Kimberly Steele

You can probably guess that I did not watch the Oscars Saturday night. I did not know about the Will Smith/Chris Rock kerfuffle until Sunday afternoon, and that's only because my husband heard about it through his social media feeds.

Something about the slap does not seem to be kosher. On the surface, one star gets incensed that the other star insulted his woman. The star doing the slapping just happens to be the It Boy, winning his first Oscar after decades on small and big screens. The It Boy happens to be a long-suffering cuckold whose domestic partner openly admitted to cheating on him in at least one major interview. Or so it would seem. There have been longstanding rumors that Jada Pinkett Smith is a beard, despite their children being conceived the usual way.

The real trouble for the Oscars and mainstream media in general is nobody is watching. The Oscars supposedly rallied and drew a larger audience this year after years of declining ratings. I have my doubts: I think the Oscars supposedly higher ratings are about as real as the record turnout for Biden in the 2020 elections. With every other Oscar winner being implicated or connected to Pedogate scandals while CRT and the woke agendas to pervert the development of six year olds rage on in public schools, the public has largely tuned out televised award ceremonies that rich people use to reward other rich people. Actors and singers we once turned to in order to be entertained are not entertaining. They're part of the darkness and oppression of woke culture. They're a drag. They're part of odious censorship and "I'm OK, you're OK, nothing to see here" propaganda. They're worse than boring. They're potentially evil. Regardless of whether or not it was real, I see the amplification of the Jada, Will, and Chris drama as a lame attempt to stir interest in a dying model of entertainment. Tune in next year to see who is assaulting who... that's the hoped-for response. Yawn.

Please refrain from swear words on this post. Other than that, have at it!

Hi Everyone, I am so sorry that I am not able to do the usual Ogham readings this week.  I am closing down my commercial space and I find myself too busy and distracted. I promise this is temporary and I will be reading Ogham next week on Sunday night as usual. This week will be an Open Post. Please feel free to discuss almost anything, but keep in mind I do not publish profanity.

Hi Everyone, feel free to comment on anything and everything... but please refrain from curse words. Thank you.

It has been a month of cat drama for me. After having to put my beloved Kiki down in July, I "adopted" one of my feral kittens, Shadow, from the back yard. Since he let me touch him and pet him while eating, I picked him up in late July, put him in a carrier, and took him to the veterinarian. He had a bad flu and was scrawny. The vet confirmed he was wormy, gave him some meds and immunizations, and we were on our way. The original plan was to let him go in the yard again once his kitty flu was gone and he was old enough to neuter.

Shadow is the son of Miss Blondie Piggy, a feral who has been frequenting the house since we moved in and started feeding the neighborhood animals. Piggy was the bane of our local trap neuter release person because she had litters of kittens year after year and could not be caught. In July I bought and started trapping with a Tomahawk drop trap. It did the trick: I caught Piggy within ten minutes of setting the trap out. After I caught her, the TNR person got her spayed. We had hopes of keeping her in the house because she seems to like me. Here's a photo of her briefly in my house. She was not happy!



Piggy jumped at the window, hoping it was open, and nearly taking these blinds down in the process.



Because it wasn't working out, I set Piggy free. By the next morning she was back in the yard, eating.

Then it was time to catch the last of my colony: Shadow's twin brother, Silhouette.



Unlike his brother, Silhouette never let me come near him. I drop box trapped him about a week after his mom was returned home. All went well until I took him to the same vet where his brother had been healed. We got to the vet, he let me handle him for about a minute, then he got spooked and bit my hands severely.

Luckily I treated my hands in time, thanks again to the TNR person's advice. I soaked my injured hands in very warm Betadine water (water with lots of Betadine in it) for 20 minutes 3 times a day for several days. I also got some antibiotics from my husband's doctor the next day.

My hands healed within about a week.

Little Silhouette, like his mother, was also unfit for indoor life. I turned him over to my TNR person and she got him neutered. Within a week, he too was back in the yard, eating breakfast and dinner every day.

Tommy (orange kitty) is also Miss Piggy's son. He was one of my first captures, and was the second feral to let me touch him and pet him. The first one was a gray and white cat I named Sir Puss in Boots, and he let me pet him one day and would cry for me outside the door every morning and night after that, wanting to be fed, played with, and touched. The only reason I didn't take him inside was because Kiki was still alive and she had always been a solitary cat who wanted me all to herself. Sir Puss and Boots disappeared one day, never to be seen by me again. I believe he was one of the renter neighbor's cats and they moved away. Please keep him in your prayers.

This is Tommy, who loves to play with Kiki's old toys and to be petted.

Shadow is doing really well inside the house.  He's inquisitive, bold, funny, mischievous, and fearless.  He can be quite a brat and has gotten a few time outs.  Overall, he's a sweet boy.  He was just neutered last Tuesday.  He did calm down a bit with the neuter.  He still has mad kitten energy.  I pity the mice who try to get into the house this winter...