Merry Christmas! :)
Posted on Thursday, December 25, 2008
Just in case you didn't make my Christmas card list this year, here are my three card designs for 2008. Clicking each of the cards will bring you to my Flickr site, which should display the images a little clearer for you to read.
The first was received by most of my friends and family, and stars a few protesting snowpeople:
The second was received by only my Tabby's Place friends, and stars my favorite little lady, Spring. She's a former Tabby's Place resident, and has been my little girl for almost a year:
Finally, this is my card starring the amazing Cindy Claus. Cindy Claus is famous with my old Hunterdon County Democrat friends (especially poor Cindy...), and this is her second year on my homemade card for my work friends. This card went out to all of my old HC Democrat friends (most of whom were so rudely laid off a few months ago).
:( Socks the cat is near death :(
Posted on Friday, December 12, 2008 From US News & World Report:
We have some bad news today on the presidential pet front. Socks the cat, probably the most photographed presidential kitty in history, has cancer and isn't expected to live. "His days are numbered," says Barry Landau, a friend of Socks' master, Betty Currie. Landau, a presidential historian and author of The President's Table, tells our Suzi Parker that the Currie family could have put Socks on feeding tubes, but decided against it. "They fear he is too old," adds Landau, who is writing a book on presidential inaugurations. And a second source told us that Socks is gravely ill.
Recall that Currie, who lives in Southern Maryland and was Bill Clinton's personal secretary, took Socks after the Democrats left office. At the time, Hillary Clinton had been elected to the Senate and Bubba was moving to New York to run his foundation.
In recent years, Socks has been hanging out at Currie's Hollywood, Md., home and sometimes making guest appearances. But since we last wrote about Socks, his conditions have worsened and included weight loss and kidney problems. Southern Maryland Newspapers Online did a wonderful story about this last year, quoting Currie's husband Bob saying what lots of us pet owners say: Socks "lives better than I do."
Linda Kulman, who ghost wrote Hillary Clinton's book, Dear Socks, Dear Buddy: Kids's Letters To First Pets, was saddened by the news, telling me, "He is the last of his kind." For the book, Kulman, says she "spent time" with Socks and Clinton's first pup Buddy. "He was nothing but a gentleman. He was elegant and a perfect resident of the White House." She adds, "he won't soon be replaced."
The Clintons adopted Socks in 1991, when Bill was still governor of Arkansas. Neither the Curries nor the Clintons had immediate comment.
New Arrival!
Posted on Tuesday, October 28, 2008 Paralyzed kitten from Ohio finds home in Ringoes Tabby's Place looks forward to kitten's arrival Saturday By ANGELA TOWNSEND, Tabby's Place
A cat sanctuary dedicated to rescuing cats from hopeless situations is taking in its second paraplegic feline, in a tale that spans three states.
Just three months after finding an adoptive home for Bagheera, a large black cat others considered "unadoptable" for his paraplegia and incontinence, Tabby's Place: a Cat Sanctuary is providing a haven for Tashi, a paralyzed and incontinent kitten.
Fearing that Tashi would be euthanized at most shelters, volunteers from Cat Welfare who discovered him in an Ohio feral cat colony partnered with Colony Cats, another Columbus, OH-based group, to contact Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Utah for help. While Best Friends' own "Incontinental Suite" had no vacancies, its members offered high praise for Tabby's Place in the Ringoes section of East Amwell, a no-kill, cage-free, 7,000 square foot sanctuary for cats in desperate circumstances. And so Tashi's journey ultimately led over 400 miles east, to Ringoes.
Like every cat at Tabby's Place, Tashi will have a home for life at the sanctuary if he is not adopted. However, the August 2008 adoption of "Bags" (the sanctuary's nickname for Bagheera) leads Tabby's Place Founder and Executive Director Jonathan Rosenberg to declare, "anything is possible." Having provided three years of loving, labor-intensive care for Bagheera, Tabby's Place is grateful to have the skilled team and facilities required to care for another disabled cat.
Tashi is scheduled to arrive at Tabby's Place with one of his devoted Ohio caretakers on Saturday, Nov. 1. Once at the sanctuary, he will receive highly specialized care, hydrotherapy to support any remaining motility in his rear legs, and abundant love from Tabby's Place's staff and volunteers, who all eagerly await the arrival of this "Baby Bags."
