Quislings, Misanthropes, and Narcissistic Personality Disorder

First, let's start with a few definitions:

Quisling: traitor. Traitor: one who betrays another's trust or is false to an obligation or duty. (Source: Merriam-Webster Online)

Misanthrope: a person who hates or distrusts humankind (Source: Merriam-Webster Online)

Narcissistic Personality Disorder: A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:

1. has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)
   
2. is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
   
3. believes that he or she is "special" and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)
   
4. requires excessive admiration
   
5. has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations
   
6. is interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends
   
7. lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others
   
8. is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her
   
9. shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes

(Source: American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)

The Quisling. Laws are for the protection of society in general, and written contracts are for business dealings. In social groups, however - and particularly in closed social groups - laws and contracts do not apply. The binding agent in such a social group is honor, a commitment and a tacit promise not to violate the trust which holds the group together. It is dishonorable - indeed, it is morally bankrupt - to breech that trust, to break that tacit promise. Someone who breaks their word - whether given directly or tacitly - should expect consequences for such an act. Anger. Distrust. Loss of esteem and good will. The more egregious the group perceives the breech to be, the more long-lasting and widespread the consequences are likely to be.

The Misanthrope. It is no wonder the misanthrope finds herself on the fringes of society. The unwavering hatred for human beings (clearly evident in attitude and in unfailing incivility), and the belief that any and every animal - even one that's clearly a threat to the safety and well-being of humans - is superior to humans, does not engender admiration, respect, or even liking from those humans. Someone who neither likes nor respects other human beings should not expect liking or respect in return. Someone who speaks to other people with vitriol should not be surprised when they are responded to in kind.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder needs no further elaboration. I leave you to your own observations and conclusions. (It's really rather fascinating, when one can observe it objectively.)

I truly admire those who can turn the other cheek, even when directly and repeatedly beset. Unwavering pacifism, however, is not one of my virtues. I am but an imperfect human; I neither claim, nor aspire to, sainthood. Does that demonstrate weakness? Perhaps. A low reactivity threshhold? Certainly. Poke me, I poke back. That is both an acknowledgement and a promise.

The Death of the Compassionate Response

Compassion: sympathetic consciousness of others' distress together with a desire to alleviate it. (source: Merriam-Webster Online)

When did it become acceptable to kick someone when they're down? It's not like it hasn't happened before, it has. For years there have been some people who've taken the opportunity of someone's loss to take them to task for how that loss happened - or didn't happen soon enough, in some cases - or how they responded to it, or how they feel about it. But those displays of a total absence of empathy came from people we knew were empathetically-impaired, from people who are unable to see things from any perspective other than their own, and they didn't happen all that often. Today, it happens frequently, and it makes me angry.

What's the purpose in telling someone with a dead kitten what they should have done? Especially someone who's not stupid, who learns from everything she reads and experiences and who retains that knowledge, who is perfectly capable of administering competent first aid, who is perfectly capable of making sound decisions for the animals in her care, and who has done some pretty amazing things with the very limited resources available to her. Someone who's saved a lot more lives than she's lost. How does telling her what one thinks she should have done, castigating her for not doing it, express empathy or even sympathy in any way? How could anyone consider such a response to be compassionate?

Whatever happened to a simple "I'm so sorry for your loss"? Why is that so difficult, if not impossible, for some people to say? Where is their compassion for another human being's pain? (Though I seriously wonder, sometimes, if some of those people ever had any compassion in the first place.) When did it become more important to beat someone up for the circumstances of a loss than to express sympathy for the loss itself, and the accompanying grief?

(And let's not even get started on someone who'll jump into something because they see it as a platform to advance their own agenda. They're the lowest of the low, in my opinion.)

Strong, knowledgeable, compassionate voices have been stilled by such behavior. They've left the community rather than suffer repeated ill treatment. The loss of that knowledge and compassion has been huge, the void unfillable, not only for the remaining community members themselves but for the animals in their lives. It's a damn shame.

Grow, Little Plants, Grow!

For better or worse, the garden's basically done. I finished planting seedlings tonight - the rest of the peppers, the three yellow bean plants, the sugar baby watermelons - and planted seeds for the rest of the vegetables. Green beans, Lima Beans, Zucchini, curly lettuce, Bibb lettuce (I put the lettuces in the shadier spots), regular cukes and lots of pickling cukes. I have some room left along the fence in a couple of places, I'll plant dill there, some marigolds, and some straw flowers if there's room. I've got basil to plant in among the tomatoes. That should just about do it for the garden proper. (Oh! I forgot! I need to get pumpkin seeds! I can get those in the morning.)

