Writer Mom's Open Salon Blog

Cats in Turkey Just Can't Take it Anymore

Fri, 25 May 2012 19:05:55 -0400

Most of us have heard of animals exhibiting strange behavior before major weather events. In Turkey, the bizarre behavior began after a seismic event. Ever since a major earthquake rumbled through the city of Van last year, the number of cats attempting suicide has been on the rise. Now I am familiar with suicidal squirrels on the roads, and I enjoy every opportunity to call their bluffs. But cats taking their own lives? I found the concept intriguing.

How does a cat attempt suicide? Exhaust pipe in the litter box? Catnip overdose? Not the Turkish kitties. Instead of using some of the more common methods of suicide, cats in Van are opting to leap to their doom from high places. Specific locations were not given. Tall buildings, perhaps? Uppermost tree limbs, just out of reach of fire department ladders? Veterinarians say they have treated many cats with broken bones. Are these cats deliberately not landing on their feet? No one left a note, so we may never know.

I can picture an anguished cat, pacing along the edge of an apartment building roof. Below, dogs and mice line the sidewalk, cheering on the cat.

“Just go for it, Fluffy! If you botch this one, you still get eight more tries!”

Nice. Poor suicidal kitty.

What would drive a cat to end it all? Again, we are left to speculate. Perhaps the litter box isn’t clean enough. Do European cats even bathe every day? Maybe excessive hairballs or a mouse shortage are to blame. Perhaps one cat finally found its way out of a paper bag and ruined the surprise when he shared it with the others. One theory points the paw at psychological effects resulting from the earthquake. Another thought is that being confined in small spaces has prompted the odd activity. Really? Have you ever met a cat who doesn’t enjoy cramming himself into the smallest space he can find? I saw one of my cats, Java, all contorted inside a coffee pot once. She must have been experiencing an identity crisis. I left it alone.

The other question that keeps clawing at me is how suicide was determined as the cause of death in all the cats. I suppose the owners were interviewed. Was your cat withdrawn? Hanging out with the wrong crowd? Was your cat taking antidepressants? Have you changed her food lately? Was he snubbing you more than usual? Being cyber-bullied by other cats? Don’t blame yourself. It’s normal to think you should have gotten a dog instead.

I also find it interesting that only cats were offing themselves. Are they more mentally unstable as compared to dogs, fish, or hamsters? I did have a Betta fish that leapt from the safety of a net to a plate of solidified bacon grease. Needless to say, his act of aerial acrobatics did not end well. I thought I knew him but I must have missed the signs.

Will action be taken to prevent similar outbreaks? Perhaps cast will be required to undergo psychological evaluations before being allowed to live in earthquake zones. Don’t misunderstand. Animal suicide is no laughing matter (go, PETA) and my heart goes out to the families in Van who lost their cats in this unusual way. My heart would break if either of my kitties bought the farm for any reason. I know I will think twice from now on when I see a deceased cat on the road. Was it murder, or did something else make him run into traffic? Maybe, just maybe, this time he was too darned curious.

A Letter To My Home Invader

Wed, 21 Sep 2011 17:09:26 -0400

Last week you entered my home, uninvited, while my family slept, unaware of your intrusion. In your search to fund your addiction, you helped yourself to my most personal items. I really enjoyed waking up that morning and playing Marco Polo with my missing purse, which, by the way, is rather uncommon and will bring you many compliments, should you continue to carry it around the way you did last weekend. However, I suggest you consider losing it, if you haven’t already. Hot pink is hard to miss, and I hear it really pops on surveillance video.

You didn’t travel far before using my debit card. That was probably due to the paltry amount of cash you found in my wallet. I work for senior citizens, and, since I choose not to rob them, I don’t charge them much for the services I offer. Therefore, I never have a lot of cash on hand. I can imagine your reaction upon seeing the bulky appearance of that new wallet of mine. I would have thought I’d hit the mother lode, myself. It sucks how looks can be deceiving, I know. Better luck next time, I guess.

