Confession: I love SCOOTER. It was love a first sight. All the positive cliches about love fit this case. It is the first time that I needed your fabulous felines, TC. The times have gotten to me. and 'love is need today.' One more thing:
Skin irritation and lesions. Hair loss. Numbness, tingling and pain. Vomiting and seizures. Even 2,700 reported pet deaths. These are some of the harms to cats and dogs from Seresto flea and tick collars, as reported by more than 100,000 people. The collars have even been used on endangered San Joaquin kit foxes in California.
The collars are banned in Canada for good reason. It's past time for the United States to ban these dangerous products too.
The Center for Biological Diversity has been working for years on the scientific, legal and legislative fronts to expose and avoid the damage caused by Seresto collars.
But the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has yet to take any action to even warn the public. And now the agency is talking about shifting the job of regulating these products to the Food and Drug Administration. While that shift makes sense, the process will take time — and we need action on Seresto now. More than 2,700 pets have already reportedly died from these collars.
You can help: Tell the EPA to immediately ban Seresto collars.
Thank you for this warning! I have consistently resisted flea and tick control for our pets, not trusting the chemicals or those pushing them. We had fleas in the house years ago (our Honey-cat died at the vet during a flea dip) and used essential oils and diatomaceous earth to eliminate them. No further problems despite two more cats and two dogs.
You use essential oils and diatomaceous earth to prevent fleas and ticks on your dogs? Any particular types of essential oils? And how do you apply the diatomaceous earth? Does this combination reliably keep the animals free of fleas and ticks? (I have a small border collie.)
In other matters, the summer of 1961, the last summer I lived in Seattle, I went to day camp at Lake Sammamish. And the old floating bridge and the Montlake were landmarks of my toddlerhood.
I remember using various minty oils, especially one which I'll remember when I stop trying to remember it. I remember it was a minty variety, and I know that peppermint oil is a good mouse deterrent.
jeez, it's on the tip of my tongue, but I'll have it in my head tomorrow. actually, Google will get you the information faster.
I have to admit that I actually DO use the monthly stuff for putting between the animals' shoulder blades, but I hate to do it. hate. the label's warnings have cost me sleep.
but I've also had two flea infestations in this place; they're no picnic.
actually, I avoided these products for all of last summer and the world hasn't caved in, so I might just do it again. or rather, NOT do it again.
There are so many ticks on my property I have had to use the topical between the shoulder blades too. I hate it but dogs and cats can get lymes disease from ticks also. I have removed multiple ticks from my kitties until I started using it. I haven’t seen any side effects but I would prefer a natural alternative if anyone knows of any. No problems with fleas here, I think it gets too cold in the winter.
The first cat who was officially mine, gifted to me on my 21st birthday by my sister, was also gray and white. Honey was the runt of the litter (maybe a bit brain damaged?) and also standoffish. If I moved a muscle on the rare occasions she curled up on my lap, boom! Gone. She was with me through college graduation, speech/lang internship, first job, marriage, moving several times and the birth of my twins. She was 18 when she died and always acted more like the feral cats you describe. I still think of her fondly despite her “weirdness”, or maybe because of it.
Ahhh, Feline Friday. Thanks for the story and pictures. My cats are running amok today. Springlike weather, and they WANT OUTSIDE NOW (they are indoor cats, except for their catio). It didn't help I was cooking outside on the deck.
I really don't like having them have free run outside. Our orange boy would be dead because he only recognizes "now" and does not recognize "danger". The bird population would be severely decimated.
Thank you for the story of Scooter TC. She is precious and reminds me of my Gordon Whitefoot kitty that was so slow to trust. She is pretty much glued to me now and I love her. Along with the rest of the group.
I think it's a pretty hot picture actually. my current one (as per our agreement) is a pandemic artifact, and that's Daisy and, of course, me with my Daisy mask. and I know cloth masks don't work, but I only bought it for the goof.
I might even post my yearbook picture, which is a lot more humiliating than anyone can imagine, including me.
