Wild Kitty is Recovering......

Wild Kitty is back at home getting used to a new routine.

I captured her and took her to the vet where there was all kind of grim news....mostly centered around her being too young and too small to have a real decent chance of having kittens.

So she had surgery....and is spayed now. She came up negative for feline leukemia....and seemed to be in good health.

When we brought home she was in a big dog kennel from the vet and since we have a kennel too we transferred her from the vet's kennel to our kennel which is stacked on top of Mattie, our deaf dog's, spot in the garage. I thought she would recover better in the garage than in the house....the garage door is often open and she could smell and see the outdoors versus the strange scents of indoors.

Trouble is kitty looks so small yet and so vulnerable....that I'm not sure I want to let her outside again. So this week....we are experimenting. She sleeps in her cage out in the garage at night and we've been putting her in the laundry room during the day. At first she was very frightened...but now seems to enjoy the laundry room....she opens a lower cabinet and sleeps on some old towels when she wants....or she curls up into a laundry basket with some nice dirty clothes. We've found she is fond of strings....and have searched our junk drawers for all the loose shoe strings....which we dangle in front of her ...much to her delight.

So far so good.....she's letting up pick her up and touch her....even purring in the process. She is recovering nicely and getting her appetite back. She's learned to use a litter box.....and seems quite content with the arrangements.

I guess we'll see if she can blend with the other animals....if not we'll keep working on socialization and see if we can find someone who will her adopt her. She's cute as a button.....and she just might socialize well...with enough lovin'.

Decision time with Kitty

I made a decision....Kitty's belly is getting rounder and the more I read online about a kitten giving birth to a kittens the more I worried about her.

So I called the vet who gave me a humane cat catcher and left it on our porch for a couple of days for her to get used to it.

Then....I didn't feed her in the evening....and slipper her food into the cage this morning.

Oh she pranced and meowed and sniffed and did not like it at all.

But finally, when I threw a piece of deli turkey meat in it.....she went in and it snapped closed.

Her eyes got as big as saucers and glazed with fear.

I put her and the cage in the car and headed off to the vet.

I'll go back later this afternoon to talk to him about what he found......he's going to lightly sedate her so he can examine her.

Oh kitty kitty

I arrived home.....disoriented. Time in Ohio....Time in Chicago....and 10 hours of an audio book on the way home made me feel like I was in another world.

When I looked at my kitty I freaked......"Look at you! Look at you and your belly!"

My wild kitty purred and purred and rubbed herself against my leg and gratefully sat down on the doormat which became warm when I turned the heating pad on.

I felt her bulging sides. "Oh dear oh dear."

I called the vet and basically they suggested I catch her and bring her in. A cat too young can experience multiple problems giving birth....including losing the litter and potentially even losing the mother, who is now called a "queen."

My first attempt yesterday at catching her failed miserably. She was sitting on my front porch all day until it was vet time. I tried to give her some scratchies with my son in the background discretely holding the kennel.

No way....she split in seconds.

It was if she had some 6th sense about the proceedings.

This morning I tried a different tactic.....duct taped my sleeves so her claws couldn't find my tender skin.....and tried to pet then snatch her.

No way.

Kennel with food.

No way.

Enticing her into the house with treats.

No way.

So kitty sits on my doorstep as round as a barrel and I can't seem to secure her. The vet is trying to find a humane cat-catcher cage. Kitty seems pretty wary of anything cage-like so I'm not confident she'll go after the food even if she's hungry.

She looks up at me in all her roundness and purrs.....while I just shake my head and say, "Oh kitty kitty, what are we going to do?"

Farklempted

There was an old Saturday Night Live sketch where two Jewish ladies talk about things and one of them becomes overwhelmed with emotion and she says...."I'm farklempted.... talk amongst yourselves"

I only know a few words in Yiddish but I truly understand "farklempted" in my bones now.


I feel farklempted and I just haven't been able to speak....it's like my voice can't come out of my emotions and my life experiences these past two weeks.

The Silent Auction went very well.

There was a major snafu at the dinner when the executive director told everyone the aucton would be end at a different time than the time it was scheduled to end.....whooops....and my helpers picked up all the sheets from the tables instead of just the top sheet .....yikes.......but....by the time the dinner and auction was over.....I had smoothed most ruffled feathers and gotten the right sheet back on the tables.

I was so tired I could have laid down on the floor and not moved.....it was 11pm....and I had been at the hotel working non-stop since 830am. Unfortunatley, someone forgot to schedule much of a clean up crew.....so my hub and I dragged things bit by bit to the car (all the hotels luggage carts were in use).....and I made my way home at 145am. I do not remember driving home....I do not remember pulling into my driveway.....but I did find myself in bed....and promptly at 730am....had a very upset cat staring at my closed eyeballs and meowing.

Everyone over the next day or two congradulated me....but I felt bad two big items didn't have bids and I found the bids a little under what I expected.... I felt some of the items should have brought in a lot more money.

As I tallied things up, I wondered if there was a better way to make money for the organization. I wasn't sure the silent auction was cost effective....all the time that was put in it versus the rate of return. This weekend I'm going to send in my final report....and I'm going to suggest....thinking out of the box.....maybe all this work isn't the best way to do things. I'm not sure how that will go over....since the auction is a very old tradition at the dinner.

