Happy Winter Solstice! Open Post, Cat Pictures, Lending Library Still Available

[kimberlysteele]

Happy Alban Arthuan/Winter Solstice! The days are only getting longer from here! It's been a long time since I've done an Open Post! Please feel free to post about just about anything you are into... the only thing I don't do around here is swear words worse than "bitch".

The cats are doing well, outside and inside! As some of you may know, I have three feral cats on the outside: Miss Piggy, also known as Blondie. She is a calico we "inherited" when we moved to our little house nearly 9 years ago. Miss Piggy was a kitten factory until I took it upon myself to trap her along with quite a few other cats in the neighborhood, including Tommy, her son, who is the orange cat in the photos and Silhouette, her other son who is the twin brother to Shadow, my indoor black cat with the crazy eyes. Piggy was not easy to trap! Thanks to our great local TNR lady, she's now spayed. Oddly, all of my ferals let me pet them. Tommy is my personal itty bitty kitty welcoming committee every night when I get home from work. He always greets me and gives me a kitty hug (reminder that he is hungry) when I get home and park my car. He is the one with whom I have a psychic connection: I can call him in my mind and he has not yet failed to arrive right on schedule.

Shadow and his favorite toy on the big tree my husband built out of PVC pipe and wood discs.

On the inside, there is Shadow, one of the sons of Miss Piggy. Before I trapped her, there was some drama with one of Piggy's boyfriends, a sire I named Abraham because he killed one of his children. Piggy had litters by superfecundation, a.k.a. via multiple fathers, every year until I had her fixed. Abraham killed his own child -- unlike the Biblical Abraham for whom he is named, he actually went through with it. I took Shadow in about a week after I found the dead orange kitten on the porch, and because we have video all around the house, we saw the whole fight with Abe going after both his own child and twin black kittens Shadow and Silhouette (different sire), and Piggy attempting to defend them all. Silhouette fought me and took a chunk out of my hand when I tried to get him to live inside, so outside he stayed. I don't know if I'll ever get the outers to live inside.

Meanwhile, Shadow the kitten was living and healing inside my house. It was too soon after the death of my beloved Kiki, and if cats didn't have terrible timing, I would have taken at least a year break from indoor cat mayhem. It was not to be so. He healed, I took him to the vet and got him fixed, and overall he turned out to be my most expensive cat because he did not have everything already "done" like a shelter cat. Shadow had the cat version of ADHD. He jumped into the refrigerator one night and had he been in there longer or if it had been the freezer, he would have died. He was fine -- by then he was already becoming far more robust. He was so crazy, I did some research and decided to adopt him a sibling.

Ashley Amore Reid Cocklebur Steele, looking regal as usual

I fully intended on adopting a girl. I love girl cats and I truly feel I cannot live without them. I also felt terrible for taking Shadow away from his twin bro-bro. It was the height of Covid paranoia though so I went to the shelter. The girl cat I had chosen (we weren't allowed to see more than two cats at once) didn't like my husband and I. The boy cat they brought in liked us though. He was a beautiful silver gray kitty. His original name was Reid but I later named him Ashley or Ash for short because it seemed so right. My husband and I were very worried the two boys would not get along but they turned out to be absolutely made for each other. Ash is by far the most gorgeous cat I have ever owned. I doubt I will ever get him genetically tested, but I strongly suspect he is a purebred Korat, which is a Thai breed not all that different from a Russian Blue. Ash is a very sensitive boy who needs a special diet like other Korats. He is allergic to fish.

Kyoko Jujube Steele, a.k.a. Bee.  She is petite like me!

I adopted little Bee (a.k.a. Kyoko Bee) from another shelter about a year after Ash. She wasn't doing very well at first -- I have a knack for adopting or rescuing sickly cats -- and I was able to heal her and make her coat shiny and full with quality food and supplements. She is a sweet little doll with considerable attitude. Kiki was all sweetness... Bee, not so much LMAO.

I am slowly organizing the lending library by the Dewey Decimal System. Only 390 more books to go, ha ha

I am still lending out books to anyone in the continental US! Just email me at ksteelestudio at gmail com and I will send you up to 3 books of your choice at no charge. I do ask that if you don't return the books within 6 months that you reimburse me for their cost at BuyMeACoffee so I can replace them. Just tonight I was adding more sustainability and mythology titles.

Here is my book list:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1v0ELUifXRBoPkWHfA017FZYuIh5DdPvWqh6CS_AH8k0/edit?gid=0#gid=0

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Your book list link goes to a picture of a cat.

