I am a human companion who for the past 16 years has been benevolently guided by the firm but fair paw of Bob the 'bobby-cat" who is so named because he's a Manx mix with a bob-tail.
This is Bob. Doesn't he look regal?
I used to work in the Middle East. I was a teacher at an American school for the Saudi Aramco Oil Company in Saudi Arabia for 7 years. I then spent a year at an American school in Beirut, Lebanon. Following the last day of school in June of 1999, the Israeli Air Force bombed the city of Beirut and I spent the night under a heavy wooden desk in my faculty apartment. The building shook with the passage of low flying air craft and I could see tracer fire from a Syrian anti-air craft gun rising into the night sky. In the distance I could hair explosions and the wailing sirens of ambulances and firetrucks ... and each time I thought about coming out from under the desk, another wave of aircraft would streak in from over the Mediterranean Sea and the tracer fire and bombings would start all over again.
It took a few days for the International Airport to reopen but when it did, I was on one of the first flights out of there ... and I never returned.
I flew back to the states and thought that everything was fine until I had a flashback during a storm. I had been shopping for groceries and after hearing a loud clap of thunder, I found myself face down in the parking lot with my groceries strewn about me. People were laughing at me because I was screaming, "AIR RAID!"
I went to see a doctor who referred me to a (gulp) psychiatrist. Was I going insane? It turned out that I had PTSD, post traumatic stress disorder. The psychiatrist told me that after returning home to the states, I had let my emotional guards down because I was safe and that had opened the door to PTSD which came with sound associated flashbacks, screaming nightmares, and extreme fatigue because of lack of sleep.
The doctor helped talk me through this and because I was a bachelor who had lost touch with stateside friends during the 8 years abroad, he suggested that I get a pet which could help provide me with some emotional support.
I went to PetsMart with the intention of getting some fish. I realize that fish are not good as emotional support animals but after 7 years in the Saudi desert, I found myself craving the sight and sound of cascading water and green plants ... so I thought why not get an aquarium and stock it with fish and live plants?
I walked into the PetsMart .... and two hours later walked out with two Manx mix kittens and about $500 worth of kitty supplies. Whoever came up with the idea of pairing animal shelters with PetsMart was BRILLIANT .... and perhaps evil given all of the money I spent.
While in PetsMart, I was drawn to the cutest and most fluffy kitten I had ever seen. He looked like a little Teddy Bear but because he was so timid and reluctant to be held, I felt compelled to take his less attractive brother ... a kitten with a narrow weasel like face who had no fear of being held by a stranger.
I named the weasel faced kitten Bob (and as previously explained, I called him Bob because of his bob-tail). I named his brother Jasper Baby.
Bob and Jasper Baby have been with me through good times and bad. We started out in Texas but moved to Pennsylvania. We then moved to Arizona and after losing three teaching jobs due to state budget cut backs, we moved up to Las Vegas, Nevada and thence to a small rural town in southern Nevada. There were times when quite frankly, I didn't know how I was going to be able to pay my bills while keeping a roof over my head and food on the table ... but I REFUSED to abandon my cats.
Jasper Baby passed away last year. He was 15 years of age. Here is a picture of Jasper Baby. This picture was taken about 7 years ago. Due to state budget cuts I had been laid off and had been unemployed for several months. It was winter and to save money, I had turned the heat down to 60 degrees. Since Jasper Baby was cold, I pulled out an electric heating pad and JB reveled over having found a warm sunny spot.
Bob remains hale and healthy and his grief over losing his brother was assuaged by the presence of two other cats. One of these cats was Scraps ... whom I literally rescued after he was callously abandoned by a person on the sidewalk in front of my home on a cold October night. Scraps initially ran from me and hid under a neighbor's porch but as the night got colder, he began to wail "EEEE-OWWWW! EEEE-OWWWW!: When I went to see if I could coax him to coming out, he threw himself onto my chest and dug in with both claws. I took him home, warmed him up, and fed him. Since he ate every scrap of food I gave him, I decided to call him Scraps.
This is Scraps.
In Arizona, I rescued another kitten ... Princess Tabitha Panda Kitty Toe Biter which is admittedly a very big name for what used to be a very small cat. I called her a Panda Kitty before being made aware that she was a Tuxedo Cat. I found her in the county kill shelter and she was on the red alert list, due to be put down because no one wanted her. I had gone to the county shelter in support of a friend who had lost her dog about 6 months previously. Although she was still too heartbroken to get a dog, I wound up leaving with another cat.
If I had to write a caption for this picture, I would have written: "And so it was that Tabitha the Princess warrior, brought the evil flip flop to toothy and clawed justice." NOTE - Tabitha used to do to my toe what she was doing to this footwear ... which is why part of her given name is "Toe Biter."