I love the Daisy mask! I think you should post your yearbook picture. I doubt it’s that humiliating. I was hesitant to post mine, but was compelled to do it when I posted a story from my teenage years that I have never shared publicly. It was on Lucian Truscott’s substack several days ago about the South Carolina Legislature trying to pass a law that would allow the death penalty for women who have had an abortion. It’s a difficult story and I’ve kept it private, but this death penalty thing got to me and I had to say something. Here is the link:
So glad this didn’t end with another “end.” May Scooter continue her journey to love and accept love. Seems that we all have trouble on that journey, since vulnerability necessitates wariness, for some more than others. Your consistent love is the key, no wonder some show up at your back door…
thanks, Tom, for observing Feline Friday, and this is a lovely piece.
I was about to co-opt it in an outburst of thoroughly splenetic rage about Naomi Wolf (someone I always thought was completely overrated and not to be taken seriously except possibly--sorry in advance, folks--as a sexual opportunity) and her astounding and moronic Right Turn (you can read it all in her horrifying Substack apology to Fox et al). I have all sorts of reasons for disliking Camille Paglia (for the VERY most part), but her twenty-odd years of take-downs of Naomi Wolf represent some of her (that is, Camille's) best moments.
I was about to say (then got carried away) that I WASN'T going to fuck up a lovely Feline Friday with this shit, so I'm stopping myself now (as it inches toward two am). and anyway, it'll be MUCH better if I have some equally enraged allies with whom to connect, as per usual.
The stupid airhead bimbo is just another lefty fool. I have to say that is the most amazing collection of shit masqueraqding as "intelligence" I have ever seen. I find it unsurprising she's gone from Marxist revolutionary to this, since it just means she's gone from Idiot to Moron.
The comments show that she, like Dennis Miller, moved right to find an audience stupid enough to think she's smart.
thing is, I NEVER thought she was particularly left-wing and certainly no Marxist. Camille liked to say very true but "unacceptable" things about her being the typical "prettiest girl in the smart class" and "bobbing her ass" and "swinging her tits," etc.
in 2004, she accused Harold Bloom of sexual assault, but decades before, then complaining that Yale had no mechanism for dealing with her complaint, even though she never reported it (and Yale DOES have a mechanism for these complaints, although the notoriously horny Bloom probably wouldn't have been touched, but when she wrote about it, he was already old and pretty sick). I remember when Naomi Wolf "discovered" tantric sex and wrote a whole book about how hip the Chinese and Indians are because they actually knew women had orgasms. a nefligible intellectual presence at her most relevant.
but I see that your response to her piece was about as violent as mine. hardly the first time this has happened.
Just remember, "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the average American" doesn't include the modifier that the statement applies only to Republicans.
well there sure are THOUSANDS of them LOVING that moronic Naomi Wolf. and offering her all kinds of help and support. for her, they're really coming out of the woodwork.
Adorable. Maybe you could write a book entitled All the Cats I've Known. There used to be many feral cats around our mixed rural/urban area but they have become fewer, we think because we had foxes for a time, and coyotes. I miss them showing up at odd times of the year actually. Several did become pets for as long as they stayed around. Our first experience with a feral cat was when we lived in a cottage on the old part of Signal Mountain outside Chattanooga in the late 70's. One day an orange tabby showed up, boldly came inside, and made its home with us. Of course, it also was free to come and go as it pleased. We called this cat Spike! But then a strange thing happened. One night our young son came running into our room in the middle of the night to tell us that Spike was dying. We went to his room and there in his bed where Spike usually slept at the foot, kittens were being born! Wow! What a wake up that was! H/she had three kittens which we eventually were able to give to good homes. Spike became Spikette. Eventually she left and we never saw her again. They inhabit another world.
Coyotes are a real problem. We had two come through the neighborhood in summer 2018. they wiped out the feral colony. Unfortunately that was the week my wild-at-heart Ginger managed to make one of his escapes. I miss him every day.
I love reading about your feline family! You possess such loving patience.
