Sympathetic irony
Irony means saying the opposite of what is meant, or doing the opposite of what is intended.
As I write, thunder rolls across the sky like a symphony of kettle drums, the sky is dark as twilight, and rain falls in gigantic slow-motion droplets. If this were a romance novel, the stage would pull up shortly to the haunted mansion, discharging the hero and heroine, who are about to face their nemesis.
But it’s suburbia and the duck in the pond is swimming about, scarfing up duckweed, the neighbor’s chickens are looking to see if my feral stray cat that I’m calling Danny Boy has left a tasty morsel in his dish, and the mail lady just left me an unexpected package with a Mother’s Day gift in it.
That’s irony for you, and not always what you expect it to be.
Dinosaurs
Loved Jurassic Park. To all dino lovers, this is like the ultimate fantasy – growing a dinosaur. Sadly, it didn’t turn out so well for those who did, but for a while, we were living the dream.
I remember Easters as I was a kid. We went to my uncle and aunt’s house, ate a bunch of food, then the adults dropped us kids off – Ricky, Mickey, and Bev – at a movie, and so many times, it was our favorite, a dino movie. I can remember crouching down beneath the seat (because if you’re behind the movie seat, the T-Rex can’t see you), and peering between the seats as I munched my popcorn.
What a disappointment and exciting find to realize that dinosaurs might not be green, but might be colorful. Whooeeee! And more and more and more info – and new dinosaurs. NEW dinosaurs. That’s the cool part. Here’s the weird part – elementary school kids now know more than me about dinosaurs.
I think it’s time to hit a couple more movies!
Now that’s what I call rescue
My friend Betty was crawling around under a tree behind a fast-food restaurant the other day and saved a cat’s life.
Betty, I should mention, is in her 70’s, and she and I belong to the same feral cat maintenance group, Tomball SOS (Save Our Strays). One TSOS member goes out every night and feeds the more than 200 cats who live on the main streets of our locality. These volunteers operate primarily out of their own pockets, but with the support and donations from Rescue Bank, a pass-through pet rescue charity built on the Food Bank model.
So here’s Betty at 11 at night on a Saturday night, crawling on the little island of greenery in the middle of the parking lot, putting down a dish of cat food, when she realizes one of the cats is lying on its side, lethargic and breathing rapidly. She did what any rescuer would do – she picked it up.
Betty brought it to my husband and me, and the three of us worked over the little girl for over an hour, cleaning up her goopy eye and applying eye ointment, giving her sub-Q fluids, a B12 injection, an antibiotic, and assisting her to eat. We put her on a warm pad and left her for the night in an isolation cage. By Sunday morning, she was alert and a little better. Same treatment Sunday, and today, Monday, she’s at the vet’s office, sitting up, but still not out of the woods.
Our organization is out beating the bushes for donations for this little darling’s care.
Now that’s what I call rescue. People sometimes ask me, “What’s it like to do pet rescue?” That’s what it’s like. A little old lady crawling around in the bushes to save the life of a cat she doesn’t even know.