.  I don't want to drag the rear of it over concrete, when I'm by myself.  So far, I've been able to find another person willing to grab the back and haul it down to the lake.  I usually pump it up twenty feet away or so.  It's not that heavy but it's unwieldy and could be damaged if I drug it, with one end scraping across the concrete.

I know they sell kayak or boat caddies that accomplish this.  I'll need to build one.

I spend the hours on the lake rowing all over the lake.  The boat does best if you row it backwards, and it rows really well.  I found a kayak paddle finally, but that doesn't work for my raft like rowing it works.  That raft cuts through the water like a knife when I row it.

I usually tow the paddle board, that I got at Goodwill, behind it like a dingy, .  I usually find a beach in the end, although it can be tough to find an unoccupied spot, tie it up and take a nap or eat lunch, then take a swim.

I love to be on the water, either swimming or in the raft.  This summer is perfect for it.  I wish there was water closer than that lake, but I'm glad its up there.  It is the only lake in the entire area, so it is extremely popular as you might imagine.

Above that lake, which is really a reservoir, along a narrow windy and ultimately gravel road, is another reservoir, Green Peter and above that, all along that narrow windy road, people camp out along it and the river, and pay nothing.


They say they're going to stop allowing that, but its really the only place a good share of this areas' residents can afford to camp.  However, that area has become over run in scumdogs, who leave their trash behind, steal from other campers, drink and do drugs, and shoot guns.  Here's a link to Access Oregon's experience up there.  Be warned, after reading this.   I was told by a family who camps up there often:  don't go alone; don't leave your camp unattended or your stuff is likely to not be there when you return; don't go unarmed either.  There you have it.

Camping in Oregon is synonymous with being an Oregonian.  Everybody (almost) wants to camp.  But it's become outrageously expensive.  Oregon campgrounds have become an industry too, and the fees are often between $20 and $30 a night for an unimproved site.   A lot of Oregonians cannot afford such fees.  The Fish and Wildlife department, I think it is, now charges $7 just to park at their wildlife refuges, to go for a walk.  Can you imagine that?  $7 just to park in a pullout and go for a walk.

I think this is probably also related to the high cost of the state public employees retirement system.  One ex Oregon football coach alone rakes in something like $40k a month from taxpayers for retirement.  That's a lot of dough.  Can you imagine stacking that money up on a table every month and trying to figure out what to do with all of it?

It's not the public retirees fault.  They signed on with that retirement system often the reason.  We have not had super bright legislators here in Oregon at times, who think about the future, or that things could actually change.  That might be the problem.   I don't really know.  I told my brother he'd be retired now, instead of still working six days a week, if he'd been a public employee.  He has several friends who retired early 50's because they were public employees and could retire that young.

Sometimes I think everyone should, as life gets a lot harder as you get older.  You get joint issues and bowel issues and strange diseases and you just want to sleep more and you come to understand it's all a big game and you really have no power to change a thing and.......well, you get tired out, emotionally and physically, especially if you're working stress filled hard on your body jobs like construction. Plus there's the age discrimination thing.

Once you are in your 40's, because of America's youth and looks worship culture, you're redundant and irrelevant.  My brothers have both worked so hard all their lives, devoting themselves to their jobs like they were married to them.  Now one is unemployed and the other one tired out.  I wish they had worked public jobs so they could be retired with that nice secure and generous retirement account public employees get.  I wouldn't worry so about them then.

So everything costs big time now in Oregon, if you want to get out and enjoy what we used to call public lands.  Now they are held hostage in big fees to use.

On another note, I seem to be adjusting to life without TV.  It hasn't been easy, but I think it's been good for me.  I don't even know what is going on in the world anymore, and that, I believe is a good thing!

The calls keep coming in asking help for cats.  Three yesterday.  I don't return the calls.  I can't take in more here and have no money to help get cats fixed.  There is no place locally anyhow to get it done.  KATA is having a heck of a time, getting any reservations anywhere to get any fixed right now.  They have used Heartland's surgery, and they have not had even a few spots open for ages, or Willamettte Humane's spay clinic, which also has not had openings for a long time.  Meanwhile, there are owned mother cats in Lebanon, whose first litters KATA took in, now pregnant again.  Without local high volume spay neuter options, cats are doomed here.

We do not have low cost options here.   Outside of certain people in Linn County qualify for up to four $25 vouchers a year, to use at participating vets.  But you return to the same problem, that a good share of Linn county residents who don't fix their cats don't know of this option, or have no cars or no carriers, so they can utilize it.  Or they are too dysfunctional or too entitlement oriented to use it.  And participating vets don't take feral cats, that I know of.

