We’ve Been Adopted By a Cat

One evening several weeks ago, a neighbor unexpectedly stopped by to ask if we were in the market for a cat. We weren’t, technically speaking. We tried the cat thing once before. Adorable as he was, Archimedes was dumber than dirt, and frankly dumb cats just don’t survive long as barn cats. Nor can you just go to a shelter and explain that you need a “barn cat,” capable of ruthless mouse hunting and coyote evasion. Just mention you have coyotes and expect a working cat rather than an indoor companion animal, and it’s over.   

Cat. (A.k.a. Kitty Kitty)

Still, mice are never not an issue when you live “in the country,” so we went down to check out the stray who had wandered into our neighbor’s yard from a logging trail in the woods. Our neighbors are cat people, with two territorial kitties already, and couldn’t keep her, but estimated she was about eight months old. She obviously was very socialized, because she likes people and will allow herself to be picked up. Best guess is that she was part of a litter of kittens dropped along the side of the road out here weeks ago.

We seriously doubted she would stay with us, but decided to give it a try since there really wasn’t anything to lose. Much to our surprise, Cat has adopted us. After initial brief terror, she’s taken to the dogs (who are very gentle with her), and claimed the garage as her domain. She’s proven to be quite the hunter and has the common sense to stay out of the road and away from loud/dangerous things like the lawnmower. She’s still a bit on the scrawny side, but between kitty food and all the free range mice she can eat, we’re hoping to have her fattened up soon.

Time will tell how things work out, but I can’t help but wonder if we shall find ourselves much the same way with cats that the Murphys in Wrinkle in Time were with dogs – their dogs always found them, wandering in with unknown providence and simply staying. For now, we’re happy to have a mouser on hand, and Cat seems quite content with her new domain.

UPDATE: Kitty has now stayed with us long enough to have gotten herself a name - "Xena: Warrior Kitty!" She seems quite content with the new moniker... 

The Order of the Good Death

I had the opportunity to check out an advanced reader's copy of Smoke Gets In Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty, and loved it.

Ms. Doughty (now a mortician) tells the story of her first job working in a crematory - and all the bizarre, unexpected, and thought-provoking realities it brought her face-to-face with. In the process, she takes a good hard look at traditions and misconceptions surrounding death, modern American experiences as shaped by the entire industry built around death, and how our current unhealthy relationship with death is damaging to us individually and as a culture. It was fascinating, and absolutely something I think everyone should read. Ms. Doughty has an excellent writing voice and, although it may not be the lightest book you read this year, it will certainly open your eyes (as it did mine) to some important considerations you probably never considered (but will be glad you do).

As part of her campaign to improve Americans' relationship with and handling of the natural part of the human life cycle that is death, Ms. Doughty founded the Order of the Good Death. In addition to fascinating death-related blog posts on topics ranging from medieval "corpse toilets" to modern laws and best practices to consider when someone you love dies, the website features Ms. Doughty's "Ask a Mortician" video series. Not the least bit squeamish, she readily delves into entirely practical questions like "what happens to titanium hips and breast implants when you cremate a corpse?" and "can caskets really explode?".

I highly recommend taking a few minutes to browse this fascinating site, and picking up her book if you can.

The Lessons We’re Not Teaching

Not long ago, I ran across a New York Times article that deeply frustrated me. It was intended to be a human interest piece about the scheduling software many companies (particularly fast food and other service industry employers) are using to manage their labor forces, and the havoc the resulting schedules can cause in individual lives. The story was framed around the life of a young single mother with no support network who’d been forced to put her educational dreams on hold and battle every day just to function around her unpredictable and uneven schedule. The writer focused on the myriad of ways her situation was damaging to the girl’s life, her son’s life, and the lives of the aunt and uncle who were her only support.

Two things aggravated me about this article. The first, which I won’t deal with here, was that it focused on an incredibly narrow slice of reality without giving the slightest nod to the other factors and realities at play. There was no mention of why companies are motivated use such software (the precarious balancing of operating costs, taxes, and limits on what customers will pay creating razor thin margins ), or acknowledgement that most jobs such as the one being profiled (a Starbucks barista) were almost never intended by employers to be the sole supporting income of a family. It is misleading and unproductive to suggest that something like scheduling software is the root cause of so much anguish, when there’s so much more involved.

The thing the truly frustrated me, though, was the fact that there was a very stark lesson played out in the story that no one will touch: having kids before you’re relationally, physically, and financially ready is disastrous and damaging for everyone involved.

This young woman, if she had not had her son by an absent father while she was still a teenager, could have been living safely and affordably, going to school, and building a strong support network. She could have been creating the kind of stable life she didn’t have, and welcomed her son into a happily family and safe home ten years later.

We do our sisters and our daughters (and their future children!) a grave disservice when we pretend that there aren’t very real physical, emotional, financial, and relational long term costs to having children out of wedlock and before you are able to care for them.  

