Lazy Liars

Facebook is an interesting social adhesive and influence these days eh? From your first breath of air, you were entitled to a facebook page filled with pictures of you, lots of friends you don’t like (the few you actually care about were in those pictures of your face... but they had to be cropped out. Unavoidable casualties I’m afraid.), and nagging messages about events you will never give a shit about. Hell, the damn updates can call out from your pocket –your pocket for gods sake- since the cell phone has become the new computer.
The entire affair is accepted as a sort of god given burden that everyone loves to hate, but hey- you were saddled with this blessing, and that means you are tied to it for life. Like a spouse. Or an extra digit. Or a spouse with an extra digit but also lots of money; sadly accompanied by a tight-knit family and their very wily lawyers. Life sentence. Boom.

It is just another medium for fuckery.

So humor me and let me tell a hypothetical story.

Person owns horse. Person agrees to lease horse to other people in other state. Other people have excellent facilities, reputation, and have leased a different horse from a friend of the Person for years. Friend’s horse has been shown, ridden, loved and well cared for. Nothing sketch about the frequently updated pictures and messages through that cursed Facebook.

Person agrees to lease horse to People.

Let’s say the horse went to People of another state in.. oh... December of some year. Horse arrives and messages are exchanged for around 2 weeks after that.

Person and Friend of Person spend the next few months trying to get any response at all from People. Thanks to Facebook, there is at least some record. Calls and such can be liberally scattered around for seasoning.

Person had not heard a single word about their horse from People. Mystical forces (?) blocked computer and phone communications from People. Until April. Which contained an e-mail. From People, to Person (both addresses were the same as those they communicated with in December) regarding Person’s horse.

Just because I am not subtle or polite, this is the real deal. As far as hypothetical things go of course. Click the damn picture. Please.

There is no happy ending. Even in the hypothetical. Friend of Person, Person, and People were friends on Facebook and the horse-related questions were ignored through Facebook the entire time. Dead is dead.

Maybe I am being too sensitive. Maybe 3 months is still within the grace period of, "whoops your thing died and my life is kinda hectic. Well can't get dead-er! Meh- I'll tell 'ya later." If you are going to bullshit someone, then you better bullshit them properly and dignify them with some deception!

Foffdaughter: Fetching

I hate going to the food store to hunt for prey. Dread, loathe and resent it. When there is a looming lack of food (dog/cat, both dry and canned) and clean litter, I resign myself to the mission. (Supplies of two-legger food? Who the hell cares? Make like a vulture and be game to scavenge for your damn meal!) Eventually, unhappily, the drive is made, the car is parked, and the feet are shod. From start to finish, the entire domestic task is really just a mad scramble to get back to the farm. A disgruntled whirlwind of dog, Foffdaughter, and cart will manage to collect clean litter, food for the dogs/cats, disinfectant wipes and few if any other items.

Load up the car, drive home, ignore the sensible approach to unpacking, and instead carry everything in one trip. Unlocking the door is always the same; fumbling with the 35 lb tub of litter, the key, the door, bags of dry cat/dog food... And then it occurs to me. Every single time, I have this dawning realization that I am being totally irrational. Why should I struggle to get food + litter into the house when I could just not? If I didn't feed the cats, it would lessen their daily massacre of every litterbox, which would then require fewer cleanings and therefore less litter.... I wouldn't need to carry either of them inside! Food is the fuel enabling the production of feces, and without it....

It is a fleeting thought which becomes lingering guilt.... And the cats gorge themselves on low-calorie anti-fat-cat food which becomes feces in quantities that are comparable to droppings left by an entire herd of bison .

When is it mine?

One recurrent problem I have with feral cats is deciding 'when is it mine?' My original ferals, the remainders of a 'trap, spay/neuter , relocate to my hay barn' project moved 6 felines about three years ago, and are now down to three. The two mother cats disappeared the first week they were given their freedom. One of the female kittens disappeared after a year here. The remaining 3 have had a series of travelers/house guests hopefuls. One at a time, they come, stay, eat catfood and then they go. A small grey one was here for months. A grey with black stripes followed, briefly. The current one, BigGuy, who has been here off and on for a year now, will allow me to touch him. None of the others will.

If you feed it, and touch it, is it your cat?

A month ago, an odd little grey tiger stripe showed up. He would allow touching, and loved to twine around ankles. He was very aggressive to our other cats, and unpredictably and severely with me. He actually bit and scratched. We had had a friendly session, him being petted and twining, as I sat on a hay bale. He wandered off, and I was sitting, contemplating my next task, when he turned toward me from three feet away and launched himself full-on onto my knees. He fell off when I stood up, and howled at me, whipping his tail. I opened the barn door, in case he was feeling confined. He then spotted one of our cats outside, and blasted after him.

Foffdaughter set up getting him neutered. The next day, after recovering in our tack room, he disappeared. Two days later, he came back. He shows up maybe twice a week, eats, may spend the night in the tack room, but then takes off. I am not sure how I can schedule his vaccination updates, since I never know when he is here! I guess he is my cat, sort of? Hard to say. So far, I am unclear if neutering will alter his aggression issues with people, although he is not as aggressive with other cats. Now I am feeling guilty for not neutering the BigGuy, although he is much more difficult to touch, and I suspect would require manhandling into a feral trap. When is a cat your cat? It is easy if they are housecats, or at least come inside some of the time. If a cat "belongs" to your cats, does that make it yours by default?