The Two Stories of Hurricane Florence

I spent some time on YouTube at noon watching storm videos while I munched my lunch.

Where I made my big mistake was that I also read many of the comments associated with this or that report. I only accessed videos produced by the Networks, or official State of NC releases, or those of local City Governments filmed mostly by their own media teams.

There are two stories going on here at once.

Dangerous rescues in the dark vs. viewers who did not believe that county governments running the operations are competent.

Trucks trying to get food and drinking water through dangerous flooded roads and highways vs. angry people complaining that help wasn't coming fast enough.

People who despise FEMA and don't realize that it is a slow moving, disaster driven, government organization meant to work with local survival units. Any life-changing relief that they can give takes a year or more.

I read ignorant comments, angry comments, even comments of disbelief in any picture or story coming out of the storm-crushed communities.

I read several comments blaming the President for the devastation while admitting that our infrastructure hasn't been modernized in DECADES.

I read the ranting about and the damning of building code officials from people who had sought and been given permission to build.

I saw a post blaming a small town for not supplying and putting sandbags in place for the homeowners.

I do believe in helping one another. Picking up the weak by their bootstraps. Feeding the hungry. Sheltering our neighbors. Saving the pets. Braving harm's way to save lives. Doing unto others as I would have them do unto me.

I also believe that there is a place for benevolent government help in times of catastrophe, as well as religious and private donations and volunteerism. Church members seem to care first for each other. But that's another story.

And YET:

We have become HALF a nation of complainers, nay-sayers, and uninformed alarmists who want to be totally taken care of by governments – National, State, and Local.

Thank God that we are still HALF a nation of doers, responders, and people who believe that we are our own responsibility not that of whomever sent the free lunches and provided the shelters during the storm.

As Americans, I like to think that we ALL love our neighbors, step up for others, and proudly do whatever it takes to stay alive and well when the government is in bureaucracy mode, the food has been delayed because the highway caved in, and the City Manager has been up all night even though his own house has been flooded and his family has taken shelter with only a box of diapers, the kids, and a terrified dog.

So instead of writing these dumb posts, grumbling and complaining, blaming, and whining, why don't we all get together and realize that, although nobody owes us a living, we do have each other in a crisis.

Let's don't post that kind of garbage that I read this morning without a helpful plan attached. If it won't change anything, let's keep it to ourselves. Anyway, that's my solution. I welcome yours.

It's All About Belle

 Belle came back from her hygiene visit to the Vet in terrible shape; throwing up everything she ate, suffering from an upset stomach, refusing to eat, smelling like some cheap French Perfume on top of the awful odor her own body was putting out, and having anxiety attacks when the Fab Five tried to nudge her or have anything to do with her – hiding in the dining room under the buffet. I thought she was dying. She was scooting on the carpet, growling at the kittens, trying to bite and scratch me if I tried to help her.  She might still die, but not if I have anything to do with it.

I went into action. Remember the baby gates we installed a few years ago during the ringworm episode? The Five can jump over them when they are closed, but Belle cannot.  So I moved Belle into the sunny, cheerful Blue Bedroom. She spends a lot of time in there anyway, but now the gate is closed.

I overnighted two of those Palm-in-a-Planter litter boxes (one for Sissy Emma's Bathroom) and installed one in Belle's new "continuous care" facility. I provided bowls for food and water. This afternoon, her water bowl will be replaced by a new fountain.

I expected to find her dead that first morning. I had taken away her Rx meds. What good is prednisone that was prescribed for throwing up if you're throwing up constantly? I took the Dr. Hill's Urinary Tract hard food away from her because kibbles have a history of being nearly impossible for her to digest. I found her sitting up in the worst smelling bedroom I have ever seen.

Day two found her diarrhea gone. Now she was constipated, and I began letting her have coconut oil for that. She liked it. She hadn't  really eaten enough to make poop and was not drinking enough water. She still couldn't stay awake; rather, she slept almost 24 hours.

Day three found Belle drinking her water, eating some, using her litter box a little, and sunning on the small couch she has always loved. I put her bed in the closet, the door ajar, for privacy, and installed her scratcher lounge, another of her favorites, and brought in Lamb Chops. Mr. Hyde brought her the little Scottish tartan mouse he loves so much and put it in her bed. She ate her dinner which consists of the canned food she has always eaten  –  except that the ingredients have been modified and upgraded to grain free.

This morning, Belle was waiting for her breakfast. She has not thrown up again. She has used her box. The foul odor is gone from the room. The Five jumped the fence and we all watched Le Tour de France up on the bed (the spread of which is changed every morning after the vacuuming and the box cleaning). Everyone got brushed during commercials. She hasn't tried to bite me again or to attack the kittens.

