Is It Tuesday Already?

I feel like it's been months since I've rescued any cats.  The summer moves along, cats are dying in the shelters and those that manage to survive outside are little breeding machines.  With my life in "First World" chaos, those little needy faces in the shelter seem so far away from my life right now.

Yes, it's only temporary, but there doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day to do all that I need to do.  David comes home from dinner and we're back out all evening for either a house showing on the old house or to see how the renovations are moving along in the new house.  Like I said - "First World" problems.

I started reading a book while I was in the car waiting for our house to be shown.  It's called "The Bond" - "Our Kindship with Animals, Our Call to Defend Them" by Wayne Pacelle the President of The HSUS.  Regardless of what you think about the Humane Society of the United States or Wayne Pacelle, the book (so far) has been terrific.  He made sense of what I'm compelled to do.   At least my rescuing is limited to domestic animals.  There are people out there rescuing mountain lions.  It could be worse.  :)

Although our adoptions remain slow for July (compared to last year), I received a TERRIFIC adoption call on one of our adult cats today.  It was perfect and I'm praying that our "Minka" goes to a forever home soon.  She's a lovely girl, but certainly a "nothing special" 2 year old tabby.  I never get tired of these kind of adoption calls.

I'm so grateful that our volunteers have been patient with me. One of my biggest concerns is that they feel ignored or don't want to call me out of fear that they're bothering me.  Lately, almost every phone call or email from our volunteers have started out with, "I know you're really busy but....". 

The best thing I've done for myself lately is putting that message on the rescue's voicemail saying that "due to the high volume of unwanted discarded cats in the shelters, we're not accepting owner surrender cats at this time..."  I get ZERO calls from the public who want to dump their cats.  It's been a Godsend.  No more imbeciles asking me to take their 14 year old cat because they had a baby!  No more selfish assholes asking me to take their 10 year old black cat because they're moving.  It's wonderful to know that every time that phone rings it's somebody I *want* to speak with! 

My 30 minute daily naps are a thing of the past and I'm desperately overcaffeinated most of the time.  I probably look like a crack addict as my shaky caffeine induced hands put another cup of coffee up to my lips.  I fall into bed at night, steal the covers from David and hope that I can fall asleep quickly.  My mind is way too busy, but know that it's temporary thing. 

I haven't forgotten about the discarded cats at the shelter.  They still need me.  They still need us.