The FCCO does a great job in Portland with their fixed place clinic.  But there's no such option down this way.  I used to drive cats up there by the car load, but I can't anymore, due to the cost of gas and the miles on my car.  I tried to interest the two local shelters in adjoining counties, one private, the other an animal control shelter, in getting a transport van and sponsoring once monthly trips to the FCCO.  I'd trap and transport, but I don't think either shelter get it even yet, about cutting off the problem at its source, that this would be the economical common sense solution.  I still don't think either one gets it, or wants involved.  They have the potential donors, the publicity, the way to make it happen.  But...well, you know how it goes.

I tried to explain this to a young woman who lives on the block with her parents.  She came over to me all excited, thinking I would take in her friend's two kittens, from her friends unfixed female.  Her friend "got rid of" all but two.  The woman claimed "they'll take them if she doesn't get rid of them."  Emotional blackmail.  How I don't miss that.  I told her that her friend needs to get her female cat fixed.  I told her about Safehaven vouchers.  I told her her friend is costing other people a lot of money by allowing her cat to have kittens and killing other cats waiting for homes.  I told her how overloaded shelters and rescues are right now with unwanted cats and kittens.

 But it did not seem to sink in.   Not at all.  I walked away.

Let the Water Boarding Begin!

Oregon rescuers are a scary lot. You better believe it.

In fact, we are so scary, we now have the distinction of being the very first group of people in the United States to have our 4th amendment rights under the constitution removed.  Hell yes!  That's how truly frightening we are!  Bwah ha ha!.

I haven't looked in a mirror recently.  Maybe I should be doing more with my hair.

I really was not aware my rescue friends are scary people.  They seem like such nice people on the outside.   There must be like terrible stuff in their basements.  Banned books or something.

Never in a million years would I have thought I'd see something like this happen!   Kitten rescuers so feared they are denied 4th amendment protections!

It's outrageously hysterical.  If it weren't real life here in Oregon.

Quirky?  Yes thank you Oregon is strange.  

Come visit, but don't bring your pets.  You'll be eyed suspiciously if you do.  Maybe interrogated too, but water boarding isn't that bad.  Your pets could be confiscated and killed for their own good.

Watch out for thieves if you do visit.  Our detention centers will soon be full of puppy lovers.  Kitten people, I'll defend, but those puppy lovers, they terrify me.

The new face of terror----

Book Review: The Sun Also Rises

"One generation  passeth away and another generation cometh; but the earth abideth forever.....The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteneth to the place where he arose...."  Ecclesiastes

Two quotes adorn the forward of Ernest Hemingway's celebrated Novel, The Sun Also Rises.

The other is a sarcastic tribute to the lost generation that lived in the aftermath of WWI.

Here is a description of the book from wikipedia:

"The Sun Also Rises is a 1926 novel written by American author Ernest Hemingway about a group of American and British expatriates who travel from Paris to the Festival of San Fermín in Pamplona to watch the running of the bulls and the bullfights. An early and enduring modernist novel, it received mixed reviews upon publication. Hemingway biographer Jeffrey Meyers writes that it is "recognized as Hemingway's greatest work",[2] and Hemingway scholar Linda Wagner-Martin calls it his most important novel.[3] The novel was published in the United States in October 1926 by the publishing house Scribner's. A year later, the London publishing house Jonathan Cape published the novel with the title of Fiesta. Since then it has been continuously in print."

I read the book in one day. I loved it! Why, I can't state clearly.


I feel smarter after I read a Hemingway. I want to spout words and sound intellectual.


I liked the book for its grit and its failures. The book fails to portray humans as anything more than they are. I love that.



The book is about a group of friends who drink too much and are always off dancing and drinking and eating in Paris. The lead character, from whose perspective the story is told, is a reporter named Jake, an American, who lives in Paris who fought in the war and became impotent as a result of war wounds.


The men have trouble curbing their masculine desires.Even the impotent Jake who follows the bull fights and seems to envy the bulls' their brute strength, while, at the same time, admiring the fighters who kill them. Perhaps this justifies his impotence, that the brute drive of masculinity is so easily exploited unto a gory death. Lady Ashley, Brett in the story, to Jake, who has known her long, flits from one man to another, seemingly unable to stop her reckless endeavor, and seeks relevance in sexual encounters that become nothing more than extended one night stands. As do the men, but the consequences are different for Brett.


In the first part of the book, Jake encounters his unhappy college friend Robert Cohn, twice married and divorced, roundly disliked by the other friends and eventually Jake too, as uninteresting and pathetic. He has a woman, none too innocent herself, who is set on marrying him. Cohn leaves her immediately, despite a three year romance, once he lays eye on Brett. They spend time together, despite Brett's engagement to a bankrupt Scott named Mike.