If it's still cool and not rainy when I get home from dropping Simon off to be neutered, I'll get the weeds pulled from the raised bed and plant some flower seeds in there. Snapdragons in the middle, some Bachelor Buttons, and I'll have to see what else I have, I've got packets and packets of flower seeds that I either picked up 10/$1 or even 25/$1 plus a bunch that were given to me. I need to finish up the planters, too, and I should be able to get those done tomorrow. I have to remember to put my morning glory seeds in a dish to soak overnight tomorrow, and Thursday I'll plant them on the outside of the pool fencing. Those, plus the plastic tarp on the inside of that fence, ought to make a pretty decent privacy screen.

It's supposed to get very warm again, starting tomorrow. At least the heavy work is done, and after I get the raised bed planted tomorrow I can do just about everything else in the shade. That includes cleaning up my poor messy, dirt-y patio, and getting the party lights hung up. I bought a very cool pink paper globe shade on clearance over the winter, and I picked up an extension cord and a couple of bulbs for it on Saturday, so I want to get that hung up. And I have two sets of string lights that have pink, burgundy, and white paper globe shades that I want to hang along the front edge of the patio roof. I put one set together and stapled it up there, but I missed with one of the staples and it punctured the wire, so I need to splice that first, and then put the second set together. And this time I'm going to make little "tags" out of strips of duct tape and I'll staple the duct tape to the wood instead of the wire itself this time.

I want to get my pool up, too. You know, by the time I get everything finished, it's going to be the 4th of July.

I was standing out on the patio one day last week when a male ruby-throated hummer flew up and hovered a couple of feet in front of me; I figured maybe he didn't know about the feeder out front so I picked up another hummingbird feeder on Saturday to replace the one that goes in the back. I ran over it in my garage this winter (it fell off a shelf) and smashed it to smithereens. The one I got to replace it has the same feeder base as the one in front, but it's got a purple tulip-shaped reservoir instead of a red trumpet-shaped one. I got it cleaned, filled, and hung out this afternoon. Both feeders were seeing action this evening. I love the little hummers!

Lily Goes Home

I was sitting here when my doorbell rang, and when I looked out the window it was John who used to live next door. When I opened the door he said "I'm here to get my dog!"

I had told him to ask his new landlord about letting them keep the dog. I told him to tell the landlord that she's quiet, she's kept inside when they're gone, and she's always crated when left alone. To tell the landlord that Lily's a really good girl, and not going to do any property damage or cause any problems with the neighbors. I'm glad he finally worked up the fortitude to do it.

She was so excited to see him she couldn't stop spinning. She did stop briefly, though, turning to me and coming up on her hind feet - which she never does, I taught her to sit for me when she was just a little stinker and she's been very good about never jumping on me - to give me a kiss and let me give her a big hug.

Oh! I'm so happy Lily gets to go home to her family!

And I'm glad to have one less dog here, and one less dog to worry about having altered. Simon's going in tomorrow; once he's done, everyone will be fixed and vaccinated for rabies and my pocket will get a break.

Now, if the damn county would just get around to returning my spay/neuter deposits, I'd be a happy woman. They've had the paperwork on Toby for 5 weeks already and I still haven't seen a check. I'll be turning in the paperwork on Nellie, Lacey, and Simon tomorrow. That'll be $200 they owe me.

An Open Letter To My Brother

I wish you'd reconsider your decision to declaw Lucy. She is already using her mouth - whether in play, or to make a point. Amputating her toes, removing her defenses, may very well result in Lucy becoming an aggressive biter. Quite apart from my feelings about the issue, I think declawing this particular cat is a big mistake, that it's going to result in aggressive biting. I hope not, but my instinct (and people pay for my instinct, both as an experienced owner/rescuer and as an animal communicator) tells me that it's going to have that result with Lucy. Will you then have her teeth pulled?

A few facts:

• cats are digitigrade, meaning they walk on their toes. Toes go down first, then the back of the foot. Removing the last digit of their toes permanently alters the way they walk and can lead to severe arthritis when they're older.
  
• declawing is considered inhumane, and is illegal in much of Europe, South America, and in Australia. And a growing number of cities in the U.S. are making it illegal, too.
  
• laser surgery merely limits bleeding and inflammation at the time of surgery, the long-term consequences of toe amputation remain the same
  
• Declawing is so painful that drug companies testing the effectiveness of pain killers use declawed cats as subjects.

When there are so many alternatives available to eliminate scratching as a problem - Soft Paws (plastic nail caps, Lucy would look pretty cool with hot pink or purple toes!), keeping the claws blunt (takes less than a minute to clip a cat's claws), training, Sticky Paws (double-sided sticky tape sheets), or even a Scat Mat or Scat Strip (electrified mat or strip you put where you don't want the cat walking or scratching, gives them a little shock, like static electricity) - declawing is strictly for owner convenience. Unlike spaying, or neutering, there is no benefit to the cat.

