Winter Fundraiser, Weekend Update Plus The Orange Cat In The Trash

I just wanted to do an update on where the ongoing fundraiser is at following the holiday and the tumult of last week. Since last Monday, $465 has come in from 13 people and that brings the total raised to date to $910 from 21 people. And that leaves $3,090 from 79 people to go to reach the overall goal of $4,000 from 100 people by sometime around December 18th.

I truly appreciate the contributions that have come in to date, especially since it was during one of the most trying stretches I've ever experienced in my personal life.

If you'd like to contribute, the PayPal button is on the right. Or if you prefer snail mail, send me an email and I'll send you my mailing address.

So late this morning I was walking across the parking lot of a drug store in my neighborhood, when a woman who lives in my apartment building shouted for me. She was holding a large orange cat and standing next to a trash can. She told me that she'd just tossed an empty cigarette package into the trash, heard a cat meow at her, looked back in and found this orange cat trying to get out of the can, which is fitted with a slotted roof-like structure. So she lifted him out and was basically staring at me going "Like what the Hell?"

We walked back to our building and took the cat into her apartment. Kitty was pretty freaked and we discussed whether he'd been dumped by some idiot or gotten into the can some other way. I printed up "Found Cat" signs and stapled them to a few telephone poles in the area and also posted an ad on Craigslist. The cat, a sweet 25-pounder who I soon dubbed "Oscar," hung out at my neighbor's apartment. She has a cat already and can't have another, so we both hoped whomever owned the cat would run into one of the signs and that this wasn't a dumped cat.

Fortunately, around 2.30 pm my neighbor's phone rang and the owner was on the other end. She came over soon to retrieve her cat named Boots, who'd somehow gotten out of her apartment and into the street that morning. Lucky woman, lucky cat. No word on what Boots was chasing into that garbage can. Possibly one of his nine lives. I'm glad my neighbor and I were able to help him out.

There's so much odd karma for me around cats lately. I know of two friends of mine who've had to put down their old cats in recent weeks and I know three other people who are all on the verge of having to do the same thing with their old cats. That's a very odd convergence.