They are in and out constantly, as these characters are developed, in the cafes and drinking establishments of Paris until I wanted to be sick to think of all this drinking and eating. The characters are developed fully, but I came to see them quickly as shallow and irrelevant people. I was glad I wasn't any of them, by the end of the book. Social butterflies of the time, with no ability to form deep relations, except during the second part of the book, when Jake is off fishing in the mountains, with another American friend, who seems the most stable of all.

After reading this part of the story, I thought 'You'd think they'd get over it, all the drinking parties, moving from one establishment to the next, and search out something more substantial for a life.  Like if I here eat too much sugar in a two day time, until I want to fast and vomit and eat things like nuts and fruit.'  But some people never get over that sort of time, like the frat boys, most move on from the drinking and pranks on one another, but some live in that time like a life sentence and only wish they could return to live it more, as they age.


Brett in particular is a sad case, flitting from man to man, always in the end, turning to Jake, who also loves her, telling him how miserable she is.


They all go off to the festival in Pamplona, Spain. Together. Mike, about to marry Brett, gets into drunken riffs with Robert Cohn, who has followed them like a puppy, still panting over prior weeks spent with Brett. He does not realize she's done with him, too, and he's on the used pile.


Jake goes off to the mountains on a fishing expedition with Bill and this is the most peaceful and desirable part of the book. I could feel the tension in their lives despite this short respite from it. It gave me cause to believe these men could develop relationships, at least with one another. Always the heavy drinking though, even in the mountains on their fishing trip.


Bull fighting is a terribly brutal sport. It pits man against beast with all the tilting done to favor man, to exalt man as supreme. It reminds me of men who buy big pickups and put their gun racks so they can be seen through the rear window and men who have very deliberately vicious dogs.


There is a great need among some men to be seen outwardly as savage and masculine, even if inside they quail at the thought of adulthood and responsibility and fail at any relationship or job.

It is easy and superficial to resort to basic instincts of violence and sexuality and dominance.  The last resort?  Or is it pretentious of humans to pretend that we are more than basic instincts dressed nicely and educated over? (I can see some convulsing in anger to think of bull fights as they sit comfortably, reading, and snacking on a burger, made of cows, prodded to the slaughter, trembling with fear born from knowledge of their certain fate.  I consider in this world a better fate, than to have no chance, to possibly turn a horn and slit a matador open at the least, rather than be lined up, one after the other, to die, hooked and hanging, quartered and still trembling at the slaughter house.)


This group of friends were impotent. They flailed at one another with words when drunk over who would be winner of Brett. While Brett set herself upon a young matador the moment she laid eyes upon him. He would be the one to win her, take her, satisfy the longings and needs within her. She just knew it.


The three final matadors on the fiestas final day include two has beens, who are booed and mocked, bitter in their status by now, aged by it, ruined by the sport they thought would rocket them to fulfillment. The young matador conquered already by Brett, is attacked by Robert Cohn, who is jealous and cannot leave it and go. He finally does leave, but not before also flattening his only real friend, Jake, with his fists, and Mike too, who has been abandoned by Brett.


After the festival mercifully ends, the friends part ways, now somewhat sober. Jake heads off to a quieter place to finish out his vacation. He gets a cable from Brett, already in trouble in Madrid. She's been left by her young matador. It's Jake to the rescue.


The story ends with Jake and Brett in a cab. Brett is babbling again about how good they could have been together.


Then comes the very best line in the book and its the last line, giving it clout and remembrance. I'll probably use it myself.


"Oh, Jake," Brett says, "we could have had such a damned good time together."


"Yes." I said. "Isn't it pretty to think so?"


What a line! What a book.


Good gracious Earnest Hemingway.

"One generations passeth away and another generations cometh but the earth abideth forever...."

The circumstances changed for characters in this book.  The people moved in and out of different situations and locations.  People came and went.  In and out.  But their natures abideth forever.  We are who we are.


Sunrise, sunset.....we are specks in the vastness of space and time.  We take a few breaths and we're gone for good.  Make those breaths sweet as sweet can be, I say.  We don't matter.  I like to remember that.  I think it makes it all easier.

Legislating Harm to Animals, The Oregon and Oregon Humane Way

SB 6 passed the Oregon house today, sealing the fate of small rescues.

Small rescues are not big shelters or animal control agencies.  They have nothing at all in common with big shelters and animal control.

They don't kill animals.  They don't shuffle animals they want to kill, to kill shelters, so they can maintain their pristine no kill status. If a kitten gets a cold, they don't kill the kitten.  If a kitten gets ringworm, they don't kill the kitten and every other cat in the shelter. They don't pick and choose the most beautiful of animals so they can turn them over quickly, sending the not so beautiful to kill shelters.

Why do kill shelters, with bodies holocaust thick in their history, even get to use the word "shelter" in their name?

Rescuers don't get paid.