[kimberlysteele]

Whoops! Thank you, I fixed it.

[(Anonymous)]

Your book list link doesn’t work for me. Is this the correct post with the list?

https://kimberlysteele.dreamwidth.org/96400.html

[kimberlysteele]

Yes, that's the one. It updates automatically on the screen at https://kimberlysteele.dreamwidth.org/96400.html whenever I add a new book to the list.

[(Anonymous)]

You can't click on the link but if you copy and paste the link to the browser and hit enter then the browser will take you to the actual page with the books.

[kimberlysteele]

Hmm, that's annoying. Let's try THIS LINK TO THE LIBRARY'S AVAILABLE NONFICTION.

[(Anonymous)]

Hello Kimberly,

I’m curious as to your thoughts on hiring out much of etheric energy sort of household labor. Many of the women in my UMC enclave farm out childcare, house cleaning, and most of their meals. It seems to me this would be a harmful practice in many ways, including on a karma level seeing as so many of the lower class women who perform these labors are not compensated fairly or treated all that well.

[kimberlysteele]

I think it's a very bad idea to hire out your household labor unless it is essentially a special occasion: for instance, you're having a party, you're moving, or when you've got a huge mess. It is an especially bad idea to allow someone to clean your toilet or to raise your children. If you cannot keep your own toilet clean, you are saying to the powers that you're too good to mop up your own pee and poop and whatever other nasty things we leave in the toilet. If you cannot be bothered to raise your own children, you should never have chosen to have them or adopt them. It's a bit of a different situation when a woman has to put her kids in daycare because she must work to support her brood. If it is more of a choice to be away from them, well, it seems to be a good way of gaining the karma of neglecting a child, which is to become a neglected child in a future life unless the error is seen and corrected.

Much of the obscene unearned wealth enjoyed by a certain class of upper-middle suburbanites and elite city dwellers has so much awful karma attached to it, I would not touch it with a ten foot pole. I believe that when someone has unearned wealth, they have simply agreed to pay for it in a future lifetime, and that's why I run as fast as I can from unearned wealth most of the time. I would rather go swimming in piranha-infested waters than play the lottery. I'm nowhere near perfect, so I enjoy plenty of unearned wealth that I cannot possibly perceive, like most Americans. The world has always had plenty of poor people, so it is my belief that those who rode the upper 10-20 percent in this era of cheap petroleum will find themselves on the flipside, working themselves to death in favelas and being blown up in trenches until they understand why you don't sit at the top of a hoard of wealth someone else had to earn.

Library

[(Anonymous)]

Kimberly, I've been enjoying your columns for a while now (found you on Ecosophia).

This question is about the library: I have been keeping books that I consider excellent for a longtime. Now I'm old and getting my things in order and I'm giving my books away. Well, the exception is that I'm keeping those that I have not read and would like to. Most are going to the local library and then on to their 'friends' bookstore. Giving them a second chance, as it were. I do have a small collection of books that I have set aside for people who are making an effort to save some of what has made our culture so vibrant. Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm thinking that you are one of the aforementioned people.

Any way, sketchy foundation laid, I'm wanting to send a selection of the books to you for inclusion in your library. Titles include Darwin's Origin of Species and The Descent of Man, and the Voyage of the Beagle, Essays by G. Orwell, a few books by the Archdruid, a cookbook by F. Farmer, a first edition of Stuart Little and more. Hopefully you are interested in these books. If you can provide me with an email address I'll send a photo of the book spines so you can see all the titles on offer. Take what you think will enhance your collection.

I'll gladly box them up and ship to you at my expense. Best wishes to you.

Re: Library

[kimberlysteele]

Thanks so much! I'm glad to have you here.

Those sound like wonderful titles! I would like to hold off a little bit longer -- a few months. I have a lot of organizing to do and many titles needed to be added from my collection to my available list of books before I start accepting new books again.

Re: Library

[(Anonymous)]

I can understand that for sure. I'll check back in the late summer to see where you are with the library project. May 2025 be a wonderful year for you and many more beyond that too.

[(Anonymous)]

Happy Solstice! Thank you for sharing the great pictures of your sweet kitties, Kimberly. I am also impressed and inspired by the PVC cat tree. So clever and attractive.

Cheers, Heloise

[kimberlysteele]

Thank you! The days are getting longer now and it makes me so happy! Simple pleasures for simple minds LOL. Thanks, I will let my husband know. He does good work.