"olsvig2000@yahoo.com"
...
Thursday, May 28, 2009 10:22:50 PM
To:Linda Olsvig-Whittaker
Cc:olsvig2000@yahoo.com
Hi Everyone,
Today is a holiday in Israel, Shavuot (Pentacost), one of the religious holidays where everything shuts down. It gives us a long weekend. Oy, am I grateful for that. The past week was short but very intense. On Wednesday I was out the door at 6 am and didn't get home until 9 pm, a 15 hour day. Didn't think I could do it, but with a steady diet of coffee, I managed. Almost paralyzed on Thursday, of course. After a week like that, I've retreated to recover.
Most of the work was about EBONE, my European project. Took the train to Ramat HaNadiv, our northern station, and spent the morning runing statistical analyses with the park manager, teaching her how to do multivariate analysis. She's quick and smart, and probably the best manager I have met in Israel, on top of all the extensive research going on in that park under sponsorship of the Rothschild Foundation. She's done me a lot of favors, including looking after my graduate student, so I owe here, and it pushes forward our work as well.
Then I took my grad student with me to Technion for a meeting with Prof. Yohay Carme (Prof.....I knew him as a wee baby grad student) and, take a deep breath, an offer of collaboration. Yohay is sitting on Lidar data for Ramat HaNadiv (Lidar is the satellite equivalent of radar; it does topographic mapping rather than reflectance scanning). This costs money I don't have in my budget, and is perfect for comparison to the habitat mapping we did this spring, at considerabe expense. I figured we can pool resources and both benefit.
Well, I was right; what EBONE does will mesh with what Yohay Carmel is doing. We clicked, struck a deal, everyone is happy, and we formed a game plan for work. He's on it already. Welcome to the EBONE club, Prof. Carmel. Also he knows me 20+ years and knows I won't screw him over or steal his data, so there is that essential foundation of trust. This is great because I had no idea how we were going to do the remote sensin part of our work; it's damned expensive and our GIS lab isn't set up to work with satellite imagery anyway.
Dropped off my grad student after that and went to Tel Aviv University to pick up the Turk. The Turk is a purebred Turkish Van cat that was found near dead, skin and bones, fur dragging on the ground behind her, in a quarter of Tel Aviv. A cat trapper brought her to a local vet in terrible condition, but he saved her and the word went out in cat circles that this lady needs a home. I saw her pictures and pathetic as she looked, I saw the potential for a beautiful cat. Nobody was adopting her because she looked so bad, and also has renal problems that require fluid infusions every day. I'm used to cats with chronic problems so that is not a worry for me. I took her. (See attached photo.)
The Turk is a beautiful cat and will be looking that way in a few weeks when she regains some weight and fur. She is true to the breed. One blue eye, one brown eye (typical in this breed). Pure white long fur. Like others of her breed, she is calm and friendly, a "people" cat, not indepent. Throwing an animal like that on the street is cruelty; she's not bred to forage in garbage cans but to sit on a houri's lap in a harem. Her history is known: a couple broke up and moved away, leaving her on the street. She roamed for months, an nobody cared for her. She would have died due to human indifference. (Humans are such assholes, aren't we?)
Despite this suffering, she isn't fearful. Within hours of being put in my back room with some food and comfort, she is coming to me. I had to give her an infusion of fluid yesterday, which means sitting with a needle in her back while 100 cc of saline solution go in the space under her skin. She puts up with it. Doesn't bite or complain. (Me, I think I would bite and complain.) Maybe she knows I'm helping her.
She suffered dehyration and kidney damage during those months on the street and we don't know the prognosis. Probably she needs the fluid injections for the rest of her life because her kidneys can no loner concentrate urine. But with the fluid, she can live an otherwise normal life for years. I think she deserves it. (And I hope the people who dumped her and the ones who ignored her suffering will get what they deserve too.)
So now I have a beautiful white purebred invalid cat; I'm happy and she is happy. Just a matter of getting the rest of the cats used to her.
So I was pretty tired yesterday morning, and woke to find another of my cats sick with a high fever. Off to the vet and another regimine of anti-inflamatory and antibiotic medicine. He's doing well. With these two and a couple diabetic cats, I'm running a small clinic these days and my fridge is full of cat meds.....
That God it is a long weekend, and we can settle into a routine of treatment rounds by the time I have to go back to work. By then the cat with the infection will be off the IV and it will be easier. Meanwhile, I have little strength for socializing and am sitting out this holiday at home. Our congregation had a party yesterday night for Shauvot, but I couldn't contemplate being in a crowd of people when I'm this tired. I might murder someone.
All in all a very rich week, lots of good things got done, and I think a 3-day rest is deserved and I welcome it.
shabbat shalom,
Linda
The Turk!
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