Not to hijack Friday Felines but I want to direct your attention to the following article which details the firing of Ben Montgomery from the Tampa area Axios newsletter. Montgomery was let go after he pushed back on a press release from Governor Ron DeSantis’ office, calling it propaganda. I receive several of their newsletters and have responded to several expressing my anger at his dismissal and received a reply from each, including Sara Goo. If you subscribe I hope you’ll all do the same. https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/ben-montgomery-ron-desantis
Another lovely girl, TC. Smurfie is still kind of flighty. But getting better all the time - shes a head-butter! Comes up & just pushes her head against my hand & keeps it there. This is so very helpful when I'm "computering"!!
Makes me think of children I have taught and adults I know who are trying hard to come "in" from some "outside" place in their lives. They, too, often bolt when you get too close for their comfort level. It is such a process! Thank you so much, TC. Even we non--cat people can get much out of Feline Friday.
And the dangerous collars Fern talked about leads to a whole other reflection-- there IS the immediate need to get them banned so that animals don't die from the very thing advertised to help them; then there is our society, so full of this anomaly.in tbe human species too. TY, Fern!
I would put my mother on that list, though she was at the same time a teacher who inspired young kids from "difficult" backgrounds, as I had occasion to see; the week my father was dying, the afternoon after the lunch where she told me everything I had done/was doing in my life was wrong, that I should pursue writing as a hobby - 30 days after I had been invited to join the WGA, beating 25,000:1 odds - we stopped at her local supermarket, where the new manager turned out to be one of her former students, who was effusive in telling her "If hadn't been for you, Mrs. Cleaver, I wouldn't be here."
although I never taught below the early college level, since I spent my last fifteen years of employment at a Bronx Junior High School, I'd pitch in and do stuff whenever it seemed warranted. there was one Dominican kid named Eddy who somehow couldn't learn to read through the idiotic "Balanced Literacy." I used our mandated counseling sessions to help him out with phonics and a year later, he was reading beautifully. whenever he saw me outside the school, he'd introduce me as "the one who got him to read." it felt wonderful to hear this. in his last year (8th grade),a dance troupe came in and he realized immediately that he wanted to be a dancer, and has been a professional dancer (classical ballet, for godsake) for about fifteen years now.
another old HS student used to use my office to store the live pythons he brought to school (!). he became the head of security at a boutique hotel on the lower east side and I have pictures of going to visit him about fifteen years ago. maybe I'll post one as my profile pic some day.
the funny thing is that the kids I worried were gonna come back and shoot me were the ones who came back and thanked me, sometimes even tearfully.
I need to remind myself of this stuff when I find myself telling people that I remember so many things because I didn't have an "actual life." I actually DID. and I still remember everything.
the one cat I loved passed in 1983. he was very dog-like and so considerate that he stopped breathing in the car on the way to his final vet appointment.
Confession: I love SCOOTER. It was love a first sight. All the positive cliches about love fit this case. It is the first time that I needed your fabulous felines, TC. The times have gotten to me. and 'love is need today.' One more thing:
Skin irritation and lesions. Hair loss. Numbness, tingling and pain. Vomiting and seizures. Even 2,700 reported pet deaths. These are some of the harms to cats and dogs from Seresto flea and tick collars, as reported by more than 100,000 people. The collars have even been used on endangered San Joaquin kit foxes in California.
The collars are banned in Canada for good reason. It's past time for the United States to ban these dangerous products too.
The Center for Biological Diversity has been working for years on the scientific, legal and legislative fronts to expose and avoid the damage caused by Seresto collars.
But the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has yet to take any action to even warn the public. And now the agency is talking about shifting the job of regulating these products to the Food and Drug Administration. While that shift makes sense, the process will take time — and we need action on Seresto now. More than 2,700 pets have already reportedly died from these collars.
You can help: Tell the EPA to immediately ban Seresto collars.
https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/
Take Action
EPA: Ban These Dangerous Flea Collars
Thank you for this warning! I have consistently resisted flea and tick control for our pets, not trusting the chemicals or those pushing them. We had fleas in the house years ago (our Honey-cat died at the vet during a flea dip) and used essential oils and diatomaceous earth to eliminate them. No further problems despite two more cats and two dogs.
