Tuesday, February 21, 2023

Tortie Tuesday: Discontented Calico, a Rant, and Petfinder Pictures

Three discontented calico cats, a discontented gray-and-white cat, and a discontented black-and-white cat are on the porch. 

Skeptical Reader: "How do we know they're discontented?"

Serena: "Because I'm clawing at the door. The writer known as Priscilla King does not like it when I claw at the door. That is why I do it to show that I'm discontented."

PK: "And why are you discontented?"

Serena: "You need to ask? Where is our kibble?"

PK: "You've eaten all of the little bag the driver delivered last week. A certain person who has been delivering cat food was supposed to have been here on Sunday the twelfth of February, but has not been seen since then."

Serena: "Where is that person?"

PK: "Anyone's guess. The sixties are an awkward age in my family. I worry about person being in the hospital again. Lonely people in Tennessee and Kentucky, who are not already related to us, worry about person having enough parties and dates, and drive out to take person to places of entertainment where alcohol is served. There may be such a thing as 'responsible drinking' of alcohol for some people who do look as if all of their DNA came straight from Germany, but this can still be very dangerous when other people drink too much and start brawling, or think they're fit to drive cars. Or person might just have paid one of those big medical bills, paid one of those jacked-up electric bills that have been going out this winter, and not had enough left over to buy a sack of kibble. That could very easily be the case, even though person has a full-time job with seniority, because the behavior of the electric company this winter has really been...obsolescent."

Serena: "What does 'obsolescent' mean?"

PK: "It means that something is in the process of becoming useless now that something better is available. "

Serena: "The electric company sends out men in trucks. They never stop to deliver kibble. By 'something better' do you mean men in trucks that have kibble in them?"

Skeptical Reader: "Serena didn't say that. No cat could reason like that."

PK: "Serena obviously has her own way of thinking, which is feline rather than human, but I believe she does some of what we call reasoning. What have you been doing in these days since we've run out of kibble?"

Serena: "I've been eating human food, which is nice for a treat but doesn't satisfy us cats in the way our kibble does. So then I run into the office and kitchen, although I don't usually do that. I run inside and look around for dishes. I sniff at dishes and meow to tell you to put something in them."

PK: "You see. Of course, part of your discontentment has been with the human food itself. I've not been to the store that sells the kind of meat we can keep longer than a few days. You had the last meat in the house; after that I cooked vegan food, which is really for humans only."

Serena: "That's very selfish and impolite of you. You're supposed to share your food with me."

PK: "I know that. Let me finish. The electric company has been extremely obsolescent this winter. While we've had the sort of mild weather that uneducated people think is proof of 'global warming,' further north it's been a different kind of winter. Now, for reasons of their own, our electric company in the Point of Virginia, Appalachian Power or APCo, is still set up as a separate company from Potomac Electric Power or Pepco, in the Hump, and Dominion Electric Power, in the Swamp, or other companies further north, but they're all run by the same people as one huge conglomerate mess. When there are weather disasters they all send workers to help. And then they pay for it by sticking it to people in some place that didn't have a weather disaster. 

This winter, in December we had one real freeze. Everyone used a lot of electricity. Nobody complained about the bills being high in January. I paid my bill up so I could pay taxes in February. I had no taxable income last year but the Cat Sanctuary is taxable property.

Well, on the morning of the thirteenth, my lights went off. I couldn't believe it. They cut off electricity when bills are two months overdue or are over a hundred dollars. Mine was neither. Luckily, we've had almost all thaw and no winter, and last week, the February thaw weather really felt like spring. That might have been the pretext for gouging more money out of us to pay for repairs in New York State. I went boiling into town, and everyone else seemed to be boiling too. For one thing nobody used very much heat in January, but our bills were as high as they'd been for December, or higher.

That kind of little game is so-o-o-o obsolescent. Solar collectors are currently being built, as the company's web site will tell you, in such a way that "for safety" they'll be cut off if the company decides to disconnect your electricity, or if it goes off naturally because it rained or a squirrel jumped onto a cable somewhere, as happens about every week. That's why, although Mother hoped for great things from that old deep freezer that is still taking up space on the porch, the deep freezer didn't last long and neither did the food stored in it. It could not survive that kind of abuse. Everyone's electricity is constantly surging or shutting off, whatever they do. This does not have to be the case. Solar collectors could be storing electricity in batteries so that our lights never blinked again. 