I have spent the last year watching a very smart young woman I know sink every spare dime into lawyers, trying to protect the daughter she had by an idiot she left years ago. They were never married, and he had no interest in the child until he found out the mother was getting remarried. Now, in what should be a wonderful time in her life, she is spending every day and every penny she has embroiled in emotional drama, court time, worry about her daughter’s safety, and the resulting devastation to her formerly happy relationship with her fiancé and her job.

These stories are not the exception – they are the rule. Playing up happy stories of when someone does beat the odds and championing women’s “right” to have children out of wedlock without judgment make cruel mockeries  of the lives shattered and battered by the harsh realities of most single parents and the children they weren’t – and often still aren’t – prepared to care for.

The world is not perfect; we cannot control everything. But we can and should teach girls not to sabotage their lives, or the lives of the future children, by believing pretty PC lies or brushing the bleak consequences of bad choices off as the fault of random, incidental influences like scheduling programs. The plain, unvarnished truth is harsh, but girls deserve to know the truth while there’s still time to make good choices and change their world.

Senior Gypsies

This article on the rising trend of retirees selling everything to travel, either internationally, via RVs, or through more unconventional options, caught my eye because we know a couple planning to do exactly that. With only about two years left (they’re already literally counting the days), they’re sorting through their belongings and unloading nearly all of them. They’re tackling various projects around the house to ensure it’s ready for sale, and exploring their RV options.

Having talked to them extensively about their plans and reasons, I found it ironic that the article mentioned nearly none of the most relevant factors. Not a peep about the steep taxes that essentially force many retirees to choose betwe

en maintaining a house and having enough money to enjoy their retirement via travel. No mention of the ludicrous code laws that make “tiny houses” and other realistic options for independent and low-maintenance living illegal in many states. (But which can often be avoided through use of a mobile small home such as an RV.) No discussion of the absurd laws and taxes regulating employment options that make flexible, part-time, on-the-books positions often more expensive for everyone than they’re worth. (Despite the fact that many organizations would deeply benefit from access to experienced hands as much as individuals would benefit from the extra income!)

I know there are many other realities at play here, but I can’t help but think how wise it would be for states to acknowledge trends like this and respond accordingly. Even small changes – like being “tiny house” friendly – could serve a state very well by making it a popular home base for well educated, well-traveled seniors. Think of the economic benefits of that!

Until such time as states decide to demonstrate so wisdom and self-control, however, I will wish my friends the best in the endeavor and hope that when the time comes they are able to sell their house without delay and embark on a new adventure worthy of the many years’ hard work they put into earning it.

Library Remodeling & Life Editing

Very little about this summer went the way I’d anticipated. (As is probably well evident from the  stark lack of posts over the lack couple months. Apologies.) Despite the changes in plan, we actually got quite a bit accomplished.

The Library when we first saw the house (pre-
purchase). Note the hideous carpet and factory primer
walls.

In July, as we waited (somewhat less than patiently) for other projects to come together, we decided it was time to finally renovate our library. One of the last remaining hold-outs, it had gotten a beautiful spice colored bamboo floor at the same time we did the one in the guest bedroom, but that was pretty much it. Still dingy factory primer on the walls and doors (the way every room was when we moved in), it had a history of finding its way to the bottom of the to-do list for a variety of practical reasons: the window had to go, the bookshelves would have to be emptied and come down, the closet would have to get emptied, etc. Although seemingly minor, they added up to a rather large project that would need some serious time, elbow grease, and overflow space.

In progress: cream and purple paint, shiny new window,
treadmill in a good corner, and one set of shelves on the left wall. 

We’d agreed that we wanted to split the walls with a chair rail, putting a lighter color on the bottom to help reflect sunlight and brighten the space and a darker, bolder color on top. We went with a rich, marshmallow crème and a beautiful, grape-y shade of purple… each of which took multiple coats, naturally. For the chair rail, doors, and trim we went with a clean, bright white.The old window was a mess - leaking air and dry rotting at the edges, so we bought and installed a new one. (That was a bit of an adventure unto itself!)

The paint alone made a huge difference, of course, but I think I was most surprised by the massive improvement made by seemingly minor reallocations of space when we moved everything back into the room. Moving the treadmill from an interior corner to the far one made the entire room feel remarkably brighter and less cramped. Relocating the bookshelves gave the room a proper library feel, and created a more airy ambiance. My talented husband tucked a light under the bottom shelving unit for me, so that my ironing board (primarily for quilting fabric) is now well lit, making it much easier to see what I’m doing!

The room remodel also resolved our standing photo problem. Picture frames all over the house give me a cluttered, claustrophobic feel, so I have a tendency to just not hang up photos, even when I enjoy them or think they’re worthy of display. After moving shelves around, we had an entire free wall on which to gather all of our neglected photos and framed mementos in a way that felt intentional and artistic rather than cluttered. Whoo hoo!

As an added bonus, the process of emptying the room, its shelves, and its closet and then putting everything back gave us a strategic opportunity to do a little “life editing” – sorting through all of our stuff and letting go of the things that are no longer a good fit for our needs and this seasons of life.  No matter how hard we try to be aware and discriminating about what we let into the house, things just seem to mysteriously pile up. A thorough cleaning out felt good, leaving us with more breathing room and efficiency, both physically and mentally.