Would you have a dog declawed? Why not, what's the difference? Would you fail to train a dog to stop engaging in unwanted behaviors? They why would you fail to train your cat?

With all the clawed cats in this house, there's only one spot where they scratch inappropriately (i.e. not on one of their many scratching posts, boards, poles, pads, etc.) - one arm of my already cosmetically-challenged sofa. The reason they still scratch in that spot is because I've done nothing to discourage it. If I'd put a scratching post in front of that sofa arm, or covered it with Sticky Paws, they'd have learned not to scratch there, too. A Scat Mat or Scat Strip would have worked, too. (Oh yeah, they shredded the edges of a plastic table cloth that hung over the table. They sat on the chair seats under the table and batted at the table cloth. Big whoop.)

Please take the time to read this article: http://declaw.lisaviolet.com/declawdrjean2.html It's not by some crazy cat lady, it's by Dr. Jean V. Hofve DVM, a cat-only vet who's very well-known and very well-respected in the feline fancy. And please re-think your decision to have Lucy declawed.

Hah! Gotcha!

I looked up from the computer to see Snickers sitting about 3 feet away, watching me. Looking up at Spooky lounging on the table, then looking back at me. So I coaxed Spooky off the table onto the floor for skritches and Snickers came right up. I skritched Spooky's head then moved my hand over to Snickers and started petting. Spooky jumped back up on the table, Snickers stayed on the floor. Under my hand. Turning around and coming back for more. Tilting his head so I had better access to under his chin. Standing rock still while I reached underneath and tickled his tummy. None of his "I know you're touching me but I'm pretending you're not" schtick today, in his wary way he was actually asking for petting. He stayed for probably 5 minutes, without his "beard", who was back up on the table having a snack.

Heh. Heh, heh, heh. Hah, hah, hah! Gotcha!! Bwahahahahahaha!!!!

Slowly But Surely

My planting is coming along slowly but surely. I picked up 3 more cubic yards of a lightweight potting mix and one cubic yard of Miracle Gro garden soil this afternoon. I mixed some of the MG garden soil into the potting mix, we'll see if that makes any difference. I also picked up 9 small wastebaskets and 4 16"-diameter grey plastic buckets to use as planters. I had two 3-cell packs of peppers and two 4-cell packs of peppers - jalapenos, habaneros, red and green sweet peppers - so I planted all but one of each variety into 6 of the wastebaskets and 4 laundry-detergent-bottle planters from last summer. The remaining 4 plants, one of each variety, will go into the garden Monday. I had four 4-cell packs of red and white petunias, I planted 4 in each of two of the plastic buckets and 4 in a pot I had that was basically the same size, then planted 2 each into two more of the wastebaskets. I have one small wastebasket left, I'll probably plant some Verbena in that. I also have two buckets left - more verbena. I also picked up 4 more fence hangars for 6" pots, and the last 4 begonias will go into them and all 8 begonias (4 white, 4 pink) will hang on the patio fence on the inside where the dogs won't get them. I did a bigger pot with 4 begonias in it, that's out front by the light pole. I still have some impatiens to plant, those are going on my patio shelf and in hanging baskets. And I have the rest of the verbena, I'm not sure yet where I'm going to plant them.

I picked up the last of my tomatoes today. I wanted another Cherokee Purple, because I didn't start seeds indoors this year using seeds I saved from last year. I may try starting one directly in a "pot" (probably a wastebasket) and see if it can catch up, but maybe not. I picked up two Red Brandywines (heirlooms), something called a Sunset (orangey-red on the top fading down to yellow on the bottom of the tomato) and an Early Girl (fruit in 51-60 days, a whole month before the others). I got all 4 of those into the garden this evening. The lumberyard was closed, I'll have to wait until Monday to get the cages for them. (I'm not going to fiddle around with staking this year, I'm going to get re-usable wire cages for $1.69 each.)

I also got the hanging pole for my hanging tomatoes - went to Lowe's and got a 10' length of 3/4" galvanized pipe, had them cut it to 8'. Tomorrow, I'm going to work on building the two uprights that'll hold the pipe. I'm short a few 3" wood screws so I won't be able to finish it until the lumberyard opens again on Monday, but then I should be able to finish it and hang the buckets. When it's all done I'll take pics.