You might not believe the salaries of shelter directors and top staff.  Or their PR departments.

It's an industry.

Rescues are in it to help animals because they love animals and usually because their own neighborhoods and towns are over run in unwanted animals.

They make nothing off animals.  In fact, they spend their own money and ruin their own cars helping out animals and their people.

And, in Oregon, they get stomped into the dirt by Oregon legislators enamored with big money lobbyists from Oregon Humane and HSUS.  They don't even recognize rescuers as humans, by including rescues in the discussion or informing rescues a bill is about to be passed that will drastically affect their ability to continue and their own lives.

In Linn County, where I live, there's no hope for stray cats and kittens.  Neighboring counties with kill shelters cut off this county, because residents dumped such high volumes of dogs, puppies, cats and kittens at their door to be killed.  So people now dump them in terrible places, kill them in terrible ways, or just let them breed and starve.  It's hell here for animals.  But Oregon Humane's director either doesn't know that or doesn't care.

To me, the bill was a total kick in the face.  Charge license fees to people already giving so much to help?  What?  That is crazy!  And not charge instead the people causing the problem, like breeders and anyone who doesn't fix their pets?   I'd have to be totally nuts to continue in such a climate of volunteer disrespect.

Even a $100 license fee is a hell of a lot of money to most people I've known in rescue.  Nobody knows what the fee will be.  It's unspecified.  It's chump change to the likes of these high paid lobbists who wrote the bill.  There is a total disconnect of understanding the economics faced by rescuers.  Well, just don't do it then, I can hear them saying.  Who will?

 You'd have to live here to know how bad it is here for animals and how few options there are.  There are  now, with me done, only a couple other very small rescues, wavering always on the financial edge, but who routinely have situations referred to them by the well funded local no kill shelter with paid staff, that primarily serves dogs, many of whom hail from California.  You don't want to be a stray cat in Linn County.

I am fairly convinced this is some sort of Oregon Humane power play. I don't know that for sure, but it must be because the person who wrote the rescue sections had to know most rescues are tiny and poor and license fees alone would close rescues in places where there are no other options for animals.  She had to know this.  She can't be that stupid.   She had to know nobody wants to live under the threat of unwarranted inspections coming at you, after any complaint,  from the neighborhood psychopath or somebody a rescue refused on an adoption.

If Oregon Humane's director had wanted indeed to help Oregon animals, instead of creating roadblocks to helping animals, roadblocks to breeding more animals would be legislated.

She exposed her true colors with what she wrote.  She wants rescuers seen as animal abusers, so she can be seen as their super rich savior.  LOL!!!  I made that up.

Rural Oregon isn't Portland and rescues don't have huge fancy shelters like Oregon Humane and dripping rich donars.  They don't get telethons.  They don't even get paid.  Their rescue is their garage or a spare bedroom, for gosh sakes.  Little kids bring them kittens they found in a box on the highway.  Old couples bring them cats they find driving way out on some logging road, dumped, scared, starved.

Get real Oregon Humane!  Some rescuers don't have computers at home.

Some people just want to rule the world.

I told another rescue that if this passes, not to worry, if Oregon Humane showed up to inspect them, without a warrant, I'd stand in front of them, wrapped in an American flag, stating, like Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings "You shall not pass!"  Ha!

That's because all who heard of the bill immediately think Oregon Humane is positioning to be the "enforcing agency" so they control everything!!    How are we supposed to know why in the world they would specifically target rescues who operate from their homes allowing for searches without warrants?  I mean, you'd never in a million years think that could ever happen.  You think you're doing good, helping out all these stray animals and never imagine there are like evil forces conniving to stop you!  That's like a Batman movie, but its not supposed to happen in real life.  And certainly not in Oregon.

Oregon got its brains sucked out.  Must have been a zombie invasion I slept through.

I knew the bill would pass and nobody would listen about how it would affect little rescues, to be charged fees, fines for record keeping violations and constantly under the threat, that someone can anonymously complain which can prompt an inspection in your own home, without a warrant, which is unAmerican, and equivocates a rescuer with a terrorist.

I knew well I would not be able to even sleep anymore for the total unfairness and the paranoia, because under the bill, they can take your animals for a mere records violation. If you don't believe me, here is the section in the bill that says that and the violations refer to record keeping infractions (the section referred to is all about record keeping and submitting to inspections):

 "A violation of this section may result in imposition of

civil penalties to be determined by the enforcing agency,
including but not limited to impoundment of all animals under the
animal rescue's control, the revocation of the animal rescue's
license to operate animal rescue operations and a civil penalty 

of not more than $500 for each violation".