Things have not been boring since you were here. My time has been spent trying to undo the damage you’ve done. It takes a little while to remember what all the keys on a key ring unlock, but I think I got it. By the way, having a car re-keyed is pricey, but perhaps worth not going to bed each night wondering if the car will be in the driveway the next morning. Also, we needed to replace our back door, anyway, so you don’t get all the credit for that.

Speaking of credit, you managed to squeeze more out of mine than I thought was possible. Impressive. I had no idea you could overdraw a PayPal account. Until you came along, my account had been in good standing since I opened it, almost ten years ago. And those over-the-limit credit card fees? It’s only money, right? I’ll try not to let my nerves get the best of me when I think about it. I keep prescription medication that should help my stressed out tummy in my purse….oh, wait.

Of all the things you stole from me that night, the loss of my sense of security in my home has been the most difficult to replace. No amount of paperwork or replacement cards can return that feeling to me. I already have an overactive imagination, so a stranger invading my home in the wee hours of the morning only fuels my worst fears. I now experience several sleep interruptions each night, often accompanied by cold sweats and a racing heartbeat. I check on my sleeping children more often than I did when they were babies.

Fortunately for you, the Deliveranceville police seem to have more pressing cases at hand than this one. Unfortunately for them, I don’t. I am like a dog with a bone when something important to me demands attention. Having my home invaded and my identity stolen is important to me and I will do everything within my power each day to guarantee that justice be served.

Just thought I’d give you an update.

Didn't We Learn About Lines in Kindergarten?

Wed, 7 Sep 2011 10:09:09 -0400

As a parent of children in elementary school I deal with daily pick-up and drop-off car lines, which are enough to make the soberest of judges crave vodka for breakfast. Every morning three students and one adult are positioned in front of the school, along the covered sidewalk, where they meet and open doors of the arriving vehicles carrying students. This drop-off process sounds efficient in theory. One might even expect drivers to catch on to the fact that there are three available helpers lined up who can open three vehicle doors at a time. That would be a reasonable expectation, but reason is something we tend to run short on here in my neck of the woods.

Each morning I watch with gritted teeth and clenched fists as the vehicles ahead of me crawl to the first helper and stop. And, each morning the rest of us wait in line while kids are dropped off, one car at a time, even as the helpers try to wave drivers forward to the two kids who are standing there, ready to assist. Some people go the extra mile by parking in that very spot so they can escort their little ones to class, while the rest us of expose our kids to Italian profanity (vodka time). Now, the two cars behind the first car could just let their kids out, which would help move things along. I know, silly me. Apparently their passenger doors only open from the outside. I must have missed that year model when I bought my truck. It’s a little fancier, what with doors that open from both sides and all.

The need for every child to be dropped off directly in front of the school entrance escapes me. Maybe I am less of a mother because I boot my kids out one or two car lengths before (gasp) someone can open the door for them. They are close to the entrance, I can watch them go in, and that area of the sidewalk is still covered. People seem to be a bit hung up on the covered sidewalk. Rain is one thing, but do kids need to be shaded at eight-fifteen in the morning for all of a couple of seconds? Will it hurt them to walk a few extra steps? Let’s contribute a little less to our nation’s childhood obesity issue, folks.

The insanity does not end there. Things get bizarre in the afternoons, as well. Traffic backs up along the street in front of the school at the same time every afternoon. This upsets drivers who are trying to get to other destinations and apparently causes a momentary loss of rational thinking, resulting in driving maneuvers and behaviors worthy of traffic tickets and bad reality television shows. On several occasions I’ve seen impatient rednecks drive on the wrong side of the road to pass the line of traffic. No one seems to care about blocking intersections and right-of-way means nothing. Right-of-way? You mean right away? Oh, yeah. Now I get it. You want me to go, like right away. Yeah, that’s it, Smarticus. Keep driving.