After moving to rural Nevada last year, I looked about for a volunteer group to join. I initially thought about working at an animal shelter but the nearest one was in Kingman, over the state line about an hour or so away. While looking at the shelter's website, I saw an black cat named Buki and since I could not conveniently volunteer at the shelter, I began sending Buki anonymous gifts through Amazon.com. In addition to toys, a fluffy bed, and a ceramic bowl, I have also been donating kitty litter, canned food, dry food, and kitty treats on a monthly basis.
I am now on Spring Break and I thought it would be nice to meet Buki and to see if he might be willing to come live with me.
In preparation for this visit, last night I baked a dozen glazed berry tarts (pictured below) for the volunteers. I also bought Buki a case of canned cat food, a 25 lb. bag of dried cat food, a bag of kitty litter, and a 1 lb. container of kitty treats.
On Saturday morning I loaded up my car, opened the garage door, started the engine ... and found that the GPS system would not accept the shelter's address.
I pulled out my phone and found that Google Maps would accept the address ... and so I set out ... 15 minutes behind schedule.
I drove south on Needles Highway and down a winding road to cross a narrow bridge over the Colorado River. The country road gave way to a series of narrow switch backs going up a cliff. I didn't like this road because on one side was a towering cliff and on the other side was a sheer drop. There was no shoulder to pull on to in case of emergencies. There was no passing lane. THERE WAS NO RAIL GUARD and on the rare occasions I dared to take my eye off the road, I could see white crosses and wreckage down below where motorists had crashed and died.
I slowed with each bend because you never knew what might be around the corner and sure enough, in one instance a red corvette with CA license plates was zipping along. It made a wide turn (Into my lane) because of its speed and if I hadn't been slowly going into this turn, I might have been involved in a head on collision.
In another instance, as I was driving around another bend, I encountered an SUV going the other way. Although the driver was going quite slowly, HE WAS STRADDLING THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD and I had to come to a complete stop because I couldn't get past him.
I think the driver may have been afraid of driving alongside a cliff with a sheer drop because he stopped as if expecting me to move ... but I had no where to go except backwards and I wasn't moving ... so he finally ... grudgingly ... drove around me, hands clenched on the steering wheel with a woman in the front passenger seat clutching his arm.
I finally reached a little town called Oatman that was jam packed with tourists .... and burros who were roaming the narrow and street and sidewalks without anyone seeming to mind them. There was a minor traffic jam as cars going both directions had to wait for a burro to move out of the way. No one yelled or honked their horn. It almost felt like I was in India with a cow blocking the road.
I once saw something similar on a road in the Kashmir Province in India. There was a tourist in the taxi ahead of us. He was a real life cowboy complete with boots and Stetson hat and western drawl. When the taxi refused to move, the cowboy got out of the taxi and exclaimed, "Ah'll show y'all how we handle cattle in Texas!" He then whipped off his Stetson and yelled, "HWAH" waving his hat at the cow. The man was subsequently mobbed by angry screaming Hindus because cows are sacred in India. The driver of our taxi immediately threw his vehicle into reverse and backed away from this scene. Over the years, I have often found myself wondering what happened to the cowboy who had been in the vehicle in front of us.
After the burro moved, we were blocked again by STUPID BURRO LIKE TOURISTS who were standing IN THE STREET waiting in a line to enter some business. They were treating the road as though it was a parking lot. When I tapped my horn and used my, "What the heck?" body language .... hands held palm up to either side of me ...they grudgingly moved.
The road seemed to get even more narrow after leaving this town and there were more switchbacks and more soaring rock faces with "beware of falling rock signs and more cliffs. At one point as I was driving up what turned out to be Old Route 66, the app on Google Maps told me to TURN RIGHT .... but there was no turning right because I would have been driving into a rock face.
I was relieved when the switchback finally descended. Google maps assured me that I was within miles of my destination and indeed, I saw two portable signs for the Luv of Paws Animal Shelter.
The app led me to a building ... which turned out to be a sleazy "club" which sold porn material including (if the signage was to be believed) inflatable girl friends. (Eye roll)
I checked google maps and now the app was directing me to go back UP INTO THE SWITCHBACKS ... and I did not want to go back that way. I don't like narrow roads that rise hundreds of feet above ground level without road guards or shoulders or passing lanes and I did NOT want to drive back through that insane little town with the burros and burro like tourists ... so I proceeded into Kingman and took the long route back home ... which turned out to be much shorter than the trip out had been because I was on an actual highway and not a narrow road.
When I got home I checked a map and found that Google maps had incorrectly diverted me onto a parallel road. I had been within a few miles of the shelter but didn't know it.