I had nightmares about them tearing Miss Daisy from my arms.  So I can't be under this.  Makes me so sad. I just can't handle that kind of stress.  My house is immaculate, my records unbelievable and my cats well cared for, but I can't handle living under the constraints of this bill.  I shouldn't have to.

 So I had no choice but to close my petfinder rescue site a week ago when I heard about the bill.  No longer will I ask anyone for a donation to help care for cats left here.  I will take no more cats in. That kitten I saved last night, today he went to a rescue whom I shall not name, to protect them too from the powers that be.

 I will become one of those people, one of the hordes of the uninvolved. Looking away pays off big in Oregon.

 If I become one of those who looks away, the apathetic, the unkind, Oregon will be pleased and not penalize me with fees, fines and searches of my home without a warrant.  That's the price you pay now in Oregon if you want to help a stray kitty.

Oregon, HSUS, and Oregon Humane, you are fricking pathetic.  Your money and power trips are hurting animals and people.

Here's a little add on for ya---from me and the strays of Oregon---Oregon, HSUS and OHS---FUCK YOU.

Boy that felt good.

By the way, Democrats, you have pissed me off royal.  I won't vote for a single one of you in Oregon again.

I'm NOT a Rescue!

But this little boy kitten, living in my neighbors sewer vent pipe, doesn't need to know that!

I caught him in her garage tonight.

Now safe in my bathroom.  Flea treated, flea combed, wormed and vaccinated.

Kitten anyone?

An update on the thin sisters and their project.  In the end, we caught there, the mother, who is black, and five black kittens.  The black male got out on them when they were trying to clean his cage, but they will catch him again later to be fixed.

The mother was pregnant again when they got her spayed at their own vet.

They brought the kittens inside, due to the heat, into one of their bathrooms.  The kittens then vanished. They had crawled into a wall through a tiny hole at the toilet water pipe entry.  So.....they called their contractor, who had done their remodel and asked him to come remove the toilet.  He says "Remove the toilet I just put in?"   "Yes!" they replied.  So, he did and they fished the kittens out of the wall.  They went to Safehaven who had a fosterer open who has worked taming feral kittens before.  She has kids and dogs, which makes for a great foster home for feral kittens.

Happy 4th! Happy Cats!

Happy 4th of July from Deaf Miss Daisy!

My brother came up yesterday, to replace the broken window.  He replaced two windows with beautiful vinyl frames!  They look terrific.

I had to shut off the spare bedroom first, to the cats, so we could remove the old window in that room, broken when something hit it from outside.  It was probably either a rock thrown up from a car's tire or a kids ball.  Miss Daisy did NOT like to be excluded from the action.

My brother and I were working outside on the windows and we hear the loud howls begin.  I tried to ignore them.  He says, "Who is that?"   "That," I said, "is Deaf Miss Daisy and she's probably hunched over a fake mouse, howling her brains out.  It's how she gets attention."  Finally I gave in and went inside and congratulated her on "her kill".  Then I plopped her on my shoulder and took her into the spare bedroom so she could be a part of the window replacement action, from the bed or floor, however.  She liked that!

My brother brought two new windows and also replaced my bedroom window with the white vinyl framed one he brought up, so they'd match from the outside.  My neighbor came over to admire them later and says she wants to replace hers also and hates the ugly aluminum frame 70's original that faces the street from her house.

Beneath the siding when he took some of that off around the window, for a frame, we found a strange sort of press board, that easily crumbles or gives, to the touch.  I said "What is that?"  He said he didn't expect to see  that under there, but its typical cheap development materials used when houses are thrown up quickly to sell.  That's what's behind the siding on this house.  In some ways its good development houses are packed together like sardines so that each house is somewhat protected from direct wind and rain on the sides, since they are built of such materials.  Particle board sub floor is another example.

My brother was very impressed with my bike!  I proudly declared how I bought it off craigslist after much ado and many attempts to find a usable used bike.  I told him how one mechanic at the bike shop I took it to in Corvallis made fun of it, as poorly made but that had not phased me because I finally have a bike I can ride.  I told him all I learned about bikes in that effort to find a used one.  He and his wife want to get some bikes.  He told me a friend of his bought a $2000 bike with a construction flaw that caused a wheel to come off when he was riding down a mountain road.  He was badly injured and my brother pointed out how this bike does not have that flaw, on the rear wheel, that allowed for the rear wheel to come off like it did on his friends' bike.

I was worried about my brother working in the heat all day and nothing to eat.  He had said we'd go out to eat between windows but we got going on the second one, to get it done so he could go home.  But finally I suggested we better eat since it was late afternoon.  I had eaten nothing all day either.  But he is trying to eat healthy now and where to eat in Albany that's even close to eating healthy food?  We had a bad experience last time he was up a year and a half ago, when he brought the water heater.  He wanted to eat out and he likes Italian but is a vegetarian.  We went to an Italian restaurant that is sort of high end, for Albany that is.  They had nothing vegetarian however on their menu.  He asked about a pizza then, but they use ranch dressing instead of tomato sauce on their pizza and we both just went "YUK!"