Although we hadn’t planned it that way, doing a little life editing in August set us up to enter the Fall with a refreshed perspective that I’m very pleased with. It is also a wonderful feeling to have this long-postponed project completed. More on our other summer projects soon!

You Can't Legislate Good Parenting

In the wake of multiple stories over the last several months of infants and animals dying after having been left or trapped in hot cars, some people are calling for legislation making it a federal felony to leave children, animals, or the elderly in a car.

This kind of nonsense aggravates me for several reasons:

1. Legislation is not the answer to every problem - in fact, it's not even the answer to most problems. Moreover, as anyone who has ever read the news (or for non-readers, watched an episode of CSI) knows, the "letter of the law" and the intention behind it are often tragically disparate, and real people pay the price. The guilty go free and the innocent suffer on technicalities, and nobody wins.

2. Such a proposed ban would leave no room for challenges and trade-offs inherent to real life. Think about it. You take your very sick kid to the doctor, get a prescription, and stop at the pharmacy on the way home to pick up their medicine. He/she could sit perfectly safely, curled up and sleeping, in the car for the five minutes it will take you to get the prescription. Unless of course, it's illegal, and then you have to compound your child's misery by dragging their aching, feverish, highly-contagious self into the store to stand around for five minutes. Or you take your dog to the vet, the dog park, the groomer - anywhere - and it can be your only stop on that trip. You're not allowed to bring it into stores, restaurants, or most other public places, but you're not allowed to leave it in the car, either. Seriously, if you have to do so much as stop for gas and pay inside you're risking being arrested for a federal felony! Frankly, it's just not freaking practical for anyone who has a child or a dog.

3. This is not actually a big problem. Don't get me wrong - the death of every child and innocent pet is tragic and horrible. But statistically, this falls way near the bottom of the list of ways that children and pets die every year. With the amount of time, money, and effort it takes to get anything through congress these days, we'd be far better off focusing our energies on things that are going to make substantial impact rather than issues, however high profile, that at most effect a few dozen families a year.

4. You can't legislate common sense or prevent every accident.  I know, it's seriously inconvenient, but that doesn't make it any less true. This is real life, and we are all humans. Tragedy will happen, no matter how hard we try to avoid it. Let's not make life even harder on ourselves by further mucking up our reality with unnecessary and pointless laws.

5. Making it a felony wouldn't help. Last I checked, imprisoning people was largely intended to separate those who are threat to themselves or others from responsible, law-abiding citizens for the purpose of protecting the latter through the prevention of additional transgressions. But most of the people involved these types of incidents weren't a threat - they were involved in a tragic accident, which you can bet the bank they won't ever forget or let happen again. Imprisoning them accomplishes nothing, and in many cases just makes the situation worse. If they are a threat to other children or pets, there are far more effective and efficient ways to prevent future incidents.

I know this is a bit of a rant, but people seem to have gotten increasingly rabid about the dogs-in-cars thing in recent years. (I've dealt with my fair share of crazies, despite the fact that my dog is better cared for than most people's children.)

I'm not asking people to ignore the tragedies happening, or to not try to take action to improve our world. But I would ask, from the bottom of my furry-loving heart, that people stop and seriously thing through the realities of what they're proposing before they open their mouths and call for impractical, out-of-proportion responses to whatever injustice has the media's trousers in a twist on any given week. That or you come look into my furry baby's sweet brown eyes and let it be your heart that breaks trying to explain why he isn't allowed to go for rides or visit friends any more!!

Headline Irony

Part of my job as a grant writer is pulling relevant statistics and research to support the projects our clients are pitching. Sometimes, it is quick and to the point - such as pulling numbers of Census.gov. Other times, my search results turn up articles that are not at all what I need but unexpectedly entertaining. I particularly enjoy accidentally finding articles that, although written completely independently of one another, are perfect counterpoints.

Such a serendipitous event happened recently, when I stumbled upon a Slate article suggesting that Millennials don't actually understand racism. Admittedly, I rolled my eyes and made a mental note to blog about how they completely understand it, they just find it hard to take seriously considering that they have grown up in a world smothered by affirmative action and political correctness.

Before I got that far, however, this little gem crossed my path to prove the point for me far better than anything else ever could: Professor Corrects Minority Students' Capitalization and Is Accused of Racism.  Clearly having a college professor correct your grammar, capitalization, and punctuation is an act of "micro-aggression." Seriously, what else could it possibly be? Certainly not his job or anything!!


So, to the author of that surely well-intentioned Slate article, and to everyone else lamenting why racism, sexism, and the like continue to exist: take note. Allowing people to claim racism (or sexism or any other "ism" for that matter) for frivolous, patently ridiculous things (let alone supporting them in it!) will steeply erode your cause to the point that no one will ever take you seriously again.If you actually want people to believe you about racism, you'd be wise to quash or denounce nonsense accusations like this promptly and consistently.

If not, of course, that's okay too. Such behavior does, after all serve a higher purpose... it inspires Dilbert comic strips, and we all benefit from that!