If the company knows what's good for them they will not try to interfere with technological progress. They will be knocking on the doors of people in Scott County who have any roofs or pavements with a southwestern exposure, making bids to buy the right to use some of our sunshine. It will be our sunshine. It will be serving us first and them second. 

We need solar collectors to be built in such a way that, "for safety," individual home owners will be able to cut the company off if we don't like what the company are doing. Not only will the company be sending us monthly payments, but there's to be no more nonsense about nuclear reactors, or deep mining, strip mining, or any other un-ecological foolishness., There's to be no more spraying of power lines, and a lot better maintenance of the ground around them from the ground, weeding and pruning. And if people in the Swamp continue to complain about Dominion's abuses every few months, the way they have been doing, people in the Point and Hump of Virginia are likely to have something to say about that too.

We need legislation to the effect that, before the company can even mail out those letters threatening to cut off people's electricity, the month before that they have to mail out letters offering to install solar panels on people's property. 

Ultimately we need to get rid of the grid altogether, but there's no reason why the company can't be nice about it and stay in business for another ten or twenty years, while people in the cities work out how they are going to generate their own extra electricity. For the time being, we in the Point have something to sell, a way to stop people in the Hump thinking of us as a lot of useless welfare cheats."

Serena: "Were you going to get back to cat-related topics some time today?"

PK: "Well, there we are, back to cat-related topics!"

Serena: "Like kkkiiibbbbbbllleee?"

PK: "Oh, stop acting pitiful. You had human food again for breakfast this morning. You can always find a mouse or rabbit or something in the orchard, and the kibble situation will be resolved one way or another in a few more days. You have humans who can still work and buy kibble for you. Some cats don't even have homes."

Skeptical Reader: "Speaking of which, what happened to those other cats you were going to bring on board?"

PK: "There've been two litters of homeless kittens reported to me, so far this year, and although I did go out and meet one of the seven kittens and make preparations to bring him and his sisters to the Cat Sanctuary, actually all seven kittens were adopted before they could be brought here. That's typical of this part of the world. Most people are kind to animals, so most homeless animals find homes fast. A few people, most of whom probably live in Tennessee or Kentucky, are cruel to animals and just dump them out on streets, or outside houses where nobody is prepared to help them. So there are things people can do and should do to help animals, here, but none of those things fits into the Humane Society's narrow little agenda for the world. For one thing, people can just realize that, when you start looking around for people to foster kittens, that is a sign that your cats have had enough kittens and need to be neutered and spayed. The world needs some kittens but  it's very easy to reach a surplus point, especially if the mother cat has FIV, or the Manx gene, or some other problem."

Zipcode 10101: Pink from Hempstead 


Isn't she a classic Siamese? Unfortunately Pink is a survivor of shelter trauma. She got into an official city shelter by way of an unapproved shelter or "hoarding" environment. She does take food and use a litter box but her main focus is on hiding from humans and other cats. If patiently left alone long enough she might someday reconnect with instincts to cuddle. Or not. 

Sometimes cats like Pink do better when another cat is the primary pet and soaks up all the human attention, so here is an alternate cat from Petfinder's New York page: 


This cute Q-cat is thought to be two years old, friendly and gentle, a bit lazy, and loving a good cuddle. She might satisfy the cat-cuddling needs of a person who also adopted Pink. The one thing on Shakira's web page that might put someone off is the price tag. 

Zipcode  20202: Blue from Herndon 


The most typy-looking Siamese cat on the D.C. Petfinder page is not thought to be "purebred" Siamese. He's ten years old, a mellow old fellow looking for a quiet comfortable home. He is described as quite quiet, for a Siamese, but good with other cats and children. -

Zipcode 30303: Penelope and Selene 


They're not sisters, but they may be social cats. Both are young Siamese-mix cats. Penelope is closer to the show-quality Siamese look. Selene is mostly dark "blue" gray with that white tip on her tail. They met in a shelter, after Penelope had been separated from a real sister kitten, and became sister-surrogates who sleep curled up together, twine their tails together, and generally act like best buddies. As a package deal, already vetted, they should be worth a hundred dollars even if the shelter staff sound just a tiny bit like control freaks.


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