To Question or Not to Question

I may have heard it wrong.

A few days I was at a veterinarian office picking up some medication for our little pussy cat.  While waiting to be waited on, I heard a fellow patron  before me asking why her bill was so high.   Her kitty's night out got  herself a very nasty lick from a neighborhood raccoon.    And it would cost  $282 plus change  to keep the kitty well.

And I cannot  believe what came next.  After the cat owner's questioning, another staff decided to recheck this  higher than expected bill and told the cat owner indeed there was a mistake in the bill.  Instead it should be  around $160 some dollars.  

Normally, I do not always ask or check the bills that were being  presented to me for payment.  But from what I witnessed at the pet hospital that day, perhaps the time has come that I should be more diligent on questioning or checking the bills before I pay them.  -  Ayee

Birds in the Bottle

A few days ago, there was a picture in the news paper* that spoke badly of  the people who involved in this shenanigan for a few bucks.   According to the notes  below the picture, someone got caught at the airport for smuggling 22 endangered white cockatoos from Indonesia.   The smuggler stuffed the live contra bands in plastic water bottles.

I do not know if these beautiful birds had survived the ordeal.  But it is hard to fathom why someone would conceive such heinous and inhumane means to transport these beautiful  birds.    It looks like the smuggler of these exotic beings failed to see there are already thousands of tropical birds for sale in the pet shops around us.  So  there is really no need to bring in more  wild birds to glut the market.

At any rate, I am so pleased to see the culprit got caught for committing such cruelty on animals.  I certainly hope the penalty in this case will be severe enough to deter others to harm innocent wild life. -  Ayee

*The Globe and Mail, page A3,  May 6th, 2015

Aloe Vera and Shingles

The frequent television commercials on shingles vaccines led me to think maybe shingles cases are on the rising.  Fortunately, at this time no one in the family or any of our friends had contracted this chickenpox related ailment.

But years ago, two of our elderly friends got this insidious malaise in their 80s.  To soothe the painful and itchy blisters and the rash, both of them applied a paste made of Aspirin tablets onto the blistered area.  No one knew where they got this remedy for shingles.  But what they used to cure this torturous skin condition seemed to be working for both of them.

Even though we were not there to discuss herbal remedies, at a recent community lunch, aloe vera, a succulent desert plant, briefly became the topic of our causal conversation.  Among us there were a couple of former shingles patients.  Both of them attested to the great relief the lotion made of this spiky cactus had given to them when they were troubled by shingles.

We all know many skin care products, even some foods, are made with aloe vera.  The jelly like flesh of this humble plant has been used on burn victims.  I had also read about a breast cancer patient who included aloe vera lotion in her care package when she was under radiation treatment.  -  Ayee

One More Way to Make Me Lucky!

"You will always be lucky if you know how to make friends with strange cats."*

A Colonial American Proverb

From Catman of Parliament Hill, Great Cat Stories, Roxanne Willems Snopek, 2004

It must be my lucky day when I found this unusual quote from the stacks of books I helped recycled.  Following what it was suggested in this old saying, now I get another excuse to make friends with "strange" or not too "strange" cats.

This old proverb also reminded me of a cat I used to know.

Many years ago when I was still in school, I had rent a room near where my school and work place were.  During those trying student years at the rental home, I made friends with my land lord's Siamese cat.  In countless evenings when I was studying at home, Junior, would come to visit.  But this noble cat in a smooth brownish fur coat was never a bother.  All I had to do for him was letting him sleep in one of the drawers of my desk.  So he could make up the beauty sleep he missed when patrolling the "Palace" during the day.  When the study session was over, so was his visit.

Now in retrospect, I think at that time Junior must be my much needed lucky charm that I did not know I had.  Instead of cat furs, Junior's nightly visit brought me a secure and peaceful feeling that I had never sensed before.  With him snoozing in my desk drawer near me, the soft and constant purring sound from that makeshift cat basket made me feel safe and not alone thousands of miles away from my home.  - Ayee

Keep Mr. Alzheimer Away (II)

The following is what the Japanese people do to ward off dementia.*

1.  Start each day with a glass of warm water.
2.  Drink at least three glasses of fresh fruit or vegetable juice each week.
3.  Cook own meals.  Meal planning is a taxing matter that requires extra brain power.
4.  Always have some dark chocolate handy to enjoy during the day.
5.  Walk 30 minutes a day.
6.  Sit in the sun for 15 minutes per day.
7.  Keep body weight down to reduce the possibility of being diabetic or suffering hypertension.
8.  Avoid soda pops and any processed foods.
9.  Do exercises that induce perspiration.
10. Leave the CD player on with music or inspiring speech while taking a short break lying down or sitting.
11.  Include sliced raw onions in salads.
12. Do not have any food after 8/9 PM.

-   Ayee

*This is from an Internet posting in Chinese.  Author unknown.   

MAN ARRESTED FOR FEEDNG CATS!

I do not have all the details on this Internet posting.

According to the photo that came with this piece of the unsettling news, a squeaky clean 76-year old gentleman in the picture was in jail for feeding cats.  And one of the animal welfare groups is helping him fighting the laws.

It looks like this is another case of a good intention turned terribly wrong.  There must be a  good intention behind such a law that forbids citizen taking care of homeless animals, most likely the stray dogs and cats.  To me using the jaws of the laws to thaw the kindness of the other is not the "right"  solution.  Perhaps thousands of dollars needed to enforce the law can be spent on better care of the animals which  are currently  under the government's care.

We all know both private and tax dollar-funded animals shelters are inundated with thousands of lost and sick animals.  Based on what I saw on how some of the strays were handled, I think some of them would be better off remaining in the neighborhood to fend for themselves.  Furthermore, because the animal shelters are so crowed, I see nothing wrong when the public, like this senior citizen, took  the task in his own hands  to care for the neighborhood strays.  -  Ayee

To Keep the Slate Clean

New Year again brought me spring fever. I, like many other years, decided to de-clutter a bit. This year the first item on my bucket list was a used computer that I bought from my former work place. The computer with an operating system dated back to the early 90's did not have the latest bells and whistles. But it continued providing me with reliable services for several years. It also survived our moves to two new neighborhoods. Maybe it is for nostalgic reasons that I did not recycle it right away when I was given a new desk-top. Instead of recycling the old one I had, I stowed it away under my computer desk as a foot-warmer. Since it did not in any way take up extra storage space, I had left the old computer there until just a few days ago.

And there was another personal reason why I was not in the hurry to recycle this dated machine: 

Because I did not know how to empty the thousands of bytes and bits of information that I had saved in my computer’s hard drive.

I also do not know if it had actually happened to people who had given away their old computers or other smart gadgets without the due care, and became victims of identity-theft I did, however, hear someone enlisted a hammer to render their old machines useless. Since I do not like to smash things, and was not able to find help in books, for many years, I had passively waited for my Eureka moment. But that moment never come.

Luckily, once again my dear family members came to my rescue. And with a simple command* and a few strokes, my old computer became squeaky clean and ready to be recycled at our friendly neighborhood store. - Ayee

*In my case, I used "format c: " to do the job.