We've (the Fab Five and me) watched television in the Blue Bedroom every night with Belle whether or not she was asleep. We stay a couple of hours before the others get restless and head for the porch.

Then I talk to her. I tell her that I suspect that she's in pain and that it's okay to give up and give in to the call of the Rainbow Bridge. I tell her that I know she's very old and how much I've enjoyed her living with me. Because I don't think I'm taking her back to the Vet. She needs to be tranquil and happy. She doesn't have a terminal illness, she has arthritis and the other, worsening problems of old age.

For now, she's had lunch and is sleeping in the sunshine. I hope that tomorrow she will look happier and healthier than this.

A New Kind of Bible Study

A small shelf of Bibles! I sometimes wonder how I came to be the caretaker of this mostly dogeared and worn collection.

I have inherited Mother's "Living Bible," a paraphrased version of the scriptures, as well as Ms. Vera's (second MIL) New King James Version. I have my cousin Fred's remarkable gift of the NKJ Study Bible that he used to prepare many of his excellent Adult Sunday School Lessons and, also, one of his Methodist Hymnals.

One Bible on this shelf was given to me by a valued customer, during business hours, the day she moved away from Jacksonville. She was Primitive Baptist. Most of our conversations had involved the subject of speaking in tongues. She was appreciative of my open-mindedness. I know that all things are possible.

I see a few of my (required) Bible Study Bibles, the NIV and the New Revised Standard Version, there on the first row. The Pentateuch is sitting out of place. I have another bookshelf for non-Christian religious volumes. It was given to Wayne and me by a Jewish friend who owned and acted as a traveling salesman for Franel Optical, a wholesale company, after many spirited  discussions. The beautiful book is written in both Hebrew and English.

I have a brand new (easy to hold paperback) King James Bible in my beloved Cambridge Edition. I impulsively gave my well-used one to a man who was learning to read at thirty-six years of age and was confused that there were so many and different translations of The Scriptures. I told him to use the Cambridge for it comes closer to true translation than any other. Then I handed him mine and we read. Sitting nearby in this picture is a copy of the King James 1611 Edition that I studied in college.

Also, behind the Bibles that we can see, I have the black zippered Bible of my childhood with the beautiful watercolor insertions and my Baptismal date notated. (By Immersion, Easter Sunday, 1952)

There is a white zippered Bible, too; the one presented to me as a child in Vacation Bible School for having memorized the most Bible verses. Also, there's a small New Testament. I won it in an essay contest in 1954.

Behind the second row, I've saved copies of the books inscribed by the Essenes (and others) onto the Dead Sea Scrolls – googled and printed out via my computer many years ago. They're all together in a folder. I also own them in paperback. I have a second Apocrypha stored in the back, too.

So you might be asking why a person with obviously well-read and annotated Scriptures on her bookshelves and a fair amount of Biblical knowledge under her belt would be undertaking a new project of reading and studying. You know from my Goodreads reviews that I already read many religious and philosophical books.

The answer is the evolution of the institution of the American church; the torn condition of our country (belittling and blaming the religious and vice versa); the rampant quoting and cartooning of scriptures out of context on social media; the confusion about what spirituality even means; the reasons behind the question of why church leaders no longer seem to act as spiritual advisors;  the realization of the fact that some in organized religion talk through both sides of their mouths, espousing liberal changes in church dogma publicly while resisting change privately; as well as other questions and concerns about hatred, bigotry, delusion, deemphasis on education, and an incendiary political climate.

I've been re-visiting churches, just as I did a decade ago, for over a year off and on. In my last Bible Study session, several years ago, the leader of the discussion said that he was tired of hearing "What would Jesus say?" and was ready to hear, "What would Jesus do?" Or was that vice versa?

Either way, it made no sense to me because I am a proponent of personal relationships. I would rather ask, "What would Jesus have ME to do?"

Is He recorded in the Bible as actually having broached this, my inquiry? What was the ancient prophecy regarding how He would act, think, and teach in the future? What did He say about similar events when He was alive? Did He take any actions relating to my personal questions? Did He point the way, abstractly, for me? Has the institution of the church failed to take notice that reality is very different in the modern world and some answers must be found through extrapolation and/or prognostication?

So I am busy on a three-pronged personal mission that might just last the rest of my life. I am beginning to seriously study the Prophets, to re-read the recorded words of Jesus, those printed in red, and to try to wrap my head around the history of the churches of both Jerusalem and Rome in order to get a handle on how and why the Roman church evolved in the ways it did. Enlightened by God? Manipulated by uninspired and self-serving mere men? A little of both?

