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The Cambridge Food Pantry
4 March

Good News: First Packages Arrive At The Food Pantry. The Army Of Good Strikes Again

by Jon Katz

Sarah Harrington texted me this photograph of the first wave of packages and food supplies that came to the Cambridge Food Pantry first thing in the morning. The Army of Good is extraordinary and quick to respond.

This is a new element to add to our work; it is timely and in the greatest need.

I thank you, and the food pantry thanks you and the people in need of good thank you.

I am just getting started with this program. Today, the Covered Bridge Bread company offered to send it’s excellent bread to the pantry if it sells later. I’ll pick it up and get it to the pantry.

I’m sure you all know that food pantries all over the country are calling out for help. Government subsidies during the pandemic are running out.

If experience is any guide, the packages have just begun to arrive.

Thursday, I’m meeting with Sumer Quickenton, a mother who depends on the pantry for food to feed her family. She also has two big and beautiful dogs to feed.

Several people, including Sumer,  have messaged me and suggested we ask for dog food donations; it is expensive, and the dogs (and cats)  are just as hungry as their families. So, I’m adding it to the list.

Summer has one child of her own but has had as many as seven children whose families are in trouble living with her. She’s had a rugged life and has been free of drugs for three years now, and she is determined to stay free of them.

This is happening all over the country.

If you can and wish to help the food pantry here – I am using our pantry to call attention to the urgency of the food needs around the country, you can send donations to The Cambridge Food Pantry, c/o Sarah Harrington, 24 East Main Street, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816. 

If you need a phone number for Amazon, it’s 518 677-7152.

Here is a list of the greatest demand: food items and supplies that markets can’t or won’t contribute to the local pantries. Cases are the most helpful, but donations in any amount are welcome:

Chicken noodle soup is the most requested item in the pantry. Also desperately needed are mustard, mayonnaise, relish, cleaners like Windex, vanilla extract, chunky peanut butter, salt, baking powder, black pepper, grated parmesan cheese, bar soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste, baby formula..

The number of families in food distress turning to food pantries has nearly doubled in recent years; it is still climbing rapidly. I have a good feeling about this work.

It is the perfect kind of help: small acts of great kindness. We can’t afford to take over people’s pain and need, but we can help in small ways that make a big difference. Food is one of them.

It’s a perfect project for the Army of Good and anyone out there who wants to do good to people with low incomes in a time of conflict and hostility.

Thanks so much for jumping aboard this new train; I know more packages are coming. Thanks so much. I’ll keep writing about it.

 

 

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Army of Good
2 March

Good News About Expanding Good: A New Task For The Army Of Good. A Desperate Mother And A Food Pantry With 16 Urgent Needs

by Jon Katz

I have some exciting news—another work of good to go in our basket.

We’ve  helped the Mansion residents, the Albany refugees, Sue Silverstein’s art students, a couple of persecuted farmers, Ukraine refugees, autistic children seeking work, people with no winter shoes and clothes, healthy breakfast foods for refugee kids,  and some dreaming entrepreneurs.

I want to add the issue of epidemic food needs all over our country, allegedly the most prosperous in the world. I want to help a desperate mother and a food pantry that gets busier every month.

I’m adding another need to our good work while adhering closely to our creed of small acts of great kindness. We don’t have much money to toss around, and I don’t wish to get larger, but we have a lot of heart. With their permission, I want to help the Cambridge Food Pantry and peek at the lives of some people who need it so badly. I can count on the Army of Good; it has yet to fail on any project.

A federal report found that 44.2 million people lived in households with difficulty getting enough food to feed everyone in 2022, up from 33.8 million people the previous year. Those families include more than 13 million children experiencing food insecurity, a jump of nearly 45 percent from 2021. It’s believed that number is much higher today.

(SOS:  I asked Pantry Director Sarah Harrington what items were most needed, and she sent me a list of 16 items. We have yet to get a link to Amazon, but these are simple, readily availble items not availablee to the food pantry from grocery stories or other sources. If you can please send these things in any amount, cases are the best but smaller amounts are welcome. The need is urgent. The items should be sent c/o Sarah Harrington, Executive Director, The Cambridge Food Pantry,  24 East Main Street, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816.If you need a phone for Amazon, 518 677 7152)

Here are the items: chicken noodle soop, mustard, mayonnaise, relish, windex or other window cleaners, vanilla extract, chunky peanut butter, salt, baking powder, black pepper, grated parmesan cheese, bar soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste, baby formula.)

We are working on an Amazon Wish List that makes it simpler to choose items. In the meantime, I hope you’ll be able to help. Chicken noodle soup is the most asked-for item.

Food depravaton is increasingly common among children,  young families and the elderly.

If only billionaires carried as much about hunger as they do about making more money and wrecking our political system. Think what Elon Musk could do with his money.

Most people who go into food pantries wish to keep it private. They are often embarrassed for their needs to be known. Sumer can only afford to do that, with the food pantry, she and her family need help eating.