I don't eat out so I am unfamiliar with anyplace that might have anything close to healthy food in Albany.  We finally went to Subway where he got a six inch vegetable sub.   He and his wife are admirable in their efforts to eat healthy and get into shape.  My other brother and his wife have always watched their weight and eaten fairly healthy I think.  I don't really know.  But now my other brother's wife is even running half marathons!  She's in her 40's and I think that is inspiring.  It's not so easy to find healthy food in small towns like where I live or even affordable vegetables.

I tried to do a trade, with a farmer advertising labor in exchange for organic vegetables, on craigslist.  But it was at the time my car was broken down and the farm was 40 miles away.  I tried to go the first day I was scheduled but the car wouldn't make it.  I finally made it after the first time the car was fixed and worked for a box of vegetables picking peas.  I was very worried I would not be fast enough as I picked, to be called back.  I knelt at first picking, but that became uncomfortable on my one bad knee, so after that I stood up and that was better.  I really loved that day, picking peas under the sun.

  But then my car broke again, with the tranny fluid leak, and I had to call and tell the farmer that, and he never called me back again, which I understand.  The time on my knees pinched some nerve too, giving me what I termed a trick knee, so that if I turned on that leg a certain direction, my leg would try to collapse on me. It was quirky and I bragged about having a trick knee then, for humor's sake and because I was under severe stress, having no car, and worried I would not have a car again, and wondering how I would even get groceries since everything is so far from where I live.  My trick knee went away over time.  I loved those vegees in the one box I got though.  They were delicious and fed me for many days.

I'm mostly a vegetarian.  I like fish however, halibut and salmon being my favorite fish.  But for all the effort to save Oregon salmon I wouldn't know where you might get some Oregon salmon for the table.  I don't know where it goes.  You can find super expensive salmon in fish delis at various stores, but most isn't from Oregon and all is extremely expensive.  You can buy prepackaged salmon from China at Walmart or the Grocery Outlet but I wouldn't buy food from China.  They have no standards.

I was bemoaning the expense at the Winco deli, that sells fish, most from out of country, and told the clerk maybe I'd get a salmon license and try to catch my own.  She said she did that, but the cost of the salmon ticket and fishing license and gear, plus transportation, was very high so she gave it up.

I've been thinking about getting a fishing license, because I have some friends who might have extra gear thye could loan me.  They've given me trout they caught at Foster before, which I baked just right and ate myself and the rest, the cats devoured.  I baked it so perfectly I shocked myself, because all the bones just peeled out.  If I could get a license and catch lots of fish, even fish I don't eat, I could save a lot of money on food for myself and for the cats.  I've also considered raising mice to feed the cats, if things get really bad, and prices go up even more.  It's my back up plan, along with the fishing license.  I've been studying up about fishing!

I grow strawberries out front and bush beans and peas and this year, peppers, but that's it. This year, due to heat early in the spring, the strawberries came out too early, then came cold and rain.  They got a fungus, in their roots, and although I got some for breakfast every day, for a few weeks, they were not big or healthy, like years past.  So I have to pull up the plants and turn the soil for the sun to kill the fungus and then start over.

I'm not growing much this year also because water costs too much anymore.   There's no growing much of anything out back due to the shade from the maple and the cherry tree.  The cherry tree produced almost no cherries this year.  There weren't the bees to pollinate it.  Too much spraying in the area.  Everybody's got their personal chemical spray pack arsenal.  But the bees suffer.  I'm going to plant more flowers to make the bees happy and to hopefully keep them here and alive and out of the spray happy neighbors yards.

I have a couple neighbors that don't like me at all.  Nobody has to like anybody and I understand that.  I had to put my foot down with both for traveling through my yard without even asking, when they were mowing the old man's place.  They took big time offense.  I said "Well, you'd call the police if you saw me in your back yard (which is totally true)."  But I'm expected to submit I guess.  However, I didn't.   Makes it sometimes difficult here, but fortunately, I've got some nice neighbors.  I like the new ones down at the end a lot.  They're very nice and we click.

I mow the old man's front now, to secure my privacy.  I go see him every day.  He told me last that he has no more enjoyment in life.  I didn't know what to say so I finally said, "Boy that just is really hard and not fair."   I heard him yelling last night at his caretaker.  I knew that would help him, to yell, because I noticed his breathing improves greatly when he's mad and yelling.  He's got long term asthma and work related breathing issues, from inhaling too much dust when drove tractor, he said his doctor told him, diesel fumes when he worked on trucks and drove them, then more chemicals and dust and debris when he did yard maintenance.  I think he has something wrong with his heart too.  Not sure what all.

