Here Kitty Kitty Kitty

Birthdays

Happy Birthday (yesterday) to sister and brother. Yep – same birthday – one year apart. Without getting maudlin – I’ve got the greatest brother and sister in the world. And their spouses are pretty cool too.

CPT

Went to the Carnivore Preservation Trust this morning for a tour. The CPT is a rescue mission for large cats. Mostly those who have been abandoned which can’t be released back into the wild or unable to cope with other cats in a zoo. You can get right up to within an arm’s length of these cats. A couple of them are in the 700 pound range. Not your average household kitty cat.

Neat place. Non-profit, of course, completely privately funded. It costs about $10,000 per DAY to operate. Small (8 people) paid staff – the rest are volunteers. If you’re ever in the Pittsboro area on a weekend, it’s well worth visiting. They have regularly scheduled tours Saturday and Sunday.

Here's a Washington Post leisure article about the CPT. It also mentions S&T's Soda Shoppe and the General Store Cafe which are two places I've posted about.

Home Front

Did some chores around the house.

I had a local machine shop fabricate a long metal bar to hang the main bird feeder on. The idea is to place the feeder just out of reach of the raccoons since they are tearing up the porch screens to get to the feeder. The bar allows me to bring the feeder to the deck for refilling and then slide it back out of reach from the critters. Looks like it will work. I’ll still feed the raccoons dog food on occasion. I’ve read that it’s OK to feed them, but it is recommended that they get fed on an irregular basis so they don’t become dependent on you.

I also moved the stained glass from the bonus room to the porch. My friend JN has decided to move into the bonus room for a while and the glass was blocking his view and light. He’s figuring out what he wants to do post Army career and Casa del Bill is as good a place to be as anywhere.

JN is thinking about working for the contractor who built my house in the short term while he decides what he wants to do long term. He’s going to rent out his house in Durham. Anybody want to lease a nice end unit town house in the Hillendale area of Durham? Near Duke University and Hospital.

As a general rule, I don’t blog about other people. But I will say that JN is certainly due a return from the US Government for his 14 years of service – especially the peace-keeping time spent in Bosnia and Kosovo and the outright combat in Iraq. He's started the process of getting into the VA system. His shoulder and back were also injured and he has to deal with that as well. Years of Airborne takes its toll on both mind and body.

The bonus room is pretty sizable – it’s 15 feet by 30 feet and set up as a living room / bedroom with office area – essentially it’s like an efficiency apartment. Thus, JN and I have our own spaces and don’t get in each other’s way too much. Besides, the room wasn’t getting used for anything besides gathering dust so this is a good arrangement.

It will be good for JN to be around while he sorts things out and also good for me to have company out here in the sticks. I live a solid 45 minutes from Raleigh so it’s a trek for friends and relatives to visit. Consequently, life out here the past 10 years has been kind of isolated. While by nature I’m a bit of a misanthrope, it’s good to have the company.

Conversations tend to be, well, entertaining to say the least.

LOL

Feeling Better

Health wise I’m feeling much better. The eye infection is still a nuisance. It causes a film to coat the eyeball which sometimes makes my vision cloudy but it’s getting better. Still pretty run down, but compared with the past 2 weeks – I’m waaaay better.

Here’s an interesting observation.

I can only think of 3 other times I’ve been this sick.

First time I was 12 or so and spending time at the H’s (sister / brother-in-law) apartment in DC / NoVa – got a stomach virus (and saw the movie MASH that same visit). The second time, age 15 or so, I was visiting them in their townhouse in Alexandria – stomach flu again. Third time, visiting them yet again during spring break – took the train back to NCSU and promptly went to the campus infirmary where I spent the rest of the week.

This time – I was already sick – but the H’s did visit NC last weekend when this infection was at its worst.

Only 4 times in my entire life I’ve been “somebody please shoot me” sick – and they’re around.

I detect a pattern.

Answering Machine

Speaking of coincidences - the possessed answering machine is still quietly working. I think its biding its time and plotting something for Tuesday [6/6/6].

I’m keeping my eye on it.

Wonder if there’s an exorcist in Sanford?