You use essential oils and diatomaceous earth to prevent fleas and ticks on your dogs? Any particular types of essential oils? And how do you apply the diatomaceous earth? Does this combination reliably keep the animals free of fleas and ticks? (I have a small border collie.)
In other matters, the summer of 1961, the last summer I lived in Seattle, I went to day camp at Lake Sammamish. And the old floating bridge and the Montlake were landmarks of my toddlerhood.
I remember using various minty oils, especially one which I'll remember when I stop trying to remember it. I remember it was a minty variety, and I know that peppermint oil is a good mouse deterrent.
jeez, it's on the tip of my tongue, but I'll have it in my head tomorrow. actually, Google will get you the information faster.
PENNYROYAL OIL. it was right there when I opened my eyes .
Kathe, Thank you for sharing your experience and solution with us. Salud!
I got this warning too, Fern. I had seen several warnings before now. Not a fan of flea collars.
And salud back to you.
Had no idea. Now my girls are inside only, no fleas. Used to use them, horrors
well, I'm on it.
I have to admit that I actually DO use the monthly stuff for putting between the animals' shoulder blades, but I hate to do it. hate. the label's warnings have cost me sleep.
but I've also had two flea infestations in this place; they're no picnic.
actually, I avoided these products for all of last summer and the world hasn't caved in, so I might just do it again. or rather, NOT do it again.
There are so many ticks on my property I have had to use the topical between the shoulder blades too. I hate it but dogs and cats can get lymes disease from ticks also. I have removed multiple ticks from my kitties until I started using it. I haven’t seen any side effects but I would prefer a natural alternative if anyone knows of any. No problems with fleas here, I think it gets too cold in the winter.
The first cat who was officially mine, gifted to me on my 21st birthday by my sister, was also gray and white. Honey was the runt of the litter (maybe a bit brain damaged?) and also standoffish. If I moved a muscle on the rare occasions she curled up on my lap, boom! Gone. She was with me through college graduation, speech/lang internship, first job, marriage, moving several times and the birth of my twins. She was 18 when she died and always acted more like the feral cats you describe. I still think of her fondly despite her “weirdness”, or maybe because of it.
Thanks for letting me bring her memory closer.
Ahhh, Feline Friday. Thanks for the story and pictures. My cats are running amok today. Springlike weather, and they WANT OUTSIDE NOW (they are indoor cats, except for their catio). It didn't help I was cooking outside on the deck.
Thank you for letting them out only in their catio.
I really don't like having them have free run outside. Our orange boy would be dead because he only recognizes "now" and does not recognize "danger". The bird population would be severely decimated.
Had a cat my husband dubbed “killer,” because of bird feathers found under the feeder. He wore bells around his neck thereafter.
Thank you for the story of Scooter TC. She is precious and reminds me of my Gordon Whitefoot kitty that was so slow to trust. She is pretty much glued to me now and I love her. Along with the rest of the group.
Don’t laugh, it’s my high school graduation picture.
I think it's a pretty hot picture actually. my current one (as per our agreement) is a pandemic artifact, and that's Daisy and, of course, me with my Daisy mask. and I know cloth masks don't work, but I only bought it for the goof.
I might even post my yearbook picture, which is a lot more humiliating than anyone can imagine, including me.
I love the Daisy mask! I think you should post your yearbook picture. I doubt it’s that humiliating. I was hesitant to post mine, but was compelled to do it when I posted a story from my teenage years that I have never shared publicly. It was on Lucian Truscott’s substack several days ago about the South Carolina Legislature trying to pass a law that would allow the death penalty for women who have had an abortion. It’s a difficult story and I’ve kept it private, but this death penalty thing got to me and I had to say something. Here is the link:
https://luciantruscott.substack.com/p/the-death-penalty-comes-to-the-abortion/comment/13659400
You did a very brave thing by posting that, Karen.
