A Vote's a Vote For A' That

With apologies to Robert Burns' Is There For Honest Poverty , and a link to an analysis of the Scottish anthem that champions honesty and character over wealth and finery and ends with the verse below hoping that goodness and sense will lead us to mutual respect.

If you're a U.S. citizen, one way or another you're a participant in an amazing democracy. You consume and you contribute, you benefit and you assist, you vote or you vanish.

Please vote.
                                       
Here's Why
Vaccinate your pets against rabies or yourself against the flu?
Welcome to the public health system.

If you get up in the morning and turn on the lights or the water, you benefit from public utilities and government regulation. (Unless you live "off the grid" and dug your own well.)

Michigan voters have an opportunity to influence the future of our energy sources by casting educated votes on Proposal 3.  Proposal 3 Text here.

If at some point in your day you have a cup of coffee, get dressed or purchase gasoline you're a participant in international trade and the global economy. (Unless of course you harvest coffee beans in your back yard, knit your home-loomed clothing, fashion shoes from hand-tanned hide or rubber and have an independent oil well and refinery next to the java plants and rubber trees.)

Michigan voters have an opportunity to influence international trade by casting educated votes on Proposal 6. Reading the Proposal 6 Text may help.

Following a breakfast which may include FDA and USDA if not American Heart Association approved foods you may then leave home, drive on city streets, deliver children to a public school and maybe show up for a licensed doctor's appointment.

If you're among the U.S. work force, 92.2% of whom ARE EMPLOYED, you may then get to work a bit late, but you probably negotiated time off in some fashion and you do in fact have a job.


Do all these things, or simply breathe,  and you've benefited from public works projects and education efforts, government oversight and medical research. Additionally, via your tax dollars, you have directly contributed to Social Security, national defense, retiree and veteran's programs and medical care for low income seniors, children and those with disabilities. Know any retired disabled veterans with sick kids? Help them get to the polls!

Michigan voters may want to weigh in on the Proposal 1 referendum, or read some Emergency Manager Law Background and the Proposal 1 Text. Similarly, Proposal 2 issues are worth a look, as is the Proposal 2 Text.


Helping an elderly parent or disabled relative? See a discussion of Michigan's Proposal 4 and Proposal 4 Text.  The discussion posts after the article were especially interesting.

Interested in tax issues? Check out a discussion of Michigan's Proposal 5 and Proposal 5 Text.

Don't live in Michigan? You may still vote, (if you registered.) You don't even need photo i.d., is this a great country or what?

There's a troop, (troupe?), planning to run the country with or without your input. Take a lesson from your favorite pet and speak up about what matters; a warm bed, healthy meals, regular health care, education...


                                       "Then let us pray that come it may,
                                       (As come it will for a' that,)
                                       That Sense and Worth, o'er a' the earth,
                                       Shall bear the gree, an' a' that.
                                       For a' that, an' a' that,
                                       It's comin yet for a' that
                                       That man to man, the world o'er,
                                       Shall brithers be for a' that."

I'm Kerry E. McKinney DVM, and I approved this message!

Scout Out and About II

“But if you tame me, then we shall need each other.
To me, you will be unique in all the world.
To you, I shall be unique in all the world."

"You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed."   

― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

It wasn't that my heart didn't melt a little when Scout snuggled in and looked up from my lap with what I like to think was adoration but could just as well have been a new vantage point from which to launch herself at my necklace. It was more the logistics of 6 cats and a life in flux that put me off wanting a kitten. I told myself, (and family and co-workers), for weeks that as long as she had a good home, (somewhere else!), everything would be right in the world. It took a milestone birthday and her getting lost on a busy thoroughfare to jar me to my senses. To paraphrase my very Scottish great grandmother, 'There're worse things in the world, Hen, than the good Lord puts a wee tabby cat on your door step.'

Lost!
After a long Labor Day weekend, I learned of Scout's escape and the subsequent search, complete with wanted posters, and was bereft. Although I hadn't taken her with me the previous Friday because of travel issues I had ruefully acknowledged the mutual fondness and fully intended to take her home. Except now she was gone in an unknown direction, just feet from a busy 5-lane street with constant traffic and otherwise surrounded by a dense residential area.

