SHEs Organized

I don't know what time I finally got back home this afternoon - three or four p.m.? I got up late this morning (from a restless night with tooth sensitivity and finally taking 1/2 a benydryl to help sleep) and then rushed through what "had" to be done to get to temple at 9:15ish. Met with Rabbi for a few minutes, then we had a contractor coming re: restriping and better traffic flow in our parking lot. After meeting with him, more disc with the rabbi and office manager: word that a young lady who is my kids age is getting a divorce, discussion of an issue that was raised last night, and other issues. From there to eat lunch at Subway and on to p/u dmom for podiatrist appointment. Quick appointment for a change and back home to her house to refill meds containers and finally head home.

I got "mugged" last night at a temple function by one of the problem "little old ladies." Made my day, for sure. I've figured out how to deal with part of it, but not the other. That was some of the discussion w Rabbi this morning.

Met new dneighbor across the street today - she was on front porch and I went over and introduced myself and talked awhile.

Dh is out of town until mid afternoon on Sunday.

Harriet you might want to take a change of shoes to the reception.

My day went fairly well. The survey took just 2 hours and went well. This church has sold their building and is renting space in a decommissioned school. Their focus is on mission instead of maintenance. I love that line. Unfortunately, they see themselves as a part of a regional church but the other area churches aren't ready to sell their buildings and join in. As long as there are congregations of the same denomination every 10 miles or less in the rural areas, our denomination will suffer burnout because too much effort is spent keeping a building open. (There are 5 United Churches within 10 miles of my house - this is a huge problem for us.)

After the survey I headed off for groceries.

Dh wanted a walk when I got home and had reported that ds had called and I'd hear about it on the walk, so we did that even though I was tired.

Dh then he went and picked up his supper and I cooked mine, we ate and I spent the evening on the phone with my music friend who has be referred for an addiction program since she became addicted to painkillers after her jaw surgery. (I've seen this coming for years as she's addicted to medical attention and after a while too many doctors just wrote prescriptions and no-one was managing her big picture because she believes only in pills, not in holistic pain management.)

She is adamant she sees no point in being on methadone but doesn't want to be addicted so guesses, maybe, she'll do the program. I think she understands she is addicted but I'm not sure. Since methadone is a pill, I think she might buy into the program since she likes it when the solution is a pill. She doesn't like it when the solution requires effort on her part (diet change, meditation, counseling "talking can't cure my pain.")

I also believe the addiction is just a side-effect of a mental disorder that has something to do with her always wanting to be sick. When her daughter was NOT diagnosed with ALS she actually told me she was disappointed because the actual diagnosis was best managed with physical therapy - which the daughter has not done. She seriously would have been happier if her daughter had a major disease that required proper doctor's attention, than something that requires only physio therapy. (BTW, this 'lessor' disease is actually pretty scary and normally signals death in one's 30's but since there isn't any active treatment, my friend is ignoring all this. Her other daughter is epileptic and has a deadly allergy to carrots. There's a voice inside of me that thinks none of them have any of these diseases and that it is all mental but no doctor is looking at the big picture and saying "Wait a minute - what are the odds that these strange combinations of obscure diseases are hitting three people?")

Anyway, all this has me up way too late.

Dh is recording for the next while and using the room I'm using for moving stuff. In theory it is the most soundproof of our rooms. This project required dh to buy a fancy mike and additional software. The cost of the mike is paid for by the company buying the recordings, provided they accept dh's work. The software (powe rpoi nt) won't be. None of the free versions would handle the level of animation this company requires so we had to buy proprietary stuff. Sigh...

He's just reappeared and says the sound quality of the work he did tonight shows that the mike really is great.

Which reminds me, my headset preaching mike should be here soon. And I bought something else last week that should be coming soon too. Can't remember what, but it was from Amazon. Oooh, and I should see if there's a package for me in NY. So many distractions! (Just checked and it was a wireless router we ordered. And my business cards aren't in yet in NY.)

Library group meeting tonight was ok. We have plans for a fun event next month, a sale of cookbooks with an exhibit of vintage aprons, as well as tasting tables and a sale of vintage salt & pepper shakers. More activities to be decided, to try to make it worth the $5 price of admission. IMO there are still too many details being left to plan until the week of the event, but I'm not in charge of the project and no one else seems to be worried.

Thank you everyone for the kind words about our poor cat.

Elizabeth ~ I agree, I hope that if someone is trapping the "stray" cats who hang around our place, they are turning them over to an organization and attempting to find homes. I fear, though, that they are taking them to the vet to be put down. Also, we live on a busy street, and I know for a fact that there are people in this town who deliberately try to run over cats.

Many years ago, we attempted a rescue of an orange tom. He was really sweet, and we finally had him tame enough to be able to put a flea collar on him and make an appointment to be neutered. The day before his appointment, a neighbor from across the street came over to ask if the orange cat was ours. She had witnessed a car deliberately swerve to hit him on the side of the street. She had taken him to the vet herself to try to save him because she saw the collar but didn't know where he lived. Of course, there was nothing they could do from a direct car hit, but we were grateful that she at least tried.

That experience is what made us decide when we rescued Gray Cat and her kittens that they would be indoors-only cats.

One of the currently missing outdoors cats is a boy that is quite tame. He was born in our garage. One morning when he was about a year old, we found him with a leg ripped open. (Racoon, dog, who knows?) We took him to the vet to be stitched, and neutered while he was already there. After he was released from the vet, he needed to be confined for over a week while his leg healed. We already had 4 cats indoors at the time so could not bring him in. We bought a big crate for him out on the garage bench and babied him so as a result he became quite affectionate. I have to assume that he chased a rabbit or something out of the yard. I really, really hope that someone caught him, realized that he is a friendly neutered male, and adopted him.

There are not many options available to us to deal with the stray cats. Many years ago, we realized that people dump them nearby. Actually, long before DH started feeding a starving mama cat, we always had a crowd around. Apparently there is some secret hobo sign somewhere that tells them our yard is where all the cool cats hang out. We decided the best strategy was to try to catch/neuter/release to form a stable colony. That has worked pretty well, although there a couple that we have had no luck catching. There is no program around here to help, though, so the cost is all coming out of our own pocket.