I won't speak of or write about this quest again. I feel as if I am compelled to do research for my own self-knowledge and in order to clarify my own actions in dangerous and confusing times. The older I get, the more attuned I am, transcendentally, to the events around me. The Epiphany I had as a fourth grader and the realistic "Sea of Galilee" dreams of my childhood produced an adult who understood that the Great Mystery was more than all the gurus, bishops, and scientists in the world could ever solve and that there was a grain of truth in everything concrete that any of us would ever learn.

Sad to Say, Part One is All About Eggs

Sad to say, but it began with eggs. A decade ago, a friend sold me what she called yard eggs from her tiny space at the beauty shop. She had no license to sell eggs, but I never thought to ask her. I wouldn't dare work without a license. The statute she worked under ended that little enterprise upon inspection. Same as if she had sold illegal contact lenses from under the counter.

Afterwards, I bought eggs from a receptionist at another salon. (Why is it always the beauty shops?) Her husband had a county license to sell eggs. Of course that wasn't good enough (they were trying to save money on licensure), her working under his license; when I found out, I stopped buying my eggs from them.

A Facebook friend ran a bakery, legally, out of her home kitchen, lived near my neighborhood, had a food license and beautiful multi-colored eggs. The tastiest I have ever eaten. I bought eggs from her for at least a year, but she didn't always have an excess. I often found her traveling, and remarried, and widowed, and using all the eggs in her baked goods. One day, she unfriended me on Facebook. Probably justified.

Soon afterwards, a food co-op opened (for less than a year) in my neighborhood. A lot of the eggs were pasteurized. I'm not sure what that told me but it told me something about mistrusting the safeness of one's yard eggs. I shied away. The store was mostly a deli and a health-nut emporium. The people they hired could never answer a single question I asked about anything pertaining to food.

I often buy eggs from Publix, but so few organic eggs are sold, due to the cost involved, that they are always near expiration date and never as tasty as local eggs. I tried Fresh Market and, since they stock less merchandise, the eggs are fresher and tastier, costlier, and pictured here with my blueberry grits in a delicious Basel scramble. (Whole Foods and Trader Joes always have clogged parking lots, and I won't drive that far to haggle for a way-too-skimpy-for-a-Tahoe parking spot in order to buy a dozen eggs.)

So after this last Saturday brunch (above) I made my way to the Farmers' Market at Market Square. And that was a slap in the face (wake up, wake up) that has had me thinking ever since.

 Who has green money?

I did, but I left it on the dresser. Because of this, I only had two stands in which to shop using my bankcard. The lone organic grower at Market Square was one of them. I used to buy a share every season. They didn't sell eggs then, or have a half-share, and there was an expiration date involved. On top of all that, they packed up anything they had and left it in your locker (very near my house) on the farm. One person can only eat so much arugula.

A girl who had no idea what a half-share is and had no interest in anything but packing up early and going home had laid the organic eggs out of the cooler at 8 AM and onto the hot table where I found the last dozen sitting in the 85 degree temperature at 10 o'clock. They were sweating. There were two full dozen eggs in cartons sweating behind them. Those were the broken and/or rejected eggs.

I picked up the eggs. I sat the eggs back down. I never, ever question my intuition.

At the other booth, the eggs were sold out. The proprietor told me that I should show up right at 8 o'clock on Saturdays –  as the eggs would not last thirty minutes. So now you know. I have to decide if I forfeit my Saturday brunch.  (I had refused to miss my meal and fresh coffee for a docent tour of St. Peters on this same morning.) How badly do I want to go to the market for eggs and tomatoes-only?

The eggs and tomatoes-only problem is the other half of this story. I'll post tomorrow about how the grocers are beating out the local farmers because the quality of the merchandise is better, the produce is less expensive, and the food is protected by the building from the Florida heat.

Also (and this is a big one) in today's world where you may buy one squash or squash for a hundred diners in almost every grocery store,  I got a rap on the hand for ignoring the pre-filled baskets of tomatoes in various stages of ripeness (great in most cases but not for sauces) and rummaging through the tomato boxes for the nearly overripe ones to use at once! I guess the pasta will have to wait. Or become adorned with pesto or clams.

When Ya Going Shopping, Ma?

Dr. Jekyll: When ya going shopping, Ma? 

