First Waves

Continuing on with this hurricane analogy, we are seeing the first bands of storm blowing in. Realizations. I lost a night of sleep when I fully realized how badly we have failed to address this. I didn’t expect much, but I did not expect failure on this level. Realized, many of us have already had it. It’s been out and about for many weeks. It seemed like it “just arrived” because of confirmed tested cases where testing was denied before. But from all reports, testing still being largely denied. Still. Now I don’t expect it will ever be widely available here.

First week of February my daughter-in-law was in the hospital with pneumonia several days after onset of flu symptoms. She had started to feel better but then suddenly could not breath and had chest pain. I went to see her in the hospital. Masks were required in the room. I had a small and irrational (so I told myself) fear that maybe she had contracted the dreaded virus. She told me they had swabbed her nasal passage to test for flu. I thought to myself.. well if she doesn’t have the flu surely they will test for the other one and we will all know. I did not find out until this week that the flu test had come back negative and they never did the Covid-19 test.

I had been to see her and my son in their apartment when they were sick, taking them some medicines. We did not hug. I petted the dog. Three days later I came down with a “flu” that hit me like a truck. I felt better 2nd day, then 3rd day was down for the remainder of the week. Toward the end, when I was feeling better, I felt like a gorilla was on my chest. I don’t go to doctors unless I do feel I’m about to die, and it never got that far. I took my natural supplements and Mucinex offered no relief for this tightness in my chest. My lungs, a month later, still do not feel fully recovered.

The entire time small suspicions wandered through my mind but I kept telling myself it had to just be the flu. If it was here in our community someone would tell us. I thought I’d read that they were finally getting tests out. But then story after story of people still being denied tests. My brother who is in eastern Oregon was told by his doctor that he can’t get tests for any of his patients. Then I read estimates of 100s of thousands of cases in the U.S. because of weeks of extremely limited testing. I read that the tests cost too much and take too long. The system is too fragmented. Excuse after excuse like we are some prehistoric dinosaur of a country. At least our war technology is up to date. So glad for that. At the expense of everything else.

In Texas where we have around 27 million people, our governor proudly announced that we could now process 125 tests a day. Total. For the whole state.

Having strong evidence, and a gut feeling, that you’ve already had it – doesn’t even give much comfort because evidence exists that it doesn’t guarantee you won’t get it again. Or another strain of it. But it’s not myself I’m afraid of losing. I wouldn’t be upset to walk on from this ridiculous place honestly. The dread is from facing down the grief of premature separation from those we love. From worrying how we are going to keep a roof over our head if we have weeks without income.

This weekend the stores here were blown out completely. I’m glad we were ahead of the curve but so sad how easily people are led around by the nose and believe whatever they are told without looking at data or evidence. And yet much unknown remains.

This isn’t as bad as many things. It’s sad, and disruptive, but can’t compare to getting the shit bombed out of your city by a superpower, being locked down by an occupying power on a tiny piece of land, or living in a refugee or migrant camp and already having no defense against violence, disease, and the elements. It’s not as bad as an F5 tornado ripping through your neighborhood even. But all these these sufferings continue, and now add to this the threat of a new fatal illness. These are the ones I think of.

We can’t complain. We have a house (tiny as it may be), had time to prepare somewhat, and the resources to do so.

Once I get over being angry and sad, I will reaffirm my gratitude for the good things in life. I know these things – man made, or nature made matters not at this point – have been the way of nature since there has been life on this planet. Our illogical attachment to this life and each other when nature wants to cull and cleanse is what makes it all so uncomfortable. If only.. we were like Spock. Accept the logical enforcements of the balance of nature without hysteria.

But to be human is to accept that fear, panic, grief, anger and loss are all part of our puzzle as much as joy, gratitude, pleasure, and love. The first wave has passed. Today is calm, for the moment.

Tiny House Big Cats

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  Practicing small spaces before the move.

Why do we have two huge male cats IN the tiny house? Because outside, they die. It’s that simple. We also had an outside “barn” (chicken coop rat hunter) cat that came with us and disappeared within the first two weeks. Given the loss our kids already experienced with the move, we aren’t risking these two even though having them in the house has been a big challenge. I’ve had cats most of my life but I didn’t know they had so much more to teach me.

Of all my anxieties about living tiny, the cat thing really weighed heavily on me. We had miraculously discovered some secrets to cat care not long before the move that I’m so thankful for. I changed their diet, and their litter. Without these two vital changes we would be gagging our way through every day, or would have put everything else on hold to build a cat run outside (which is still on the to do list – just not at the top).

Never in all my life with cats have I seen felines that could poop the mountains of stench that these two could produce. I can’t even describe this without the memory of those acrid fumes filling the garage. The GARAGE… where we kept the cat box. Even with the separation of the door between us, the smell would seep into the kitchen and the rest of the house. Even with regular scooping, we could not keep up with it enough to keep the smells down.

One day we happened to be watching a documentary about show cats and one owner explained the diet she fed them, showed how little they pooped, and claimed it didn’t even smell! Sounded way too good to be true but I began to research it and tried out a raw meat diet on them. I mean – imagine feeding carnivores what they are genetically designed to eat? Turned out to be simple, affordable, and wonder of wonders – it worked!! Tiny poops that did not seem to smell unless you got down and really…. well, never mind. It worked.

The litter discovery came not from trying to contain odors but I had grown tired of using so much product that went to landfills and wouldn’t break down. I knew there had to be a compostable litter of some kind but didn’t expect anything to neutralize the smell of cat urine. Much to our delight we discovered the pine pellets absorb and block the urine odors incredibly well. I ordered a sifter pan and away we went, all ready for the big move. I didn’t expect any problems after these great discoveries.

Unfortunately problems (let’s call them challenges) arose. Did you know… oh world of cat lovers… that certain cats do not have the ability to cope with stress? They lack the natural hunting instinct also and this somehow creates a cat profile that will also have all manner of urinary problems when stressed. I did not know this. Although our male cats came from the same litter, they are vastly different personalities. One is dominant and very playful. The other one is more docile and can’t seem to keep eye contact with a quickly moving cat toy. He also started peeing everywhere but in the cat box shortly after we moved into the tiny house. Evidently the stress can actually cause conditions that create painful urination and they try to tell you this by not using the litter box. One morning while drinking my coffee and working on my laptop he jumped up beside me and let loose right there on the futon. I had earbuds in so my first clue was a sudden dampness on my right elbow. I lost my *#*@. Which of course, makes the cat more stressed.

I tried many things to calm this cat down. For several weeks I had a second litter pan with a pee pad in it he was willing to use. Like we had room for a second litter box, but it beat finding puddles elsewhere, like my son’s bed in the loft. I even put hemp oil in his food. Turns out the adjustments just took time and he is more calm now although the ongoing construction projects inside, and even the shop vac will leave him hiding in the corner. But he and we are all managing to adjust.

Our final challenge is training them to a scratching post rather than all the door frames in the house. We stapled a piece of carpet to the preferred spot which immediately became the ignored spot. The freshly painted trim by the front door is now clawed again even though we have sprayed with lemon oil. Any suggestions? I’ve decided to view it with affection as I did when my toddlers drew circles with crayons around the entire perimeter of their bedroom as high as they could reach. So cute right?

At any rate – I highly recommend the changes we made to improve your cat’s health and the environment no matter how big your house is. You won’t regret it!