I will try again tomorrow.
Regards,
David
Here are my three cats ...
This is Bob. Doesn't he look regal?
I used to work in the Middle East. I was a teacher at an American school for the Saudi Aramco Oil Company in Saudi Arabia for 7 years. I then spent a year at an American school in Beirut, Lebanon. Following the last day of school in June of 1999, the Israeli Air Force bombed the city of Beirut and I spent the night under a heavy wooden desk in my faculty apartment. The building shook with the passage of low flying air craft and I could see tracer fire from a Syrian anti-air craft gun rising into the night sky. In the distance I could hair explosions and the wailing sirens of ambulances and firetrucks ... and each time I thought about coming out from under the desk, another wave of aircraft would streak in from over the Mediterranean Sea and the tracer fire and bombings would start all over again.
It took a few days for the International Airport to reopen but when it did, I was on one of the first flights out of there ... and I never returned.
I flew back to the states and thought that everything was fine until I had a flashback during a storm. I had been shopping for groceries and after hearing a loud clap of thunder, I found myself face down in the parking lot with my groceries strewn about me. People were laughing at me because I was screaming, "AIR RAID!"
I went to see a doctor who referred me to a (gulp) psychiatrist. Was I going insane? It turned out that I had PTSD, post traumatic stress disorder. The psychiatrist told me that after returning home to the states, I had let my emotional guards down because I was safe and that had opened the door to PTSD which came with sound associated flashbacks, screaming nightmares, and extreme fatigue because of lack of sleep.
The doctor helped talk me through this and because I was a bachelor who had lost touch with stateside friends during the 8 years abroad, he suggested that I get a pet which could help provide me with some emotional support.
I went to PetsMart with the intention of getting some fish. I realize that fish are not good as emotional support animals but after 7 years in the Saudi desert, I found myself craving the sight and sound of cascading water and green plants ... so I thought why not get an aquarium and stock it with fish and live plants?
I walked into the PetsMart .... and two hours later walked out with two Manx mix kittens and about $500 worth of kitty supplies. Whoever came up with the idea of pairing animal shelters with PetsMart was BRILLIANT .... and perhaps evil given all of the money I spent.
While in PetsMart, I was drawn to the cutest and most fluffy kitten I had ever seen. He looked like a little Teddy Bear but because he was so timid and reluctant to be held, I felt compelled to take his less attractive brother ... a kitten with a narrow weasel like face who had no fear of being held by a stranger.
I named the weasel faced kitten Bob (and as previously explained, I called him Bob because of his bob-tail). I named his brother Jasper Baby.
Bob and Jasper Baby have been with me through good times and bad. We started out in Texas but moved to Pennsylvania. We then moved to Arizona and after losing three teaching jobs due to state budget cut backs, we moved up to Las Vegas, Nevada and thence to a small rural town in southern Nevada. There were times when quite frankly, I didn't know how I was going to be able to pay my bills while keeping a roof over my head and food on the table ... but I REFUSED to abandon my cats.
Jasper Baby passed away last year. He was 15 years of age. Here is a picture of Jasper Baby. This picture was taken about 7 years ago. Due to state budget cuts I had been laid off and had been unemployed for several months. It was winter and to save money, I had turned the heat down to 60 degrees. Since Jasper Baby was cold, I pulled out an electric heating pad and JB reveled over having found a warm sunny spot.
Bob remains hale and healthy and his grief over losing his brother was assuaged by the presence of two other cats. One of these cats was Scraps ... whom I literally rescued after he was callously abandoned by a person on the sidewalk in front of my home on a cold October night. Scraps initially ran from me and hid under a neighbor's porch but as the night got colder, he began to wail "EEEE-OWWWW! EEEE-OWWWW!: When I went to see if I could coax him to coming out, he threw himself onto my chest and dug in with both claws. I took him home, warmed him up, and fed him. Since he ate every scrap of food I gave him, I decided to call him Scraps.
This is Scraps.
In Arizona, I rescued another kitten ... Princess Tabitha Panda Kitty Toe Biter which is admittedly a very big name for what used to be a very small cat. I called her a Panda Kitty before being made aware that she was a Tuxedo Cat. I found her in the county kill shelter and she was on the red alert list, due to be put down because no one wanted her. I had gone to the county shelter in support of a friend who had lost her dog about 6 months previously. Although she was still too heartbroken to get a dog, I wound up leaving with another cat.
If I had to write a caption for this picture, I would have written: "And so it was that Tabitha the Princess warrior, brought the evil flip flop to toothy and clawed justice." NOTE - Tabitha used to do to my toe what she was doing to this footwear ... which is why part of her given name is "Toe Biter."
