Plotterkill Creek, Rotterdam, NY

Feral Cats

Make a turn down my road any sunny day and you may see several cats lying on the warm surface of the asphalt, soaking up the sun.  I counted up to 15 different cats around my house last summer.  Half of them were feral and the other half were cats which were let out by their owners to roam the neighborhood with impunity. 

Domestic cats should not be let outdoors for a variety of reasons.  A friend of mine had a cat which was never allowed outdoors and lived to be 23 years old.  Cats who are allowed to roam the outdoors can contract diseases, parasites, fleas and ticks making their life miserable.  They can get in fights with other cats over territory resulting in injury, disease, pain or even death.  They can and do get hit by cars.  They kill garden plants, flowers and grass as they urinate and defecate in prepared soil.  They hunt and kill indigenous wildlife such as chipmunks, squirrels and birds.  I stopped putting bird seed in my feeder because I was attracting cats and was regularly finding dead birds beneath my deck.  One day I noticed that my 15 foot tall Rose of Sharon was vibrating intermittently.  I walked up to it to inspect the source of the agitation and there was a cat struggling to climb toward a bird's nest way up in the tenderest of branches.  Of course, the number one reason not to let a cat outdoors is that they procreate.  Hence, fifteen cats.

I can report that I no longer have 15 cats roaming my neighborhood.  One local fluffy was hit by a car and another contracted feline AIDS.   Another reason for the wipe out is the increased fox and hawk population (see the attached video I took looking out my back door).  It should also be noted that many predators love cat-meat. 

There was also a drought this past summer.  When people let their cats outside and don't provide a drinking bowl for them, the cat will seek water where they can find it.  In the case of two of my neighbors, their pools. 

One neighbor found a cat drowned in her pool but she wasn't very lucky a few weeks later when she found the second one.  The second cat clawed the lining in an attempt to get out, but failed.  My neighbor had to purchase a new and expensive lining for the pool.  That cat was her own so she couldn't sue anyone for the damages.  Another neighbor found two dead cats in his pool within two days.  One of them managed to climb upon a round blowup life preserver but must have popped it with its claws and due to exhaustion eventually sank to its doom expending all nine lives in one evening. 

There is an apartment complex near me and I know that the owner was getting complaints of rats and mice around his dumpster.  His solution was to put out rat poison.  I am not entirely sure what would happen to a cat who consumed a poisoned mouse but, I bet it can't be good.

I was very saddened when I came home one day in June to find a flyer on my door with the picture of a beautiful kitty named "Einstein."  He has been missing for a few weeks and the neighbor, two blocks up, wrote "He is very much missed!!!!!  Please call." 

Any veterinarian will tell you that an indoor car will live much longer and healthier than an outdoor cat.  I wonder why.  I bet that Einstein knows the fate which befalls frisky, footloose and unfettered fancy free feline. 

Stone and the GED

Stone was another convicted felon I tutored for the procurement of the elusive GED.  He actually graduated from high school but illegally managed to change his name and identity so he consequently had no record of receiving his diploma.  He was of high rank within a formidable gang and for whatever reason, wanted his GED.  Most likely it would simply serve as another form of identification which he could use down the road with one of his many identities.  He was also a very funny guy with a big heart and I loved spending time with him and hearing his stories.   His body was riddled with tattoos, most likely to obfuscate the important ones which delineated rank and meaning within the gang culture.  Despite having endured horrors as a child, his current estate was happy, fun loving and very respectful.

Stone told me about how he was in collusion with a jewelry store owner and Stone was to rob the owner's store.  Stone would get the goods, the store owner would get the insurance money, then five years later, Stone would sell the jewelry back to the owner at a discount and the shop owner would resell the merchandise under the table.  Stone of course would get a commission.  The plan went off without a hitch except Stone was arrested on some unrelated and fake charge because the police knew they didn't have any evidence regarding the jewelry store robbery but, they wanted him off the street at any cost, even if they had to arrest him on a fake charge with phony evidence planted on him.  He was sentenced to prison for ten years.  He chuckled and said that nobody believed him when he professed to be innocent. 

After two years, he was granted parole but he suspected that it was because the police were hoping that he would lead them to the stolen merchandise. Stone said that he could patiently wait out the eight years of parole or have someone else retrieve the booty from its hiding spot.  He then jokingly asked me if I wanted to make twenty thousand.  I held my fingers up in a cross formation and said “Get behind me, Satan.”  Despite having millions of dollars at his disposal, he patiently took advantage of all the social services, shelters, welfare stamps and food pantries he could in order to keep up the appearance that he had no money. 

A somewhat humorous story that Stone told me was about another big heist they made.  Their getaway van had the shocks removed so that the vehicle would ride low to the ground.  They also took out a small section of the floor.  They were being chased by the police when they stopped the van in the middle of the road.  The police surrounded the van and barked instructions through a bullhorn to give up and step out of the vehicle.  Little did the police know, the van was parked over a manhole and Stone's gang removed the cover from inside the van and escaped through the sewers.  A few years later some mob type movie used the exact same scenario for the antagonist's escape plot.  Taking full credit, Stone was ecstatic that his idea made it into a movie.  He bought out a movie theater and invited all his friends to attend a showing.  At the aforementioned escape scene, the theater erupted into thunderous applause.  The few people who were actual patrons to the showing were probably very confused. 