So once a month we lay in supplies. It's been tricky. Nobody really likes the new prescription diet but Emma. Luckily, the Rx is for her. I called the pet pharmacy and changed her standing order to the smallest amount available. One she can eat by herself in a month. She likes to eat on the porch by herself; and anyway, nobody is going to shove her aside to get to her food.

So today, I braved the rains and headed to Pet Smart to buy the others that wonderful grain-free dried food laced with eggs that once made them so happy. They could smell me coming when I turned the key. Lunch was in order.

I've studied the ingredients in both foods, and the Beyond, Small Batches are far and away superior to the turkey-infused, so-called calming, Dr. Hill's. We just have to keep Emma anxiety free ourselves. If that works, I'll start giving her a mixture of each food until she's free of all those ingredients that are unpronounceable.

Dr. Jekyll practically kissed me when he smelled (he has a nose to be reckoned with) his old favorite in the bottom of my blue utility cart.

Each cat also eats a share of Purina One, Grain-Free, wet food. That was the food that Belle came here eating so many years ago. It's been through several changes in ingredients, as well as in name, since then. In several studies, it's been voted the best of the best at the present time. Em and Lennie and she eat mainly a wet food diet. They barely snack on dry food at all. Remember, those boys are the two that Belle took under her wing right at first. She brought them up right!

Belle practically raised Em and Lennie. A stern taskmaster!

Everyone is sleeping now! Their stomachs are happy and (as happens every month) they got a few new toys today, so they've been stimulated and are tired. We play mostly on the porch. 

I bought them A Mouse in a Pouch that is still outside running down its AAA's for Belle who is only half asleep. Everyone else left for nap time. It's hard to relax out there, I suppose, with so many birds singing, chirping, and urging the fledgelings to fly! Add to that racket the noise of a mechanical mouse, inside a crinkly pouch, running in circles, and talking to itself in "rodent." 

I had to turn the toy off once. I couldn't tell which was the mechanical mouse and which were the wren-chicks screaming for a snack. I don't know who is going to collapse first, the cats who are fascinated by the shrieking or the adult birds who are working double shifts. 

PouchMouse also runs outside the fabric container. But can you imagine the thing stuck under the plant stands, wedged behind cat trees, and generally spinning its wheels? When I bought a new stove, there were dozens of catnip mice lost under there. Ditto when I moved the dryer, and again there were Christmas gifts trapped under the refrigerator that had been lost well before New Years Morning.

I also bought a short mesh tunnel for playing hide and seek. The Five tear them to pieces regularly. The long ones are good for taking running starts and coming out the other end, but the short ones are perfect for roughhousing.

Mr. Hyde

When Emma Woodhouse was so anxious, I had put a litter-box in the small bathroom, naming the place the "girls" room. That was around the same time that the "boys" decided to guard the other litter boxes, as well as the water bowls, and prevent Auntie Belle or Sissy Emma from having even five minutes of happiness a day.  That standoff didn't last long as Belle finally gave the boys the brunt of her wrath, but she had used the extra box as well and she liked it. No matter how determined they were, the not-so-fab-five did not have the manpower for a continual siege and the household gradually got back to normal.

Anxious Emma Woodhouse AKA Sissy Emma.

Today I bought a small-sized box for that bathroom. The space had not been able to pull off a huge litter box disguised as a potted palm in an urn! The room is way too small. We do have two on the porch like that and one in the "big" bathroom. But the children found it impossible to turn around in there without getting tickled by fabric palm fronds. Some of my ideas are just crazy.

Everyone came inside after lunch and sniffed around the new toiletry. Emma was happy, seemed to know it was for her,  went inside, and christened the new gift. The box is way to small for Belle. We'll see what happens. Belle's box came with her and is still in the laundry room where it's always been. She shares it without worry. After all, she's not the one who cleans it. 

Em Mathews

 

So you see I've been busy. It's all good. Cats are well supplied for the coming month. I have nothing for myself because another huge storm came out of the East as I was loading the car, I got wet for a third time and decided that whatever I could find in the larder, the fridge, or the freezer would do for dinner. 

I can't believe that it's after five o'clock. I played outside much longer than I intended. All cats are scattered about the house, now. Usually, if you didn't know any better, you would never guess that so many pets make this their home. Then again, it can be general chaos. Over the weekend, though, we had the nicest time with children and cats sleeping together, all the beds occupied. 

Lennie Mathews

Spinach, Cats, and Dinner Plates

Too much spinach isn't good for cats with urinary tract problems, but Sissy Emma Woodhouse doesn't care for it anyway. Nor does she crave any other "people" food. She's being a good sport about eating her new Rx diet (In fact she loves it.) and also about sharing her plate with Belle (Belle loves it, too, and also needs it.)

