Right now, I am having a meeting of my online class, and am waiting for everyone to come to a consensus. Sigh. This is going to be a bit, methinks.
I am having a meeting of my online class, and I am also stickying up my keyboard, ‘cos I am eating baklava. :-D
Yay, baklava.
My car is still being looked-at, or whatevered-at, and I still have the ’06 version. My official review? Save your money. It is a nice car, and if I had the money to have several cars, this would (probably) be one of them. However, it is a little too blank and kind of boxy-looking inside, though I am being spoilt by the side-view mirrors. They’re *huge*. You can see everything. But, other than that, it is okay only. I like my car better.
I started off this morning feeding the stray Squooahables (and Momcat). I did not see all of them, but on the other hand, I rarely do unless I step waaaaay back from the food and wait. *Then* I can get a head count. I didn’t have time today, so I just went in, figuring I would get a head count when I left—then I get an email from a woman in another department, who has been keeping an eye on the cats, too. She doesn’t feed them since I already am, and there is no point in being redundant (because my schedule is so weird, it actually would be a hassle for her to figure out if I was going to be there, or what), but she does usually stop to do a head check on her way in. She gets there later than I do, so they are usually out playing, which makes it easier.
Butsoanyway.
So she sends an email saying that she did not see the Squooshable what wears a grey tuxedo. And so I freaked…he/she looked a little sick yesterday. So I hurry up, finish, and go looking; after about twenty minutes of walking in our parking lot and looking in shrubberies for grey tuxedo Squooshable bodies, I see Momcat nursing the grey tuxedo Squooshable, and one of the black tuxedo Squooshables. The grey one still looks like it is breathing a little rapidly, but Mom is nursing it. So I figure that, considering that she voted *my* Squooshable off the island , she must not feel that the grey Squooshable is too sick if she is nursing it and letting it hang out with the other Squooshables still.
Of course I try to lure it over with food. I try to out-wait it. I take off my necklace and slowly swing it. Squooshables like to pounce, I figure. :-) Well, *mine* does, at least.
They have never fallen for it, and probably never will.
So finally I *have* to go, ‘cos I am almost an hour and a half late to go to my doctor’s. So I check their towel, and it is too wet. I replace it with another, leave, and go do My Thing. And since I have to drive for forty minutes to do My Thing, I have time to think. And I realise that being euthanized, if it does happen, is preferable to dying sick and alone. Or getting attacked. Or caught in a car engine. Or being cold and wet.
So I call Animal Services.
I talked to a *REALLY* nice girl there, who sort of reminded me of me in a weird way. We talked for probably about half my drive. She explained to me that they don’t want to control the population just by killing any cat or dog that happens to find itself personless. They try to adopt them out, and in a case like mine—with strays—if the animal(s) have *anyone* who will accept responsibility for them, they are not put to sleep unless they have rabies, or something dangerous/incurable. If someone wants a stray cat and will sign for it, they don’t put it to sleep just ‘cos it is unfriendly (which, hoo-boy, Momcat is…but I think a little love would change her. She is just trying to protect her babies, plus who knows *what* might have happened to her out there that I don’t know about…we could have someone at Eviljob who likes to go out and kick her, for all I know).
And Animal Services will rent a trap(s) to me, and even come out and collect if I need them to, or come out and show me how to set it up. And they will spay Momcat for free. And I can get a larger break on the FeLV and AIDS tests all four would need than Dr Vet will give me (not his fault; he isn’t running a charity over there). And as long as I will apply to adopt them, or I will have *anyone* else apply to adopt them, they will not be put to sleep. And I have enough people who would do that for me, even if I had to swear to take them back myself. Which I would. I could not *keep* them, but I will find a good home for them, or give them up to the no-kill shelter one county over from me. Or something. But it will be a nice something.
I honest-to-cheesecake thought that their policy was, in the case of moderately unfriendly strays, to catch them and kill them. I thought they only kept the adoptable ones, and then only for a week, or something. This girl swore to me that that is not true. She said that the only time they catch and kill straight away is when the cat or dog they catch is extremely ill, or has something contagious that cannot be fixed. And it is not nice to think about, but I can understand that reasoning. That is not as mean as I had thought. And I also made her swear to me that if, for example, Grey Tuxedo is very sick, as long as I say that I want Grey Tuxedo, they will either help me treat him, or give him to me to take to Dr Vet’s to get treated (or euthanized peacefully, not in a mass way, if that is all that can be done for him). She swore that—although I would have to pay for all or part of it, depending, because some services they can do for free or a subsidised fee, and others they can’t—is exactly correct. And I have to pay an adoption fee for each one and stuff like that, but that is no big deal. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. This is doable.
And, as if that had not gone well enough, a few minutes after I came home, my cell rings…it is a cat rescue lady. She said that she has been very backed up, but I told her that I would donate to her, pay for her gas over here and back (she lives rather far away), and take 100% responsibility for Momcat & Co. if she would help me. She has traps also, plus she has way more experience than I do. So I am waiting for her to call me back, either tonight or tomorrow, to work out when we are going to do this. I would rather do it this way because although Animal Services said that they will teach me how to work a trap, I really do not know what in the hell I am doing. Let me put it this way—knowing me as I do, *I* wouldn’t trust me to do it. It would be just like me to get my damn head stuck in it or something. I am all thumbs with some things like that.
Ooohhh! Looky! I trapped…my damn stupidassed self!
Not that I am pessimistic or anything, but I can just see myself sitting on the grass at Eviljob, trying to look nonchalant with a cat trap stuck on my head, waiting for someone from Animal Services to come out and unlock me.
Probably they’d make me pay an adoption fee for myself, to boot.
Well, probably.
Plus the cats would laugh at me. I hate it when that happens. ;-)
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