  I was going to go see him after the guy left, but when I peeked in his window, even though the lights and his TV were on, he was dozing.  Old age has hit him finally and it's tough on a guy like that.  He is a tough guy, who rode a motorcycle up to a few years ago, and has been very independent.  He's in his mid 80's and misses his wife more and more, as his health declines.  His wife died 12 years ago.

Box of organic vegetables I got in trade for picking peas.

My brother, who is adopting Sam and Smolder later this summer, as business cats, was transfixed by Alexi and Sassy.  Those Albany business cats have huge eyes that are shaped so they always have a "concerned" look.  He took photos to show his wife.

Here's Alexi!

I thought he was going to say he'd take both of them home!  Maybe he still will!  He has a kitty he adopted from me several years ago, from that big BS colony, the 120 cats out off Gerig, shared by four houses.  Boy was that a tough situation on me to solve.  My veterinarian at the time had asked me to help solve that. Then he later apologized for getting me into such drama and horror.  Plus they never donated anything.

Shady, a buff and white girl kitty here, is my brother's cats' cousin from the BS colony.  He has two cats currently at his home.  I don't think that's enough!  I think Alexi and Sassy would be fine additions to his home cat family!  (He's taking Sam and Smolder to his business.  My brother has always wanted Sam and I think Sam, and Sam's friend Smolder, a massive cat, son of Sage, will thrive there).

Shaulin, from the Albany Bengal breeder man's place, and in the Returned Club, is middle aged now and very happy.

Stiletto, from the Albany business, Alexi's first cousin!

Haley, from the Albany business, and Stiletto's mother.

Juno, from the seed farm, with Teddy, from the Corvallis homeless camp.

I didn't know how Juno would behave with the extreme heat of late.  A year ago, she is the kitty who suffered heat stroke in Brownsville, where she was being fostered during harvest, with intent to return her after harvest to the seed farm.  I guess like with people who have suffered heat stroke, cats too are more prone to getting it again, if they've had it once before.  But she is doing fine!  She's so funny and so in love with life and has many friends here.

Old Electra, my baby.

Comet in June.  Comet is still Comet, sometimes loving as can be and other times a bad boy bully to a couple of the other kitties.  He's one of my original four kitties I moved to Albany with from Corvallis.  The other three, all elderly now, are Electra, 14; Vision, 19 years old and precious Deaf Miss Daisy, 11 years old.  Comet is 8 years old and came from a trailer park in Albany, Heatherdale.  I took out so many kittens and cats from that park.  My back failed that year.  Little kids would have to help me carry traps with cats to my car, to be taken to be fixed.  Comet was the only kitten I didn't find a home for before back surgery.  I lived in Corvallis but had been asked to help at that park by an Albany city councilman.

If The Anti Rescue Bill Should Pass....Take a Look at the Antics of our local "Enforcing Agency"

Linn County Animal Control long time employees on paid leave.

What a pile of you know what!

Letter Sent to Oregonian. Rescuers are not Terrorists!

I e-mailed this letter to the Oregonian today.  I don't know if they will print it or not.

July 4 is here!  Let’s celebrate our country and freedom.  Volunteer animal rescuers may have little to celebrate.  HB 6, an animal welfare bill already passed by the Senate, includes two sections that require rescues to license, pay fees, and pay fines for record keeping infractions.  And, if the bill passes, rescues would have to submit to inspections of their homes without 4^th amendment protections afforded everyone else, including breeders and animal abusers.   Wouldn’t it be nice if the law could enter your home, in America, without one of those pesky warrants?

Rescues are often one or two person operations with little money but big heart.  They do great work.  They’re Americans who like kittens.  Not terrorists.  Kill the bill not the rescues!

Wore Myself Out, Fighting Bills That Shouldn't Be

I have worn myself out, fighting that bill that shouldn't be.

Peter Courtney, in defense of his own bill, before his senate passed it, loudly claimed they could have intervened earlier in the Keizer fake rescuer, who had five or six dogs stuffed per carrier, if they could have done so without a warrant.  Wouldn't that be easy, to just solve all crimes by entering places without a pesky warrant?  To ransack homes for evidence of drugs, because they got an anonymous phone call that said there might be drugs, surround and enter your home to seize your computers (and anything else) if someone anonymously said you might be stealing ID's, even if you weren't and that caller was the new boyfriend of your ex on a payphone, turning away to cover smurks.

Not many seem up in arms that a rescuer's home could be entered without benefit of warrant protection.  What if it were you?

A bill like this won't help stop people like that Springfield Persian breeder, caught throwing two of her cats into the Willamette in a plastic bag.  She had 60 unfixed breeding stock at home.  They were not seized, her home not entered and searched.    She received a hand slap from the law for her despicable actions.