Belle often also begs for a nibble of bacon when she smells it cooking. Everyone else backs away after the cursory first bite.

Coats are thick and shiny. The whole lot of them have been on a partial hard food diet of Rx urinary health kibbles and a grain-free highly rated wet food — which has a limited amount of veggies included — for several months now. Hence their spinach craving, as I had always added cooked veggies to their food.

Em, Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde, and Lennie all consider dry food something to snack on when dinner is late or they're needing a treat. They seldom eat more than a few bites — in this case, a good thing. While the prescribed food won't harm them, and is actually good for them, it isn't their prescription so it doesn't matter.

I had heard and read how difficult it can be to change kitties' diets whether in a multiple-cat household or a single pet's bowl. I'm considering that we are "too lucky for words" that the Fab Five like what they need and eat what they like while leaving the rest to the others. I'm going to try Em and Jackie on some kale this week and see if it will satisfy their cravings as a substitute for so much spinach.

The wet food is the same that Belle ate before the others moved in, so she is in heaven. The manufacturer has improved it and upgraded it to grain free. Just for her, Belle believes.

She now leaves her own plate unattended and is sharing with Dr. Jack. This morning, I made the change. Unbelievably, we are down to two kibble bowls and three shared banquet plates and everybody is happy! Happy! They have learned that there's plenty of food to go around and if they need more all they have to do is put nose to pantry door and say, "Meow."

Since the new meal plans have been so successful and everyone seems truly satisfied, I've begun to introduce cat-safe plants back into the house. A few are too high up to get the Five's attention. The old Christmas cactus (now too large to summer under the rose bushes) and her three new offspring are within reach but haven't been the source for much inspection. Would you want to nosh on cacti when you can have a helping of spinach or a pinch of banana?

http://www.catster.com/lifestyle/cat-health-safe-greens-vegetables

Ducks, Shotguns, Feasts, Feathered Friends, and More

I woke, once to the predicted short rain, and again to the shotgun blasts coming off of Lake Iamona just before daybreak.
I smiled and thought about the "odd" portable duck-blind that I had seen heading down Thomasville Rd. this week which will morph back into a bass boat after today, the last day for duck hunting this season in Florida. I had not recognized the blind for what it was.
The shots continue, and I've cracked the window a little to better hear the reverberation of a sport that is very alive and "in our blood." What better way to put fowl on the table than forgoing the route of chicken farming and food industrialization?
In these days of vegans, and empathy for the animals, and Meatless Mondays, I yet remember the "clean shot" ducks, given by one friend or another, seasoned with love, cooked long and slow, placed on the white platter that I still use during the holidays, and presented (with much ado) to Grandpa on Christmas Eve for his approval.
Roast Duck needed a smile and a nod from the patriarch before being placed on the holiday table laden also with the venison roast and, sometimes, wild boar.
On the other hand, I pay homage to Old Duck this morning. He fell into our Jacksonville lake with a gunshot wound and laid on the hill nearly dying before recovering to become both my pet and a surrogate husband for Goosy, whose wife Ossie had recently died and left him lonely and cranky.
Not one of our in-the-know friends nor the duck identification charts ever gave a hint as to Old Duck's species. He was bigger than a mallard and beautifully hued in green, rust, and brown.
Old Duck's birth origin was forever a mystery other than the fact that he "dropped out of the sky" with a great big splash and remained my friend for many years until he died a peaceful and natural death (me sitting with him) on the same hill he had lit in on.
It's nearly 7:30 now, and the gunshot spurts continue. May the tables be laden with duck and rice, the refrigerators with confit, and the freezer shelf – earmarked for the ringtails and such – be full and sustain families from time to time throughout the year with special meals full of hunting stories and loads of laughter.
The limit is low, the ducks are plentiful (because of the weather to the North) and I know from experience the exuberance of a man knocking the mud off of his boots at the back door after a successful (duck, not so much in my own case) hunt.
My own two wood ducks sit over my kitchen cabinets on a piece of hollow tree, products of taxidermy, totally inappropriate and politically incorrect in this day and time.
I had ordered the matching pair (as the hunter was walking out the door thirty-four years ago) to commemorate my new life on the day after I was remarried. Those beauties were in the bag by about this time that morning!
The gunshots are waning now and I can picture the happy hunters, muddy camo, and calls home to wives getting ready for church. The cell phone era is truly a boon to the hunter. Instant messages and cheerful conversations on the spot! You can't beat that, can you?