For several years now I have been amazed at the way people in my area fail to handle the simplest driving tasks. Yielding and merging ignorance runs rampant and can bring traffic to an unnecessary halt when it’s not even rush hour. Multiple drivers arriving simultaneously at a four-way stop confuses folks to the point of panic, like those old math problems about two trains leaving two different stations at the same time. The drivers just look at each other, bewildered. What to do? Do I go? Do you? Do we draw straws?

Bless your pea pickin’ heart. How about I just wave you on ahead and we call it good. I don’t think my auto insurance covers stupid.

Battling My Mind and Body

Thu, 1 Sep 2011 11:09:56 -0400

To look at me today, you would not suspect that I have ever struggled with an eating disorder. Nothing about my body suggests undernourishment; even my hair is full-figured. Strangers might think my issue leans more toward overindulgence. The truth is not a day passes that I don't think about losing weight or how unhappy I am with my current weight. Frenemies at best, my temple and I have not gotten along for over half of my life.

The earliest memories I have of disliking my body go back to Mrs. Potter's fourth grade class, when I hated my hands. To me they looked boyish and ugly. They bore no scars, birthmarks, or other distinguishing features. For all intents and purposes my hands were ordinary in every way. Still, I kept them tucked beneath my legs to hide them whenever I sat. People could have told me I had the most beautiful hands in the world and I would not have believed them. I felt both different and defective at eleven years old.

Puberty gave me more reasons to dislike my changing body. Aside from developing curves, I began to focus on my size. Although I maintained a healthy body weight, I compared my adolescent figure to those of other girls and secretly berated myself for not being thinner. I exercised often in attempts to lose weight, unaware of the groundwork I was laying for an illness that would surface years later.

A love/hate relationship between me and food developed during childhood, as well. While my mother prepared healthy meals, she still allowed treats once in a while. However, because she rarely bought junk food, whenever something sweet turned up in the house I felt like I had to eat it on the sly. My mom was a perpetual dieter for years and sometimes I wonder if that contributed to the way I viewed foods as 'good' and 'bad.'

Mom baked from scratch when I was growing up and her chocolate chip cookies were a favorite of mine. Like a bandit, I snuck into the kitchen on many occasions and stole cookie dough from the bowl when my mother’s back was turned. Later, I ate the baked cookies I was allowed to have, but snuck a few more up to my bedroom, where I savored them in private, and felt bad afterward. I became a closet binger. That behavior followed me into my adult life. Hiding food and feeling guilty after eating it became the norm for me, but I never understood why.

In my early twenties, the sugar I had been privately bingeing on decided to set up shop in various parts of my body in the form of fat. For the first time in my life I gained a significant amount of weight. The extra pounds snuck up on me and I remember the shock I felt the first time I couldn’t zip up my favorite dress. Convinced that a defective thyroid was to blame, I saw a doctor. No such luck. As if a switch had been flipped, suddenly my eyes were opened to the ugly truth about the change in my body. I had put on weight, plain and simple. I felt disgusted and ashamed. The image in the mirror appeared fat and flawed. My brain saw a much heavier person than the one who, in reality, was only slightly overweight.

Following the birth of my first child, I began working out and dieting. I wanted to lose the pregnancy pounds, at least that's what I told myself. In addition to Tae Kwon Do classes, I exercised at home each day, in an effort to burn as much fat as possible. Encouraged by noticeable results, I further restricted calories, to as few as 700 per day, and swallowed laxatives after meals to speed my weight loss. I measured my waist, arms, and thighs almost as often as I weighed myself, which was every morning. Food and fat became the enemies I obsessed over. I dreaded any kind of social gathering which involved food because I did not want anyone to see me eat and I feared being unable to restrict my calorie intake. If only I could have purged the emotional pain and baggage as I purged the contents of my stomach.

When loved ones grew concerned about my thinness, I was too ill to listen and could not have stopped punishing my body if I wanted to. Each time someone commented on my weight loss, my reaction was twofold. First, I got a sort of high from the false feelings of accomplishment and control, then the negativity took over and told me that I must have looked terrible before I lost the weight. I was my own worst enemy.