Thank you Tom. It felt like the right time
Thank you for sharing your story, Karen. That wasn’t just health care, that was Life care. Hugs to that 16-year-old girl (and her momma).
So glad this didn’t end with another “end.” May Scooter continue her journey to love and accept love. Seems that we all have trouble on that journey, since vulnerability necessitates wariness, for some more than others. Your consistent love is the key, no wonder some show up at your back door…
thanks, Tom, for observing Feline Friday, and this is a lovely piece.
I was about to co-opt it in an outburst of thoroughly splenetic rage about Naomi Wolf (someone I always thought was completely overrated and not to be taken seriously except possibly--sorry in advance, folks--as a sexual opportunity) and her astounding and moronic Right Turn (you can read it all in her horrifying Substack apology to Fox et al). I have all sorts of reasons for disliking Camille Paglia (for the VERY most part), but her twenty-odd years of take-downs of Naomi Wolf represent some of her (that is, Camille's) best moments.
I was about to say (then got carried away) that I WASN'T going to fuck up a lovely Feline Friday with this shit, so I'm stopping myself now (as it inches toward two am). and anyway, it'll be MUCH better if I have some equally enraged allies with whom to connect, as per usual.
The stupid airhead bimbo is just another lefty fool. I have to say that is the most amazing collection of shit masqueraqding as "intelligence" I have ever seen. I find it unsurprising she's gone from Marxist revolutionary to this, since it just means she's gone from Idiot to Moron.
The comments show that she, like Dennis Miller, moved right to find an audience stupid enough to think she's smart.
oy. Dennis Miller.
what a miserable example of humanity.
and NEVER funny.
thing is, I NEVER thought she was particularly left-wing and certainly no Marxist. Camille liked to say very true but "unacceptable" things about her being the typical "prettiest girl in the smart class" and "bobbing her ass" and "swinging her tits," etc.
in 2004, she accused Harold Bloom of sexual assault, but decades before, then complaining that Yale had no mechanism for dealing with her complaint, even though she never reported it (and Yale DOES have a mechanism for these complaints, although the notoriously horny Bloom probably wouldn't have been touched, but when she wrote about it, he was already old and pretty sick). I remember when Naomi Wolf "discovered" tantric sex and wrote a whole book about how hip the Chinese and Indians are because they actually knew women had orgasms. a nefligible intellectual presence at her most relevant.
but I see that your response to her piece was about as violent as mine. hardly the first time this has happened.
it REALLY IS pretty enraging.
I'm gonna try to post it here...
https://naomiwolf.substack.com/p/dear-conservatives-i-am-sorry
there you go.
new readers to this bullshit: check out how many "likes" there are and read as many of the comments as you can stand, which won't be very many,
Just remember, "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the average American" doesn't include the modifier that the statement applies only to Republicans.
MAGAts qualify for that audience
well there sure are THOUSANDS of them LOVING that moronic Naomi Wolf. and offering her all kinds of help and support. for her, they're really coming out of the woodwork.
If I was you, I would stop going to that page and looking. Some things are best left unseen, since once you see them you cannot forget them.
Scooter was balm to my strung out soul. Thank you!
Adorable. Maybe you could write a book entitled All the Cats I've Known. There used to be many feral cats around our mixed rural/urban area but they have become fewer, we think because we had foxes for a time, and coyotes. I miss them showing up at odd times of the year actually. Several did become pets for as long as they stayed around. Our first experience with a feral cat was when we lived in a cottage on the old part of Signal Mountain outside Chattanooga in the late 70's. One day an orange tabby showed up, boldly came inside, and made its home with us. Of course, it also was free to come and go as it pleased. We called this cat Spike! But then a strange thing happened. One night our young son came running into our room in the middle of the night to tell us that Spike was dying. We went to his room and there in his bed where Spike usually slept at the foot, kittens were being born! Wow! What a wake up that was! H/she had three kittens which we eventually were able to give to good homes. Spike became Spikette. Eventually she left and we never saw her again. They inhabit another world.