I was only home a day or two before I headed from the jaws of the silent auction to my daughter's wedding plans. Ouch/ugh/oy

Although I had given her a specific budget to work within.....she had mostly ignored it. She booked a way too expensive photographer.....and I'm suspicious that the venue was overpriced too. When I looked at her plans.....my stomach sank.....we had given her and her fiance a good chunk of money in order to buy a house and start some renovations and she seemed to still be planning a wedding out of Brides Magazine and out of my budget.

So after talking to my husband.....I had to tell her that things were straying off course.

I found this very hard to do...and developed a lot of angst/anxiety/unhappiness.

Was I being cheap or realistic? She is my only daughter but I have two other children.....all who could marry too. In this case, her fiance's parents are going traditional....they are paying for a rehearsal dinner and the honeymoon but nothing else....so everything falls on our shoulders.

But my son could get married to a modern woman whose family says lets' split this wedding 50/50 or some other combination. In addition, the marriage business is a business and one geared to making princesses and there is so so much stuff way out of line. Like the cake.....the way she was heading....the cake could cost us 800.00. I thought this was just crazy.

So there I was......being the giant pin to her balloon fantasies. I told her she will have a qaulity wedding but we were not going to get crazy. She wanted to send "save the date" magnets to people which would have cost 200.00 for 40 magnets. In the end....she is going to send out custom postcards we designed for about 50.00. Am I being nuts? Shrewed or a shrew?


Plus my daughter's style and my style of decision making clashed......she must look at everything....think of all the alternatives ....think some more.....think just a bit longer....and then make a decision. I'm more action oriented....let's decide what we want... find it and pay for it amen.

The postcards took us almost a complete day to design and decide upon.....I went numb.

I finally had to tell her we needed a break....I wanted to scream....a fricking postcard shouldn't take a whole day....but I bit my tongue....I love her and this is important to her....so I simply retreated to the guest room and covered my head and my body for a while with a gigantic fluffy comforter.

After a couple of long talks with my husband....I realized I'm going to have to be reality for them. No an open bar does not mean.....thousands of dollars on liquor....it means something appropriate for a couple hour party....this is not a frat party. And no....we are not spending 800.00 dollars for the cake.....yes...you can have a spiffy bridal cake but the cake that is cut out of site and is served to guests can be a good quality cake that doesn't cost 6.00 a slice. We went over to a gourmet bakery....taste tested some terrific cakes and cupcakes and discovered by not mentioning the word wedding ....we could find wonderful baked goods with a much better price point.

I left Ohio exhuasted and confused. Why weren't these kids sticking to a budget? Why weren't they thinking these things through....it's like I said here's the budget and they said....that's nice...but of course you'll pay for anything we want.

I drove in a daze to Chicago. When I arrived, I climbed into the hotel bed at 730pm and just hid under the blankets not moving. If there was something called shell shocked wedding .....I was experiencing it.

Today I got up and visited my parents grave, cried and then had a nice visit with my mom's good friend. But I was nervous and anxious all day.....because for the first time since my high school days....I was going to visit my Aunt and her daughter.


My father and his sister had some kind of disagreement way back then and never talked to each other again. My Aunt did not attend my wedding and I didn't even know if she was alive to know about my parents' deaths. But through the power of Facebook, her daughter discovered me shortly after I buried my parents last year. So yes, my Aunt was alive, she had a slow growing lung cancer, and still lived in my grandparent's house. Would I come see her next time I was in town.


So I drove back to the old neighborhood.....opened a heavy glass door I knew as a kid.....and walked into my Aunt's apartment. She looked very good and was still fiesty. We sat at the old kitchen table and she began asking me a million questions. But suddenly, she stopped.


"It's Ash Wednesday...do you want to go to church for ashes?"

"No," I said.

She narrowed her gaze on me and said, "Why not?"

"Because I converted and am Jewish now."


Man....you could have heard a pin drop. My Aunt, her daughter and husband and two children just stared at me.


So...somebody had to break the silence....because it had gone on forever.

"What church do you go to now that St. George's has been torn down?" There was a flurry of answers and observations about local churches and the impasse was broken....but I bet it will be the topic of conversation some other time in their household.

There was a little eating.....a little drinking......and I confessed I had to hit the road.

"I am so glad you have returned into our lives" my Aunt said.....but I actually felt too confused to answer.....they were all so different than I remembered and there education and lives were so different too living in the old neighborhood that I was just rather all.....farklempted again....and just hugged everyone and said nothing.

And so here I am still a little farklempted....there's been so much to deal with....to think about....and to just live through these past two weeks.....it's been overwhelming....

Tomorrow....I will hop in a car and head home....hoping the long drive home will give me some time to rearrange my thoughts and just think....

Of course there is one final dilemna waiting for me at home.....my wild kitty came back ....she had been chased away and gone for a day or so.....but right before I left.....her belly felt big.....so she either has something wrong with her belly OR she is pregnant.

I looked it up before I left home...a wild kitty can become pregnant at 4 months old. Kittens. What the hell am I going to do with kittens? If there is a word that describes uber-farklempted....I am there even considering this.

The Silent Auction

It was organized and pretty and snappy and people said, "Wow"