Open Post and Cat Pictures featuring Ash, Shadow, and their new Sister-Mom, Bee!

[kimberlysteele]

Shadow was the first cat I took into my house after the death of my beloved Kiki Koneko — he is actually the son of Miss Piggy, the feral who lives outside who I trapped, had spayed, and who still lives in my yard with Shadow’s twin brother Silhouette and his older brother, Tommy.





Ash (short for Ashley) was the brother I adopted for Shadow from the local Humane Society when I realized Shadow would never be happy as a solo cat as Kiki was. They get along great — nevertheless, their introduction to each other took about two weeks. Despite the fact Ash came from a shelter, I believe he is a purebred, specifically a Korat cat. Korats are known for their slim builds and gray fur. Ash had digestive problems when I adopted him, so I put him on a special diet of “novel” proteins: rabbit meat, venison, and duck, plus L-lysine and calendula supplements, and he no longer seems to have any digestive issues at all.





Bee, short for Kyoko Bee Jujube, is the latest addition to my feline family, which is now six cats if you count the three ferals who live outside! I was told Llttle Bee was five years old, but my student who is a veterinary tech and I both think she is far older and may be between 10-15. She is slowly acclimating to her new digs. She is a former feral from Feral Fixers of Lombard who went through a very rough time outside, was found without fur and with severe fleas, and who was rehabilitated both at the Feral Fixers center and with a foster family for over a year. It’s been about two weeks and unfortunately she was in rather poor health when I adopted her. I have her on several supplements, including Omega 3 fatty acids, Yummy Tummy (for digestion) and Cat Kryptonite (for adrenal fatigue) from NaturaPetz Organics. She seems to be responding well to supplementation and lots of her favorite wet food, gaining a tiny bit more energy and a slightly softer, shinier coat every day.

Comments

Bee

[(Anonymous)]

Hi Kimberly!

Bee looks like my recently deceased feral, Geranium. She lived to age 19, I’m proud to report, and her quality of life was great. She frolicked up to nearly the end. She hated all the other cats and drove them away from my bed, and barely tolerated the dog- probably because the dog was nearly ten times her weight, so Geranium knew enough to retreat from that battle.

I gave her a supplement from Standard Process, “Feline Whole Body Support.” It is dried plant and animal tissues. I’ve given it to aging or depleted rescued cats to good effect over the years. Most cats love it because it’s like a super yummy kibble they get twice a day.

If you’d like more info about getting it, please email me.

Annette

Re: Bee

[kimberlysteele]

Aww, Geranium, that's an adorable name. Thank you! LOL, driving all the other animals away... that sounds like Bee. I will email you about the supplement.

Bee

[(Anonymous)]

By the way, Bee looks great and what you are doing looks like it’s working well.

Annette

Re: Bee

[kimberlysteele]

Thank you! I hope so. Ash and Shadow are about as healthy as cats can be though neither of them started that way, so she's my next project.

[(Anonymous)]

I wonder how many people climbing aboard the "we need a christian theocracy" bandwagon are over the age of 35. I can't imagine many of them are if they remember the 80s or 90s.

[kimberlysteele]

I think they barely remember the 90s -- the halcyon days of their youths. Since many of them where helicopter-parented and molly coddled, it was a time when all seemed right in the world for them. They want a Christian theocracy to bring back their misremembered, one-size-does-not-fit-all bliss. They think the Handmaid's Tale utopia is not as bad as 1984. In some ways, Handmaid's Tale is worse.

[(Anonymous)]

Yay! And thanks for encouraging me to become a cat lady... I loooove them all. The fur shedding is insane! I'm chasing fleas with combs. Do you use diatomaceous earth for fleas, too?

X

Erika

[kimberlysteele]

Thank you for caring for so many of our kind! Yes, the fur. So much fur. I have giant hair and these cats shed more than I do... that is saying something. I have been blessed with flea-free cats at this point. If anyone else reading this has suggestions, they are welcome.

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you for sharing these great pictures. Bee looks like a wonderful cat. I'm so glad she found a good home.

I was having trouble with my diashwasher. It wasn't starting right away. Then I remembered reading here that you said you thanked your washing machine. So I thanked my dishwasher for doing the washing-up and told it how much I appreciated having clean dishes. It began to work immediately after. I have been thanking it regularly and it works well all the time now.

Thank you, Kimberly, for sharing with us.

Heloise

[kimberlysteele]

How fascinating! Thank you for that story, it made my week.

[(Anonymous)]

Does anyone else recall the housekeeping column “Hints from Heloise?”

It’s entertaining to have its mirror image here!

Annette

[(Anonymous)]

I have Heloise’s book.

—Princess Cutekitten

[kimberlysteele]

Yes, I absolutely remember her! I am honored to be compared to the great Heloise!