After moving to rural Nevada last year, I looked about for a volunteer group to join. I initially thought about working at an animal shelter but the nearest one was in Kingman, over the state line about an hour or so away. While looking at the shelter's website, I saw an black cat named Buki and since I could not conveniently volunteer at the shelter, I began sending Buki anonymous gifts through Amazon.com. In addition to toys, a fluffy bed, and a ceramic bowl, I have also been donating kitty litter, canned food, dry food, and kitty treats on a monthly basis.
I am now on Spring Break and I thought it would be nice to meet Buki and to see if he might be willing to come live with me.
In preparation for this visit, last night I baked a dozen glazed berry tarts (pictured below) for the volunteers. I also bought Buki a case of canned cat food, a 25 lb. bag of dried cat food, a bag of kitty litter, and a 1 lb. container of kitty treats.
On Saturday morning I loaded up my car, opened the garage door, started the engine ... and found that the GPS system would not accept the shelter's address.
I pulled out my phone and found that Google Maps would accept the address ... and so I set out ... 15 minutes behind schedule.
I drove south on Needles Highway and down a winding road to cross a narrow bridge over the Colorado River. The country road gave way to a series of narrow switch backs going up a cliff. I didn't like this road because on one side was a towering cliff and on the other side was a sheer drop. There was no shoulder to pull on to in case of emergencies. There was no passing lane. THERE WAS NO RAIL GUARD and on the rare occasions I dared to take my eye off the road, I could see white crosses and wreckage down below where motorists had crashed and died.
I slowed with each bend because you never knew what might be around the corner and sure enough, in one instance a red corvette with CA license plates was zipping along. It made a wide turn (Into my lane) because of its speed and if I hadn't been slowly going into this turn, I might have been involved in a head on collision.
In another instance, as I was driving around another bend, I encountered an SUV going the other way. Although the driver was going quite slowly, HE WAS STRADDLING THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD and I had to come to a complete stop because I couldn't get past him.
I think the driver may have been afraid of driving alongside a cliff with a sheer drop because he stopped as if expecting me to move ... but I had no where to go except backwards and I wasn't moving ... so he finally ... grudgingly ... drove around me, hands clenched on the steering wheel with a woman in the front passenger seat clutching his arm.
I finally reached a little town called Oatman that was jam packed with tourists .... and burros who were roaming the narrow and street and sidewalks without anyone seeming to mind them. There was a minor traffic jam as cars going both directions had to wait for a burro to move out of the way. No one yelled or honked their horn. It almost felt like I was in India with a cow blocking the road.
I once saw something similar on a road in the Kashmir Province in India. There was a tourist in the taxi ahead of us. He was a real life cowboy complete with boots and Stetson hat and western drawl. When the taxi refused to move, the cowboy got out of the taxi and exclaimed, "Ah'll show y'all how we handle cattle in Texas!" He then whipped off his Stetson and yelled, "HWAH" waving his hat at the cow. The man was subsequently mobbed by angry screaming Hindus because cows are sacred in India. The driver of our taxi immediately threw his vehicle into reverse and backed away from this scene. Over the years, I have often found myself wondering what happened to the cowboy who had been in the vehicle in front of us.
After the burro moved, we were blocked again by STUPID BURRO LIKE TOURISTS who were standing IN THE STREET waiting in a line to enter some business. They were treating the road as though it was a parking lot. When I tapped my horn and used my, "What the heck?" body language .... hands held palm up to either side of me ...they grudgingly moved.
The road seemed to get even more narrow after leaving this town and there were more switchbacks and more soaring rock faces with "beware of falling rock signs and more cliffs. At one point as I was driving up what turned out to be Old Route 66, the app on Google Maps told me to TURN RIGHT .... but there was no turning right because I would have been driving into a rock face.
I was relieved when the switchback finally descended. Google maps assured me that I was within miles of my destination and indeed, I saw two portable signs for the Luv of Paws Animal Shelter.
The app led me to a building ... which turned out to be a sleazy "club" which sold porn material including (if the signage was to be believed) inflatable girl friends. (Eye roll)
I checked google maps and now the app was directing me to go back UP INTO THE SWITCHBACKS ... and I did not want to go back that way. I don't like narrow roads that rise hundreds of feet above ground level without road guards or shoulders or passing lanes and I did NOT want to drive back through that insane little town with the burros and burro like tourists ... so I proceeded into Kingman and took the long route back home ... which turned out to be much shorter than the trip out had been because I was on an actual highway and not a narrow road.
When I got home I checked a map and found that Google maps had incorrectly diverted me onto a parallel road. I had been within a few miles of the shelter but didn't know it.
I will try again tomorrow.
Regards,
David
Here are my three cats ...
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