she loves my new weenie

Another email issue: I know I'm in trouble when I receive an email from my stepmother with the following subject: Walking Around the World for Jesus. Yep, I involuntarily rolled my eyes. And in the email it had some wierd animated .gif or a man walking, with John 3:16 quoted beneath. Funny thing is, I still have that memorized from my VBS days. I think it's burned into my brain.

Not much going on. I say that a lot lately. But you know, it's work, home, dinner, shower, bed. Repeat. I've been having a hard time getting up, as usual. I set my alarm for 4:45 am so I can manage to hit snooze or turn the alarm off and still be able to leave the house before six if I happen to fall back asleep. I want to get into and out of Atlanta as early as possible, or the traffic sucks. Speaking of, I'm glad I'm working at home tomorrow. I left work early last year after they spooked me about the Halloween rush hour - all the parents trying to get home for their kids' trick or treating festivities, or parties, etc. They're even talking about it on the local news and radio shows. That reminds me, I need to get a few more bags of candy.

Someone posted a link to their website where they were trying to care for and find homes for stray cats on the message board I frequent, and it made me think of a situation I've been in. I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but here goes.

I was caring for a litter of homeless kittens several years ago. Their mother was left by our neighbors who moved. She took up residence on our porch and soon began to swell. I brought her inside and confined her to our only bathroom for the safety of my cats. She gave birth to 4 kittens. One black and white was given to friends of ours. We were going to keep one grey tabby.

There were flea problems hopping from house to house back then as each of us bombed for them separately. At this time they were in our house and wreaking havoc on the kittens. We bathed them in gentle soap and picked off as many as we could. Eventually all 3 kittens we had left died, one right in front of me. It was horrible to watch him struggle to take his last breath, then lose control of his bowels. I was hysterical.

We had taken them to the vet, but they wanted to do blood transfusions which I couldn't afford. I blamed myself because I assumed it was the anemia caused by the fleas. Jeff's friend later brought over the black and white kitten from the same litter, but I couldn't handle it. I ran out of the room crying. I know she was trying to help, but it didn't.

A couple weeks later, the fourth kitten died. This, in an odd way, made me feel a bit better. I'm not sure of the care he received, but it made me think that maybe the mother's poor health was a factor, as well as the fleas. I had so many pictures of them that I couldn't look at for a very long time. I feel my jaw tensing up now just typing this.

On a lighter note, from Arcamax.com's Off the Wall featuring News of the Wierd:

'Gnome Liberators' Free 6,500 Gnomes

They call themselves "gnome liberators" and since 1997 they have freed some 6,500 gnomes from private gardens throughout France. The cathedral in Saint-Die in the Vosges found 84 stolen gnomes lined up on the steps as if waiting to attend Mass under a sign that said, "Free at last!" The gnomes were taken into police custody and owners had the opportunity to claim them, but only about half did, leaving the rest to be imprisoned in a police closet, the London Telegraph reports. In another case, 11 gnomes were found hanging from a bridge with a suicide note saying, "When you read these few words, we will no longer be part of your selfish world, where we serve merely as pretty decoration."

Looks like if missleigh and I ever get yard gnomes, we'll have to chain them down!