[(Anonymous)]

Hi, Kimberly, I hope you're still checking replies on this post. Did you see that AODA has a new member who is a self-initiated Luciferian? He's probably a perfectly nice guy, but I do not feel comfortable with "Left Hand Path" stuff, no matter what kind of libertarian spin is put on it. I've been feeling that AODA has drifted from the proudly weird anachronism it was when JMG revived it, into just one more left-leaning eclectic Pagan group...and now this. I'm seriously reconsidering my membership, and may be asking about it on your next Ogham reading post. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.

--Sister Crow

[kimberlysteele]

I am technically still a member of the AODA but I have not paid attention to anything they've been up to for at least five years. I joined in 2016 or so. If they're legitimizing a Luciferian Satanist, then yeah, I won't be able to recommend them to anyone as they've already been co-opted. The Temple of Set, the Church of Satan, and a laundry list of other groups would be a far better fit for a self-initiated Luciferian, as Satanism of that sort is actually atheism with an emphasis on self-worship, a.k.a. solipsism. It has no place in any kind of Druidry. Shame on whoever is running AODA right now and shame on whoever made the decision to let that guy in -- it's totally not OK to turn a good organization that was legitimately helping people to find their spiritual path into just another "get woke, go broke" story.

[(Anonymous)]

As a hard polytheist, I've never been entirely comfortable with the large numbers of non-theistic members, but I figured JMG was okay with them so I would exercise tolerance...but this is too far. I think allowing a Luciferian member is a hidden factor in why the Polytheistic Monasticism forum died, though I don't have a timeline to prove it.

[kimberlysteele]

Just found this:

https://aoda.org/aoda-membership/climate-anxiety-resources/

Climate anxiety... um, yeah. The article recommends a retreat into mindless platitudes, onanistic "awareness", and feel-good Deepak Chopra self-anesthesia. Looks like large chunks of AODA have lost the plot.

[kimberlysteele]

Especially sleazy is the recommended therapist list -- the whole thing begins to look like a cattle drive into the arms of well-intentioned members of the Cult of Psychotherapy. You know the sort: a nice, luxury office dweller who takes bespoke three week hiking vacations in Nepal and pretends to be able to relate to the problems of average people. From my experience, they charge about $120 per hour, and they don't even have the degree required to prescribe drugs. That's why they are so insistent on empty-mind, Eastern style meditation (in safe spaces, of course): it's a good substitute for a lobotomy.

[(Anonymous)]

Oh, good Gaia--I hadn't seen that article, but now I remember a very earnest "climate anxiety" thread on the forum that I'd ignored as much as humanly possible (things show up in Summary emails, which is how I found out about the Satanist). I also noticed on my last visit to the forum that members now can declare their pronouns in their profiles . Yet another good organization ruined by Woke...

[kimberlysteele]

Pronouns? Yeah, that smacks of demonic obsession, I'm guessing Paimon strikes again. Toxic femininity... ick. RIP AODA. What a waste!

[kimberlysteele]

Also, why do you think they would admit they let in a Luciferian Satanist in a Summary email? Are they proud of what they've done?

[(Anonymous)]

Hah, maybe they are--it proves how inclusive and progressive (progressive Pagandom having embraced demonology and slinging curses at its political enemies years ago) they are, does it not?

What's that old saying about not leaving your mind so open your brain falls out?

[kimberlysteele]

AODA used to have a hard rule about no politics in its message boards. How are pronouns non-political? Having a hard time wrapping my head around that one.

[(Anonymous)]

Oh no, it's not POLITICAL, it's simple common courtesy that allows our members to be comfortable in their identities! . The rule against politics has been stretched pretty darn thin in the "Shelter from the Storm", "Climate Grief" and other ostensibly ecological threads, all on the left of course. I certainly don't recall any posts about the importance of hunting and fishing for Druids, that's for sure (says the vegan to the other vegan, but you know what I mean).

I also don't remember any announcement about the pronoun option, so it might have been added without fanfare, but I'm sure anyone who might object has either left the forum already, or had their posts, like the Snark, softly and suddenly vanished away.

I keep forgetting to sign my posts, all of these replies have been Sister Crow.

[kimberlysteele]

What's "Shelter from the Storm"? I have not been keeping up with whatever they've been dishing out, clearly...

I have noticed that I'm nowhere near as intolerant and uppity towards hunters/fishers as I used to be. If someone is going to eat animals, and we know most people are not about to stop eating them, it is far better when they go out and directly kill the animal themselves and skin, gut, and bone the carcass themselves. My brother hunts deer on a farmer friend's property, and in the area where he hunts, deer have become overpopulated for lack of predators such as bear and coyote. There's always that vegan who is like "NOBODY NEEDS TO HUNT ANYONE EVER" but that is usually the kind of rabid vegan who approves of forcing a plant based diet on a cat, or who secretly wants domestic cats to go extinct. I knew such a vegan who was entirely ambivalent about the quaxxines, by the way, not even stopping for one second to consider that every quaxx was tested on animals and that the people pushing it were behind Beaglegate, that episode where the government used taxpayer dollars for torturing little dogs with sandflies. Selective blindness is truly amazing!