While I was sitting here having coffee this morning, Spooky walked up and asked to be petted. Right behind him came Snickers. He looked up at me, then walked up to headbutt Spooky while casually placing his body where I could reach it. So I reached over and started to skritch, which he thoroughly enjoyed. We played this game for 10 minutes, Snickers pretending he didn't know I was petting him but coming back again and again for more. He was so transparent I had to bite my cheek to keep from laughing out loud. I suspect he's going to be a major lover one of these days, but I'm going to have to play by his rules to get him there. That's OK, I can't even tell you how thrilled I am that he's giving me these opportunities to pet him, and I'm willing to be patient and wait for the day he actually asks to be touched.

Irenie's a terrific mom. She's doing such a good job that I cuddle the babies a couple of times a day so they get handled, but I haven't had to spend much time in there with them. I make time for a couple of cuddle sessions with Irenie, too, and tell her how proud I am that she's doing such a good job. This little window of quiet time will be coming to an end shortly, though; they'll be a week old tomorrow and they should start opening their eyes soon. Then the fun starts!

Plugging Along

12:30 am:

Well, I worked in the garden tonight and made some real progress. I'm probably halfway done with the cultivating, and the rest should be easier because it's just weeds, not wheat. Yes, wheat. Last year I used straw to cover the walkways in the garden to prevent weeds from growing. The problem is that there was still some seed attached to that straw, and I had wheatgrass-covered walkways in the garden last year. It didn't get real tall because I kept walking on it, and it didn't appear to be interfering with anything I was deliberately growing, so I left it alone. This spring, the remaining wheat sprouted and started to grow and it's already a couple of feet tall with almost mature seed heads. It really clings to the dirt, it's very hard to uproot. But I've gotten most of it out of there now and the weeds that are left have shallow roots and will be easy to pull out.

I got 4 tomato plants into the ground, duplicates of the ones I planted in the buckets to hang upside down. The 4 varieties are Bonny's Best (which produces a deep red, 1/2 pound fruit), Lemon Boy (deep yellow fruit), Pik Red (4 oz. fruits), and a Roma. I also put one of each variety into pint-sized cardboard ice cream containers so they'd have a little more root room and will last until Tammy can take them home and plant them. Yesterday I cut out one cell of each of the 4 varieties and then put those cells into an empty 4-cell seedling pot and took them to a woman I met in my Wednesday class (which finished, for me, last Wednesday); I'd offered my extras to my classmates and this woman said she'd appreciate them. So I'm done with tomatoes. For now. Got a couple of less-urgent seedlings that can wait until Saturday or Sunday.

I didn't do the watermelon, beans, or extra peppers tonight. I'm going to try to get them in tomorrow morning before it gets too warm to work comfortably. (I was half blind from sweat dripping onto my glasses and into my eyes tonight, I ended up having to push my glasses down on my nose and look over the top of them to make sure I'd done what I thought I'd done while peering through what felt like gallons of sweat. Yecch.) I did get some variegated deep orchid and white impatiens into the little half-barrel planter in the middle of the front of the house, on what used to be the front stoop, as I passed it on my trips from the garden to the seedlings or the water. And I'll do some more container planting tomorrow morning too, I can sit in the shade on my patio.

Then I'll have a shower and a quick lunch, catch Dudley, and head off to Mom's and, from there, off to my sis's for my brother's 50th birthday dinner.

I planted one pot of purple and white Alyssum for my mom when I did a hanging basket with the same combination for me. I'm not sure the spot where she wants it will get enough sun, though, so I'm going to plant another pot the same size with Impatiens and take them both to her tomorrow. I'll be able to check the amount of light that spot gets and put the appropriate pot there and find a good spot (either shadier or sunnier, depending) for the other one. I've also done one hanging basket with a smaller variety of white Verbena, and two with just white impatiens of a variety that likes a little more sun than most impatiens. I put the Verbena out front with the Alyssum basket, and the two white Impatiens on the hooks on the light pole in the back yard, one on the yard side of the fence and one on the pool enclosure side of the fence. (I'm planning on getting my pool up early next week, too.) I still have a couple more hanging baskets of Impatiens to do, both the sun-loving white and the shade-loving variegated, and I'll have a few left over for the patio shelf. I still have to pot the Begonias (to hang from the inside of the patio fence), and the red-and-white petunias and the rest of the Verbena in the raised bed.

Speaking of the raised bed, I've got a German Chamomile hedge in there now! From organic seeds I planted there last year that never grew. They were the first non-bulb plant to break ground this spring, and now I've got a very thick row of them along the front of the raised flower bed. They're dense, and they're loaded with flower buds, some just beginning to open. Go figure. Now I can't tell if the other green things in the raised bed are weeds, or more Lazarus stuff from last year's seeds that didn't grow. I think one of those 'weeds' might be the organic Tarragon I planted last year. I'll have to go look up pictures and compare, before I go pulling stuff out.