Peek-a-boo!

I spent hours walking the neighborhood peering up driveways, explaining my quest and calling for her in the hope she would recognize my voice. For the record, I felt only slightly foolish calling aloud and disturbing the peace. I knew she wouldn't come to anyone else and from her forays into the nooks and crannies of the clinic I knew she was an excellent and silent hider.

That week we had drenching rain storms and much cooler temperatures. The food and water we left out went untouched. The generous reward offered by her almost-human generated some interest and a possible sighting, but the weeks passed.

I kept my hopes up but opted not to further annoy the neighbors by calling for her multiple times during the day and evening. I watched for her while walking and stopped the car to talk to any area residents I saw. Although she had discovered the cat treat dish before her escape and had some extra weight, five and a half pounds of anything isn't much against city streets. And I really missed her company.

Nabbed?
We were well into the third week of September before the next sighting, again on my weekend off, by a neighborhood avowed "cat lady." She had managed to trap a kitten in the area matching Scout's physical as well as temperamental, (i.e. fiercely independent), description. It was Monday afternoon before I was able to drive the several blocks to her house for a viewing but the wait was rewarded by a happily purring feline in my lap within minutes.


Scout had managed to lose some weight and gain some fleas in her 17 AWOL days. She was in the sink for a bath later that afternoon to ditch the fleas. And on the way home with me later that week.




Having discovered the joy of milk rings, she's now well on her way to growing into a proper feline.

The resident cats, Minerva Jayne in particular, were on high alert for random kitten pouncing but the addition has been surprisingly stress-free.


With 6, (albeit 3 of them resolutely outdoor barn kitties), I'm wondering about egg roll...

Coming soon, some tips on introducing a new cat to the household.
Step One: Allow yourself to care...

Scout and About Part I

There's a new kitten in my life. And it's almost entirely not my doing. I already had five felines in the family, which is halfway to double-digits, which is better than half-way to certifiably crazy cat lady, a designation I'm hoping to stave off for a few more decades.

You might know the old saying, "Dogs have owners. Cat's have staff."

But before they have us catering to their every need they first have to choose us, and so it was that I was chosen almost three months ago. I wasn't the first to know, although I should have suspected.

Scout's story
I met the bedraggled grey tiger kitten at my veterinary hospital in July. She was reportedly brought to another veterinary clinic after she'd been rescued from a box at which some boys were throwing rocks. Understandably, she wasn't real keen on human contact. She appeared to be in the 12-14 week range, just getting her adult incisors. Thin and skittish, she was nonetheless curious and not at all fearfully aggressive as are some feral kittens. If not handled and socialized with positive human contact by 8-12 weeks of age, many cats remain uneasy around people their entire lives. In any case, her willingness to be handled, which I did to welcome her to a safe place and to prepare her for her permanent home, elsewhere, was reassuring.

I started calling her "Scout" after Harper Lee's brave narrator in To Kill A Mockingbird, who, despite terrible events, maintained her hope in humanity. It just seemed to fit, (especially this election season.)

                 "Atticus, you must be wrong...." 
                 "How's that?"
                 "Well, most folks seem to think they're right and you're wrong...." 
                 "They're certainly entitled to think that, and they're entitled to full
                 respect for their opinions," said Atticus, "but before I can live with other
                 folks I've got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn't abide by
                majority rule is a person's conscience."




It took a few days but she eventually began playing with and pouncing on my fingers.






She made herself at home around the clinic...

    

 Filing & Radiology








Lab work & Record review






Gift bag inspection &
Supervision






It was all fun and games until     someone ended up in a cone!



                                                                Exhausting!

 

 

 

She made a habit of dashing for my lap any time she was out and something like a vacuum cleaner or visiting dog startled her. She would loll comfortably belly up in my arms as I walked around but scramble away if I tried to show her to a prospective new owner.


So I know exactly how she flung herself in a panic away from the gentleman who attempted to adopt her the weekend I was off. Unfortunately there was a very small gap in the carrier's zipper when he walked out with her and away she went into the city streets.

Part II coming soon...