I think little rescues got sold down the river for a pot of gold.  I think HSUS made some rounds a few weeks back, offered out some grants to shelters.  Money buys a lot of things.  Silence.  Support.  I don't know for sure they did this.  I have an inkling only from some post on a page.  What does an organization do, when they do need money, but when there may be unspoken strings attached to that money?  Do you sell out?  Ignore those strings?  Justify taking it anyhow?  What if you're not sure the strings are there in the first place?

A gift is a gift and comes with an expectation.  Always does.  When I get a card from someone, a simple card, I feel an obligation to return the favor.

However it makes me feel very sad, like I've been mocked, sold out, by people who have pretended.  Makes me feel awkward to be me.  Sold for a silver coin.   And in some ways, free, to know.  It's better to know!

People who claim to be friends that don't have your back when you are under the gun are not friends at all.    Shelters who claim little rescues are their partners but who support this bill or remain silent, a bill that would create such hardships and fees and fines and illegal searches of their homes, for little rescues, are not our friends.

It's quite sad all around.  Linn County cats have no recourse but for rescues.

I finally took my raft up to the lake late yesterday afternoon.  The cigarette lighter has never worked in that car.  I can't attach a pump to it and blow up a raft, for instance.

I was huffing and puffing hand pumping that raft up.  A woman comes up concerned and says "It's 100 degrees out.  Do you have water?"  I grinned and said "I do."

I had no food though.  I'd rushed up, eager to leave it all behind, without eating breakfast or lunch.

I got out on the lake, rowing first across one arm, then, to escape the noisy jet skiis there, rowed around the point and down into another quieter arm, then across that.  I found a beach and took a nap.  Until jet skiis found me there.  It's a noisy lake, but young people like those jet skiis, like the noise and the speed. They like to show off, or out do their friends.  Oh to be young again.

After rowing a couple of hours, I wanted to be a pirate, and board one of the large boats and demand or steal a hot dog!  I was very hungry.

It was so fun.  Not that relaxing this time, however, with all the jet skiis and boats and noise.  Still fun.

Packing up the raft, with my three wheel homemade cart to haul it back to my car, wasn't that easy.  I have to figure out an easier way.  Maybe I was just really tired out by then.

I stopped by Ian and Becky's place in Lebanon on the way back.  They're the folks I met last May, when I got about 18 adult cats fixed Becky fed, and took 24 kittens out of the area.  It changed Becky's life, to have them all fixed.  Most recently, Hobo showed up there, whom I took to be fixed, then was going to rehome but he was very ill and positive for leukemia, poor old sweet guy.  He was euthanized. Becky and I have been friends ever since last May, when I first met her.  I'm friends with her son and daughter-in-law too.  They fed me supper!

I met so many wonderful ordinary people when I was a cat wrangler, like Becky and Ian, like farmers and single moms and mechanics and veterans and yes, meth addicts and homeless souls.  I met so many wonderful cats also, many of whom I remember with clarity.  I know so many cats in this area by name or by sight.  I have so many memories.

Rescues are under fire in Oregon, being equated with animal abusers.  That does not reflect reality.  It's some strange vendetta and world view some stranger has going.  Some stranger with power and money and political clout.   I'm glad I ran into Mango in the shell station parking lot before the stranger decided to write something into law that would mean Mango could not be saved.

I'm glad I met Valentino before this day also.  And so many hundreds of others.

Under the stars, in the vastness of space and time, we are nothing.

That stranger, who wrote the bill, she also is nothing under the stars.  I think she should go out, and stare into the stars, some black night, and understand.

Oregon Anti Rescue Bill Passes Oregon Senate.

The darn stupid anti rescue bill, bured deep as the doodoo behind it in a general animal welfare bill, passed the Oregon Senate this morning by a vote of 17-14.  This is the doing of Oregon's democratic party, HSUS and Oregon Humane's director.

So....call the democratic party headquarters and tell them, WTF are you doing?  You're supposed to be the party that supports the little people, not the sell out party.

Here is their number, for your convenience:  (503) 224-8200

Call your state representatives.  I got a shock when I called mine.  They claimed it is a bill against animal abuse.  The aide had no idea the rescue regulation part was buried in there deep.

Call the governors' office, although I can't imagine him growing the balls to oppose it.

Try anyhow. 

Governor's Citizens' Representative Office
(503) 378-4582

It all makes me sick.  KATA is upset over this too, really worn out over all the hurdles thrown our way anyhow, and now this?  Making it harder to help the vast numbers of animals in need in this county?  WTF?

I'm so upset I'm going to have to leave, go up to the lake, and submerge myself in nature to forget the conniving going down up north.