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- This topic has 26 replies, 18 voices, and was last updated 3 years, 4 months ago by
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Am I owned by cats? Absolutely! I am ruled by the firm (but loving paw) of Bob the Bobby Cat, so named because he’s a Manx mix with a bob-tail. Bob has been with me for an astounding 16 years. I’d share a picture but I don’t see a way to upload an image. From what I gather, images have to be posted somewhere on the internet. I can see a way to link to an image URL but no way to upload directly from my computer.
Bob used to have a brother, Jasper Baby, but JB passed away last year.
Bob was consoled to some extent by Scraps, a large gray tiger striped domestic from Pennsylvania and Princess Tabitha Panda Kitty Toe Biter (who usually just goes by Tabitha). Tabitha is 6 years old and she’s from southern Arizona. As the sole female living in a household of aging bachelors, she has been hopelessly spoiled and will always be our little princess.
Bob and his brother were both kitties from Texas. I got them as emotional support animals on the advice of a (gulp) psychiatrist.
I used to work abroad and was a teacher at an American school in Saudi Arabia. I arrived during the First Gulf War in ’91 when allied forces were building in Saudi Arabia in preparation for forcing Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi army out of Kuwait. Allied jets were either taking off or landing from a nearby base every fifteen minutes or so and for a while there was 24/7 bombing runs in Kuwait and Iraq. The Iraqis retaliated by shooting scud missiles at us and when the air raid siren sounded, we’d grab our gas masks and would duck and cover.
You can imagine how scared my 4th graders were … so in violation of corporate policy, instead of sitting under my desk, I’d walk around the classroom reading a children’s novel to my students.
I was a USO volunteer at the ill-fated Khobar Towers and used to bake cookies for our servicemen and women. After the USO pulled out due to force reductions, I was asked to stay on as a civilian volunteer and worked with the Air Force Morale Group. Khobar Towers was hit by a terrorist attack in ’96. I was not there but I heard the explosion and within minutes, lights around the area I was living in were coming on as many of my neighbors worked at the corporate hospital and all shifts were called in to deal with the in-coming wounded.
In later years, I worked at another American school in Beirut. On the last day of school, Israeli jets flew in low and fast over the Mediterranean Sea. They rocketed over my faculty apartment building causing the entire building to shake. Having been a civilian employee in Saudi Arabia, I knew better than to stand at the window which might have exploded from the passage of the Israeli jets. At the first wailing sound of a civil defense siren, I rolled out of bed and crawled under a heavy desk. From under my desk, I could see over the window sill. Tracer fire from a Syrian anti-aircraft gun from just one block away was rising into the night air. I could hear the ack-ack-ack of the guns firing into the night sky. In the distance I could hear the wailing sirens of first responders that was punctuated by explosions … and after an hour or so when I began to wonder if it might be safe to leave my shelter, another wave of fighters would roar in and the gun fire and explosions would start all over again. The attacks continued until dawn … and when I reported to work the following morning,t he only employees present were expats like myself … Americans, Canadians, New Zealanders etc. Some of the Lebanese staff had taken refuge in the hills while others were in hidden bunkers that dated back to the 17 year long Lebanese Civil War.
When the international airport reopened in Beirut, I was on one of the first flights out of there.
I came back to the states and thought I was find … and during a thunderstorm in North Carolina, I had a flashback and found myself lying face down in a supermarket parking lot with my groceries strewn around me. I had my hands clasped over the back of my head and I was shouting, “IN-COMING!” to the amusement of bystanders.
I thought I was going insane but as it turned out, I had PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder … compounded as it turned out by fatigue because every time I slept I had screaming nightmares.
My psychiatrist told me that what I was going through was “perfectly natural.” I was a civilian in two war zones and although I could function whilst overseas, when I came home, I let my emotional guard down and began having flashbacks that were triggered by noise (thunder claps or sirens) and smell (fireworks).
I went into counseling and my psychologist suggested that I get a pet as an emotional support animal. A pet? I snickered at the thought … but then I got to thinking that I might like an aquarium with some restful green aquatic plants. I missed the sight and sound of running water having spent 7 years in Saudi Arabia … so I went to PetsMart to get some fish … and I wound up coming home with two kittens and some $500 worth of cat supplies.
The two kittens were Bob and Jasper Baby.
Jasper Baby was fluffy and cute. Bob was not … but because JB was so painfully shy, I adopted Bob as company for JB. As things turned out, Bob eventually became my best friend and although I miss JB, I am thankful to still have Bob with me.
We’ve been through a lot over the past 16 years. We’ve lived in 8 different homes in four different states over the past 16 years. A lot of this is because I was a Culinary Arts teacher in Arizona and when the economy went ka-blooey back in 2007, the state began making cutbacks to education funding and Culinary Arts teachers tended to be among the first teachers on the chopping block when it came time for lay offs. Over a six year period, I lost three jobs due to budget cuts and had to move three times.
After my last district laid me off ONE WEEK BEFORE THE SCHOOL YEAR STARTED, I found a job in Nevada. I initially taught for two years in the greater Las Vegas area but when a job opened up at a small rural school, I voluntarily transferred. Whereas I used to have FIFTY-FOUR students in just a single class, I now have 47 TOTAL STUDENTS. My kitchen is larger than the one I had in the Vegas area AND I even have an adjoining classroom.
One last thing that I will mention in more detail about myself is that I’m autistic. I only found out about this last year when I was 54. I’m apparently on the high performance end of the autistic spectrum and have Asperger’s Syndrome. Although I am not a drooling savant such as the character played by Dustin Hoffman in the movie, Rain Man (1988), I still share symptoms in common with other people on the autistic spectrum. For example, I lack the ability to infer unspoken intent. I do not understand sarcasm or most types of humor. Aside from the most obvious forms of facial expressions and body language, most types of verbal communication elude me. In short, think Sheldon Cooper from the Big Bang Theory … but he’s better looking than I am. He is also much younger, works in a different field, and is far more annoying.
In any event, as previously mentioned, although I do appreciate boards that are flamer and troll free … I hope this is not a board where I will find my posts deleted … NOT because I said or did anything wrong … but because the moderator thought that my post belonged in a specific thread. This actually happened a few times in another cat forum AND was accompanied by a public chastisement which I thought was singularly inappropriate.
Protesting this chastisement (using appropriate language and no anger) also turned out to be against forum policy … and so I left.
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