Coyotes are a real problem. We had two come through the neighborhood in summer 2018. they wiped out the feral colony. Unfortunately that was the week my wild-at-heart Ginger managed to make one of his escapes. I miss him every day.
Cat rewarding you with her only gift for your caring for their skin-mother Jurate? Wouldn't be surprised
Scooter Chipmunk ❤ Sweet lady. Cats definitely live and
associate with us on their own
terms of agreement.
I love reading about your feline family! You possess such loving patience.
Not to hijack Friday Felines but I want to direct your attention to the following article which details the firing of Ben Montgomery from the Tampa area Axios newsletter. Montgomery was let go after he pushed back on a press release from Governor Ron DeSantis’ office, calling it propaganda. I receive several of their newsletters and have responded to several expressing my anger at his dismissal and received a reply from each, including Sara Goo. If you subscribe I hope you’ll all do the same. https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/ben-montgomery-ron-desantis
Axios will do anything to maintain "access." There's a reason why Charlie Pierce calls it and "Politico" "Tiger Beat on the Potomac."
Ah the memories! What an apt description.
Another lovely girl, TC. Smurfie is still kind of flighty. But getting better all the time - shes a head-butter! Comes up & just pushes her head against my hand & keeps it there. This is so very helpful when I'm "computering"!!
Such a process of building up trust.
Makes me think of children I have taught and adults I know who are trying hard to come "in" from some "outside" place in their lives. They, too, often bolt when you get too close for their comfort level. It is such a process! Thank you so much, TC. Even we non--cat people can get much out of Feline Friday.
And the dangerous collars Fern talked about leads to a whole other reflection-- there IS the immediate need to get them banned so that animals don't die from the very thing advertised to help them; then there is our society, so full of this anomaly.in tbe human species too. TY, Fern!
Observed this process a lot when I worked in public schools. Sometimes some parents should never be allowed near young children.
I would put my mother on that list, though she was at the same time a teacher who inspired young kids from "difficult" backgrounds, as I had occasion to see; the week my father was dying, the afternoon after the lunch where she told me everything I had done/was doing in my life was wrong, that I should pursue writing as a hobby - 30 days after I had been invited to join the WGA, beating 25,000:1 odds - we stopped at her local supermarket, where the new manager turned out to be one of her former students, who was effusive in telling her "If hadn't been for you, Mrs. Cleaver, I wouldn't be here."
although I never taught below the early college level, since I spent my last fifteen years of employment at a Bronx Junior High School, I'd pitch in and do stuff whenever it seemed warranted. there was one Dominican kid named Eddy who somehow couldn't learn to read through the idiotic "Balanced Literacy." I used our mandated counseling sessions to help him out with phonics and a year later, he was reading beautifully. whenever he saw me outside the school, he'd introduce me as "the one who got him to read." it felt wonderful to hear this. in his last year (8th grade),a dance troupe came in and he realized immediately that he wanted to be a dancer, and has been a professional dancer (classical ballet, for godsake) for about fifteen years now.
another old HS student used to use my office to store the live pythons he brought to school (!). he became the head of security at a boutique hotel on the lower east side and I have pictures of going to visit him about fifteen years ago. maybe I'll post one as my profile pic some day.
the funny thing is that the kids I worried were gonna come back and shoot me were the ones who came back and thanked me, sometimes even tearfully.
I need to remind myself of this stuff when I find myself telling people that I remember so many things because I didn't have an "actual life." I actually DID. and I still remember everything.
Indeed, Carol and Jeri, it is a process! Painful, frustrating, illuminating, and, on a good day, successful and rewarding.
Another sweet story! A great addition to my weekend get away with friends where we are all taking a break from the news of the world.
Cat’s rule 🐈
I never thought I would look forward to hearing about someone else’s cat(s). Haven’t had one of my own for about 60 years.
the one cat I loved passed in 1983. he was very dog-like and so considerate that he stopped breathing in the car on the way to his final vet appointment.
his name, appropriately enough, was "Soul."
What a perfect name for a cat ❤️🩹