Eating disorders fool the afflicted into thinking they themselves are in control, when the reality is that we have control over nothing in our lives at that time. Both Bulimia and Anorexia had their grip on me, and all I did was tell myself that if I were thinner everything in my life would be okay. Meanwhile, the opposite effect took place. I had a baby who needed a healthy, functioning mother, and my marriage of two years stood on shaky ground. My world crumbled around me and I remained helpless but to watch the destruction.

In December of that year I came down with the worst cases of flu and strep throat I had ever gotten. By Christmas Eve I became so sick that I spent the afternoon in the hospital emergency room. I broke fevers each night for the next two weeks and made a promise to God that I'd start eating again if He would only make me feel better. The reality of my illness had finally struck me and I wanted off the roller coaster ride. After all, my mother had spent forty dollars on the Christmas ham that year.

Following that low point, I began taking better care of myself. I no longer purge and I seldom binge. Every day remains a struggle between myself and food, but nowhere near as it was back then. While I've managed to break the habit of stepping onto the scale each morning, I still scrutinize every bite of food and continue to dislike eating in front of others.

Recovery is a process, and one in which I remind myself that it's okay if I'm not as thin as I want to be or once was. My four children need a mom more than I need to be a size six, so I try to keep my focus on what matters. How I live my life is more important to me than how I look while I'm living it.

Miss Maudine

Fri, 19 Aug 2011 14:08:31 -0400

Before I began working as an assistant/caregiver to senior citizens, I knew the job would be challenging at times. After all, older folks can be stubborn, impatient, and set in their ways, right? Those things do not bother me and I expect them to some degree. Sure, we have stressful senior moments now and then, but I have found that just treating people with respect brings out the best qualities in almost everyone. Now, Arthur can be a bit of a mess, but he's another story.

Maintaining a professional distance from the seniors I work with can be a difficult part of my job. I have been fortunate to form friendships with several clients, and I consider each one a gift. These folks are kind, loving, and sometimes generous to a fault. I would have to be hardhearted to not care. Even though work gets done, I spend a lot of time in conversation, listening and learning about their families, health, and other issues that matter to my older friends. Perhaps this behavior lacks professionalism, but it makes older people feel alive, recognized, and appreciated.

Today I was met with a more serious unexpected occupational hazard. Last night I had spoken with a sweet elderly lady, Maudine, whom I have done some cleaning for over the last couple of months. We made plans for today to go through her clothing and decide what would be kept, donated, and so forth. She wanted to get her cluttered apartment better organized and I agreed to help.

I arrived on time this afternoon at Maudine’s apartment, ready to work. After several minutes of knocking on the door and the windows, and receiving no answer, I tried to reach her by phone. When none of that worked, I asked several residents if they had seen her, and no one had. The maintenance man was called to unlock the door to the apartment and inside he found Miss Maudine. She had passed away in her sleep. Shocked and devastated, I cried like a baby, standing there on her walkway. Even though I knew this type of thing was possible in this line of work, I was still caught off guard. Grief is grief, I guess.

The police showed up and asked me questions. When did I see and talk to her last? What did I know about her health? Did I know how to contact her family? I tried to be helpful and provided what I could. The coroner contacted me with a few questions he thought I could answer. The experience was surreal for me today. Although I was not close to Maudine, I still felt a loss. She was as sweet as she could be and I am grateful that she passed away in a peaceful manner.

What I found most interesting was that I was the only one crying in the small crowd of people who had gathered. Maudine’s neighbors and several other tenants seemed somewhat unfazed by her passing. I don’t believe that they did not care, just that they are more accustomed to seeing death at this point in their lives. In fact, they were more concerned about me than anything else. I received hugs and genuine words of comfort from my older friends. I’ve had phone calls and offers to talk about what happened. No one seemed too worried about any professional distance today, and for that I am grateful.

This experience has not changed my mind about doing the work I do. I will continue to work with senior citizens, doing what I can to help them. Will I still agree to provide services which are not listed on my flyer? Of course. Will my patience be pushed to the limits now and then? Sure. Will I allow myself to become attached to the people I assist? Most likely. I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t.