Farewell, Gypsy Rose

April 8, 2013 / still a dreamer / 6 Comments

In Memory … Gypsy Rose

July 1999 – April 6, 2013
Rescued from Weequahic Park, Newark, NJ – January 2000

Gypsy Rose was a 6 month-old kitten when I (literally) grabbed her from a parking area in Weequahic Park on my way to work. She was with her mother, and it is likely the two were living in the cemetery on the other side of the wrought iron fence just a few feet away. I was unable to get the more street-wise mother, but brought this little tyke into my car. I buried my head under my arms against the steering wheel, while the kitten ricocheted all over my car. When she finally settled at the rear window, I drove the rest of the way to the shelter where I worked and where she would get a chance at a real home.

Gypsy’s “baby” picture … 6 months old in the shelter, waiting for love.

She was written up in the system, and placed in a cage in the area just inside the front entrance – prime real estate for adoption. There was a multitude of reasons why bringing another animal into my home at that exact time was a very poor idea, and since Gypsy Rose was cute as a button and only 6 months old, I was sure it was only a matter of time before someone would fall in love and adopt her.

But there she sat. After six months and no one expressing an interest in her, among other reasons, I knew she was meant to be mine, and the rest is history. Soon after walking into my home, Gypsy decided she should run the place thus earning herself the name of Miss Bossy Boots. All went well for this petite Queen of Everything until about October 2011, when she experienced seizure-like activity and was put on medication to reduce swelling from a possible tumor or cancer in her brain. This event repeated itself in June of 2012 when we tried to wean her off the medication.

Still, Gypsy forged on, unfazed by some growing malignancy within. In the last few months, however, Gypsy began a slow downward and irreversible decline. In the last few weeks, I watched her behaviors change, isolating herself more, eating less and less, rallying occasionally, until it became clear her time had come. She left peacefully in my arms, loved `til the end.

Farewell, Gypsy girl … you will always be home in my heart.

Live Eagle Cam 2013 at Duke Farms

April 3, 2013 / still a dreamer / 2 Comments

They’ve hatched! Two Bald Eagle eggs have hatched on March 25. The live eagle cam at Duke Farms allows the viewer to keep an eye on the two parent Bald Eagles as well as their hatchlings through a web cam in the adjacent tree.

There was no web cam in 2012 due to issues with the functioning of the camera; as the eagles were already building their nest, the repair would have been too disruptive so Duke Farms decided to forego the camera for the eagles’ well-being. But the site is now back with great footage and several new features. You can now view select video clips to the right, among them a red-tail hawk attempting a fly by on the eagle nest. Watching the eagle defend the nest is amazing.

Take a breather from your day and join in with nature … watch this great eagle cam.

My Main Excuse …

March 18, 2013March 18, 2013 / still a dreamer / 4 Comments

There are times when we, as bloggers, have nothing to say. That is rarely my problem. There are times when we have so much to say, we don’t know where to start. Getting warmer. Or so much to say and we don’t know if we should say it. Bingo.

So my main excuse for not posting is pictured at left.

Gypsy Rose, one of my cats, is not doing well. She has an incurable illness, something in her brain such as cancer, a tumor, etc. that only a $900 – $1800 cat MRI would reveal. We are treating her symptomatically, (as would be the case even if we did have a precise diagnosis, as brain surgery isn’t a viable alternative on a cat, or at least this one), and rather successfully, until recently, when she began to not do so well.

The vet and I are trying an adjustment in her medication to see if that will help her.

Either way, an animal with ups and downs every day is a reminder that we cannot control life and death; we cannot make any being stay longer than it is their time to spend, no matter how good our intentions; it is a reminder that we are human and have engaged in a relationship with an animal who looks to us to always make the right decision for them.

That time has not yet come for little Miss Rose, but I believe if she … and any of my other animals, past and present, could say so, they would say they always felt safest in my hands. Or at least I’d like to think so.