Stone aced the GED on his first try. 

I Wonder As I Wander

Anger Management

If you cut yourself, would you A) put antibacterial cream on it immediately or B) wait until it gets infected then treat it?  I think we can agree that an ounce of prevention is indeed worth a pound of cure.

I love going to retreats or conventions and participating in workshops and small groups.  I took a Meyers/Briggs course twice and both times it was confirmed that I was an ENTP; very analytical, a problem solver, creative and capable of tackling each problem new and fresh every time.  I took an Enneagram too and scored a nine which is called "The Peacemaker."  I once enrolled in an anger management course despite the fact that I couldn't remember the last time I was actually angry but I went in hoping to learn something about myself and gain valuable insights and tools to use in every day life.

My mother was very much a Buddhist.  She had much love and respect for nature, food and people.  I have never seen her get angry although we kids did push her to the point of being perturbed a few times.  When we were belligerent children, she was always quick to defuse our anger and calmly instruct us to analyze our problems and seek solutions rather than fight or fester.  She would ask us how things made us feel and if those feelings had any effect on the desired outcome.  She would often steer us to the concept of impermanence and the destructive and escalating nature of anger.

I remember once while we were walking along the lake shore near our house where there were swallows flying near the surface of the water catching insects.  My mother said that anger is like the reflection of the bird. The reflection is not the bird, it has no control over the bird and the reflection is not permanent.  The only danger is if the bird gets too close to the reflection or, as I fantasized, a large mouth bass burst forth from the water surface and catch the bird in its mouth.  She taught me to let go of  anger just as easy as it is for the bird to fly away from its reflection, which would in turn disappear.  The reflection had no power unless the bird got too close to it.  That was one of many valuable lessons she imparted to me.  She also said that anger is like a hot coal you hold with the intention of throwing it at someone, but, you are the one who gets burned.

I don't know if I took anger management too seriously or if I was not serious enough.  Every time the instructor gave us a situation to apply our anger management skills to, I always had an answer which would diffuse the narrative immediately. For instance, one of my scenarios was that I was about to pull in to a parking spot in a hospital parking lot and someone pulled up and took the spot which I was intending to occupy. I explained,
"I always park at the far end of the parking lot where there are always empty spaces.  That way my car is safe and I get exercise walking in.  That situation would never happen to me."
The instructor then said,
"The parking lot is full and there is only one space left."
I replied,
"Kudos to the person who was quicker than I.  I don't own the spot and since I always allot extra time in all my travels so I can wait patiently for another spot to open."
She said,
"You have an injured relative in the car."
"I would drive up to the ER entrance and if it was so bad that we had to go to the ER we would be arriving by ambulance."
I wasn't trying to be difficult, just honest.

This went on time and again and none of the scenarios she presented were of any concern to me. What if someone cut me off on the highway, she asked?
"Maybe they didn't know I was there.  I could have been in their blind spot.  Maybe they are a bad driver so I would put distance between us to protect them, me and peripheral drivers."
On and on  it went.  The instructor even got angry at me a few times.

The instructor told us how she was once speeding down a highway and was cut off by a car which pulled out in front of her so she flashed her lights at him and laid on the horn.  The car in front of her slammed on his brakes in retaliation.  The road divided into two lanes at the stop light up ahead and the guy in front of her was turning right and she was going straight.  Side by side they yelled at each other and exchanged middle fingers.  When the light turned green and she moved forward and the guy originally intent upon turning right moved into her lane behind her and proceeded to follow her.  This is where she employed her anger management skills which she was trying to impart to us.  She took a deep breath, unclenched her fists, recognized her anger and made a u-turn to lose him in an attempt to avoid further conflict.  Frankly, I would not have laid on the horn in the first place and let bygones be bygones.  The above scenario would never have happened and we both would have ignorantly and calmly gone on our separate ways.

In most cases concerning conflict with other people, my mother always said this quote, "Forgive them for they know not what they are doing." That is very true.  The guy in the aforementioned story probably didn't intend to cut the instructor off.  He simply and quickly saw an opening and took it.  He misjudged her speed, and, if she wasn't speeding in the first place, his spacial judgement probably would have been accurate, safe and uneventful.

When we get angry at someone who makes a mistake or does something which we feel hurts us, if we hold it against them, we mostly hurt ourselves and our relationship with them.   I value relationships more than differences and strive to heal, accommodate and do no harm.  Although I do admit that at times I am a master at the art of passive aggressiveness but that is fodder for another blog.  If someone is angry at me and there is nothing I can fix, I just let them have their anger.

At the end of the course, the instructor gave us a written assessment of our participation.  Mine simply said,  "Malcolm has anger issues."

THAT, made me downright . . . giddy.  My mother did not have a PhD and she knew so much more than this instructor.  My mother also used to say "When you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail."  I forgive the instructor for her "protests too much" assessment and for being a hammer.  It is not her fault she was not raised to deal with anger prevention until it presented itself and she needed to employ anger management.

So, the next time you cut yourself will you A) put antibacterial cream on it immediately or B) wait until it gets infected then treat it?  I think we can agree that an ounce of prevention is indeed worth a pound of cure.

Christmas Eve

Algonquin Mountain

Algonquin mountain, with its lesser neighbors, Wright, Boundary and Iroquois.  These pictures were taken from Mount Colden.