I have to start out tonight's blog with the fascinating feudal system I encountered today while visiting my wife's grandmother in Red Oak. She lives right across the street from a vet I had the opportunity to frequent (briefly) whose diagnostic and medical skills I find questionable - it's a small world, huh?
Now, as a disclaimer, her grandmother is:
A) a popular drop-off location for abandoned animals, particularly cats, so get the crazy cat-lady notion out of your head.
Not Her.
B) for a woman possessing 14 cats, there is not a litterbox to be seen or smalled, and the house has no offensive odor whatsoever. Quite obviously, she's a miracle worker of some sort.
Kind of, but older.
Anyway, Toni's grandmother has approx. 14 cats, broken down into the following caste:
I. Barn Cats - these are outdoor cats that get food & basic medical care. Their primary job is vermin control. They are a hardy class of feline residing only in the barns located on the property. Estimated Number: 4
II. Porch Cats - these cats who may occupy either the back or the front porch area of the residence. They have an indoor porch area where they are provided with soft bedding, cat toys, food & water. They may also serve as the liaison between the Barn Cats and the 3rd and most important caste. Estimated Number: 4 (all four are littermates and cannot be separated.)
III. Inside Cats - these cats are allowed the run of the house and have complete access to any and all rooms & articles of furniture. Human comforts are secondary. These cats are provided with fancy hammocks, pillows and soft pallets to sleep on. They are sometimes (but not always) the older generation or surviviors of kittenhood trauma. They are adored, petted, fed canned food & are generally comfortable with strangers. There is a definite hierarchy - the Alpha Cat is unquestionably the Siamese/Tabby mix with cream and gray coat and blue eyes who spent most of the visit on Toni's lap, regardless of whether Toni wanted the cat there or not. Estimated Number: 6
Compared to the Pumpkin Syndicate - I found this terribly fascinating, though difficult to breathe through without a healthy supply of Kleenex nearby.
Today I also learned that:
A) There's a Survivalist Blog (occasionally read by a member of somebody's family that shall remain nameless) that says that there's some kind of sun-related event (solar flares or some kind of electromagnetic pulse or something) that's supposed to occur in 2012 that will render all computers useless, and that the only batteries that will survive will be the ones stored in old microwave ovens while the event occurs. I am not making this up, people.
B) Kwanzaa was started by the FBI so that they could keep an eye on black people. My wife said she heard it someplace but was unable to remember from where, so it must be true. My guess? The internet.
What else? We drove all day, man, but we got to see our daughter, who's in some kind of junior leadership program (I think) of some kind. I got to eat Pizza Inn (always glorious) and I got to give to give free, unsolicited advice to a lady looking at handguns at Cabelas (I recommended the Glock 19 9mm). I'm a bit dehydrated and my neck is slightly broken out, but that's my fault for not showering like I should (eewwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.) If those are my chief complaints, aside from the giant crap Scout took on the floor this morning, life is going well.
Scout is trying to terrorize the cats, but they are collectively in a foul and cantankerous mood. Because of her 3rd Morning Poop incident, I remain unsympathetic, despite its unexpected and unprecedented nature.
Well, that's it.
977
5 comments:
that was fun to read.
Carry on.
Yes, 2012 is predicted to be the peak of a particularly extra strong solar cycle - one of the strongest in a long time. Now, combine that with everything else happening in December of 2012, like us lining up with the center of the galaxy, and things start to look really scary.
I was not the least bit concerned about Y2K, but everything I have read about what is culminating in 2012 has me more than a wee bit worried. (Mayan Calendar aside)
With the "weight" of the gravity of the galaxy to pull it toward us, we could see an "X Class" solar flare that could easily severely damage, or destroy, the entire North American electrical grid (which is relatively fragile and has NO "hardening" against such an event).
Such a flare could also easily take out many of the GPS and communications satellites in orbit.
This country is hyper-reliant on the electric grid and those satellites. Take them out and chaos would ensue.
There is a great avilable series on NETFLIX called "Life after People". Watch some (or all) of those episodes. Particularly paying attention to what happens when the power fails. Its not pretty.
I figure I have two more job bonus cycles (Jan 2011, and Jan 2012) to finish stocking up. :-)
So - what steps are you taking to prepare? (seriously)
Food? Water? Ammo? Generators? Fuel?
I'd also like to point out that, in general, most of Africa and all of Haiti will remain largely unaffected.
Abject poverty - increasing your odds of surviving a solar apocalypse since the Dark Ages!
AH, but there is more tee'd up to hit the fan in 2012 than simply a solar flare taking out the civilized world's electrical grids.
There is also a strong possibility of a pole flip. There is some argument over whether this would be purely a magnetic pole reversal, or a wholesale physical event. One author put it this way: What happens to an electric motor if you switch out the poles? It starts rotating in the OPPOSITE direction. So, this author suggests that a sudden complete magnetic pole flip could result in the Earth actually starting to rotate in the opposite direction - which would cause the mother of all tidal waves around the entire planet.
If that were to happen (and I'm not yet convinced), there are only a handful of places way up in the mountains of South America and Southern Africa that would be spared. Not really much you can do to prepare for that one except to plan to be in those two spots during this time period, or purchase some "unsinkable" boats (there is some company in Europe that actually makes these - problem is, they are much too small to carry people AND supplies in enough quantities to let them survive until the water settles down from such an event).
Preparing for just an electrical grid collapse means stockpiling lots of food - like rice and beans - and LOTS of ammunition. Food, guns, and ammunition could easily become the "new gold" currency in such a world.
A decent water supply is going to be the most difficult thing to prepare for. Factor in the millions of people living here in the Metroplex and it becomes a very severe problem very quickly. I admit that I do not have a good solution for this particular problem. Yet.
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