But so as not to be overly serious, (or premature), in what may come in the days, weeks or months ahead, I offer a favorite cat quote in a lighter vein:

The problem with cats is that they get the exact same look on their face whether they see a moth or an axe-murderer. ~Paula Poundstone

But maybe to the heart of the matter …

The dog may be wonderful prose, but only the cat is poetry. ~French Proverb

Mysterious Creatures, Cats

February 13, 2013 / still a dreamer / 4 Comments

Now tell me … is the sun really all that much better under the dining room chair?

One of the things we love about dogs is that they are straightforward. Pretty much what you see is what you get. But cats? they trump most animals in the category of inscrutable, the kings and queens of unfathomable motives. With a wide swath of carpet bathed in sunlight this morning, Claude chose to slink himself in between the chair rails and sat there for quite some time. After a bit, he curled up in that spot and fell asleep.

Of course, when he’s a wide open book is when he hears the electronic ignition of the gas stove click because that means cat food might be warming up. In this case, it’s a small breakfast for one of my neighbor’s cats whose day is not started without breakfast chez Jeanne. I also ponder … why, when Claude, for whatever reason, feels a need to throw up, must he make a mad dash to do so on the upstairs wall-to-wall carpeting? Is throwing up anywhere where I could easily clean it up never part of the equation?

Why has drinking water become an occasion for caterwauling at any time of day or night? OK – I might cut him a little slack on this one because he is in the beginning stages of kidney failure, and maybe his kidneys are aching for water? Sounds good, but I doubt it. When I lean down the stairs with a very loud SSSHHHHhhhhhhh! he stops immediately, as if Cher herself, a la Moonstruck, just slapped him and said “Snap out of it!” My alternative theory is senility. But again … it may just be one of those things that cats do for reasons even they can’t fathom. Lucky for him, he has many other redeeming qualities including being cute as a button.

Now Gypsy Rose never shows her hand in the slightest bit. Whatever she’s thinking? You don’t know until she acts, like when, out of the blue, she just smacks Claude for apparently nothing. And then walks away.

So while he’s being silly under the dining room chair, she simply looks at him with disdain then returns her gaze to her kingdom, (queendom?), on the other side of the window. She has bigger fish to fry, like making our world safe from renegade cats that might walk across the porch. Lucky for them they’re beyond her reach.

Searching for Serenity

January 9, 2013 / still a dreamer / 8 Comments

Recent events have me pondering … journaling … rather than recording my thoughts in a public forum. As you are well aware, there are times in our lives when we have to take certain events and look at them from every angle, trying to get them in some comfortable spot so we can live with them, especially since there’s nothing we can do to change them. And aye, there’s the rub.

I am not good at helpless. I am particularly not good at helpless watching another – in this case, an animal – who is suffering, and for whom I can do nothing. There are times when we really have to come to grips with whatever it is and accept our own limitations in action regardless of how our hearts are reaching out. In all the years I have been involved with animals, rescuing and healing them, and, depending on the circumstances, finding them homes, those situations that have been the most painful have been those where I could do nothing.

I have been told many times along the way that it was not/is not my responsibility to save everyone .. or every animal … that each of them, like each of us, is on his or her own journey, and I can only do as much as I can do. Whatever the issue is, and it may be different for many of us – animals, children, the elderly, loved ones, those persecuted unjustly for any reason, anyone suffering – if we have a heart, we want to do something … make it better.

But sometimes the change has to be within ourselves. To accept our limitations and to understand that our inability to alter one circumstance does not mean we are failing … it only means that sometimes, despite our desire, it is not ours to change.

So I have found myself thinking a lot of the Serenity Prayer, written by twentieth century American theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr. As short as it is, it is brilliant and to the point. I’m sure you are familiar with it.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;
The courage to change the things I can;
And the wisdom to know the difference.

I believe that sometimes we need to accept that just being who we are is enough. And that sometimes, achieving that may be a lifelong lesson given to us again and again until we finally know it to be true.