Scribblings

Keeping Cats In

Every cat I've owned since I was about 17 has been an indoor kitty. A cat hating neighbor nearly beat our Pepper to death with a baseball bat when I was 17. I couldn't conceive of such cruelty (times were different then, folks) but I wasn't about to take any chances ever again. I'm glad I didn't ever chance my stance on this even though I've heard that it's cruel to keep cats indoors because it prevents them from living up to their true nature and all that baloney. That's okay--my cats can hunt flies and dust balls, not mice and birds.

The big news story for the last few months (well, aside from the debacle in Iraq, the new threat in Iran--and I'm seriously worried that GWB is thinking that maybe another war will boost his poularity, the DuBai Ports debacle, the Hurricane Katrina debacle (why does everything related to GWB seem to be a debacle?)...has been this avian (bird) flu. A couple of years ago, I began to hear about it in Far East countries like Viet Nam. Their poultry got sick and died and sometimes people contracted this avian flu and died too.

Back then, reporters wrote that bird flu might be our next pandemic. Why? Because even though it's not something humans generally get unless they're exposed to bird, viruses mutate easily and a strain would probably develop that would make people sick. Right now, as long as you aren't a poultry worker you don't have a big chance of getting this thing. Naturally, no one paid much attention at first. It was like AIDS in the 1980s. Oh, well, people thought, I'm not gay and I'm not Haitian and I don't use dirty needles, it won't happen to me.

So great, now there is this avian flu and of course no one is ready for it if it does transmute itself and become deadly to all people. Like any virus, it would be very contagious. Reporters say this could be like the swine flu pandemic around WWI, 1918-1919. Millions of people died. Maybe Mother Nature is just getting ready to purge herself of too many people again.

Or maybe not.

I think the reporters are doing a great job of scaring people with their gloom and doom reports. I refuse to depress myself any more than I already am worrying about the fact that we don't have a vaccine for this and how are we going to keep it out of our country and all that stuff. I think I'm just going to enjoy this lovely spring weather we have coming up and not think about bird flu or Iran or Iraq or three more years of GWB. That all by itself is enough to depress me for months. .

Anyway, what's all this got to do with the cats staying indoors? It turns out the kitties in Austria are getting sick eating birds infected with avian flu. Bird flu discovered in Austrian cats. Around our house, we have lots and lots of birds including Canada geese, regular white geese, and guinea hens. If they get infected with this disease, my kitties won't catch it from them because they'll still be indoor cats.

Booking Through Thursday

This week's questions are from Cate.

1. Do you have any books that are signed by the author? I sure do. I have several books signed by Mark Rainey, a couple signed by David Selby and one by Dean Koontz


2. Do you have a story behind the autograph? Story behind the Dean Koontz autograph: I won it for TB in a contest, lucky drawing! David Selby is an actor from Dark Shadows and he signed books for me at a convention. A friend of mine got me his most recent book. And Mark Rainey is a sci-fi horror genre writer who collaborated on one Dark Shadows novel. A few years ago, we emailed each other a couple of times and he signed his earlier works for me.