I understand and respect that. I will only take photos of people eating in the building or picking up food there. No one will be photogoraphed withou theri permission. But it is essential to my work.  I’ve learned that people help people, not institutions.  I want to focus on people who use the food pantry, I am confident I will earm their co-operation as has happened elsewhere. When I talk to Sumer, I know she needs assistance as well – small acts of great kindness..

Sumer, her son Lucca, and their two dogs. Summer says hey have saved her sanity she says, she brought them with her from a disastrous time in Florida. She was washing them when we talked. She has a lot of dog love in her. Jack is the darker one, Sally the blondie.)

The pantry has been looking for people in the community who will talk to me and agree to be interviewed and photographed. Most people said no. Summer said yes, of course.

They found just the right one.

Sumer has said yes to talking with me and being photographed. She is a very needy 28-year-old woman who has a biological son and six or seven children needing care during family distress, ranging from drug abuse to extreme poverty.

She comes every week to the Cambridge Food Pantry, desperate to feed her son and the other children living with her at times. She has one child but takes in any child in need while their parents fight to get better and healthier.

I spent more than an hour on the phone today talking to Sumer; she lives about 20 miles from me. She has one son living with her, and the number of children she cares for varies from one to seven. She admits she can’t afford to feed this many people but won’t abandon those children.  She manages to do it with the help of the food pantry.

Sumer, who is impressive in her talk and thought,  has just taken a job in the kitchen of an assisted care facility, but it pays little, and her life has been a nightmare. The kids in her house usually come and go. So many families are in drug related crisis.

She has been a drug and addict for much of her life; she has been “clean” for three years and has suffered some unimaginable setbacks, violence, mother troubles, and numerous conflicts with the police. She seems intelligent, determined to get her life together, and open and honest about her troubles. We connected easily.

She has had a brutal life since birth; it was hard to hear it.  I’m going to retake her photo this coming week. She texted me the ones used here today.

The food pantry contacted me a couple of weeks ago – the new director, Sarah  Harrington  –  to ask if I could help advocate for the town’s food pantry (whose traffic has nearly doubled in recent years) and help raise awareness about the pantry and the people who need it. She said if there is any way we can help, it is greatly needed. I’m sure there are ways we can help, we need to know more. I’ve asked Sarah Harrington to make up a list of inexpensive things the pantry might need.

She’s working on an Amazon Wish List.

I told Sarah I could do it but only if I stayed within the lines of the Army Of Good, which has been so successful in recent years.

Sumer is the perfect one to talk to in order to illuminate this awful crisis. The economy is making many people rich but also making many people poor. I’ve seen the prices in the grocery stores.

Sumer is not ashamed of needing the help of a good pantry or her addictions and trouble with the law.  She makes no excuses for herself or her anger or addiction issues.  She is working very hard to get her life back in order. I liked talking with her. Before her current job, she worked for a program helping troubled children in Vermont.

I look forward to meeting with her on Thursday. I will only photograph her son, not anyone else’s.

I’ve carefully navigated photo-taking at the Mansion, Bishop Maginn, and Bishop  Gibbons. I never photograph anyone without written permission.

This idea is new to me, and I’m still figuring out how it will work.

It’s valuable to write about how a food pantry works and the many new people flooding these food pantries all over the country. I like the idea of singling out one or two people to focus on and tell the story that way. It could be said anywhere in the country right now, and it is right up the Alley of Our Army of Good.

I think an Amazon Wish List has real promise for us and the pantry.

Summer understands that we don’t have the money to turn her life around, but I suspect there are small ways in which we can help her and spread the word about food pantries that are in need nationwide. There might be some specific needs we can help her with. We’ve been doing this for years.

I’ll be writing about this more in the coming week and, at times, about the pantry itself. This is the right cause for me and the Army of Good. The food crisis needs to get the attention it deserves here and everywhere; the media is too obsessed with politics. The Army of Good has been one of the great successes of my life and one of the greatest joys.
I look forward to meeting Sumer and writing about her and the pantry.

Our philosophy is the same. Small things that make a difference. It would be great to help a desperate mother who wants to turn her life around and a good pantry that has been feeding the hungry for years and needs some recognition, like food pantries everywhere.

I’m happy to advocate for this pantry, which is doing so much good.

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Zip
5 February

Conspiracy!: Zip Is A Spy For Joe Biden, Says Fox News. He’s Actually A Cat Called Benjamin Butttton, And Here’s The Big News. I’m Taylor Swift

by Jon Katz

I knew there was something different about Zip. Now we know the awful truth.

A dozen right-wing media outlets are reporting today that our unusual new cat Zip is a secret Joe Biden operative; he is a psy op dark Web A1 re-creation of Taylor Swift, also known as a spy called Ninga, or perhaps a cat called Benjamin Button.

That’s why Taylor Swift saw him at our farm this morning.

Swift came to meet Zip and eat some of our great 8-seed bread from Covered Bridge Bread. I just thought she was a wildly famous pop star. But now, she is more. She is a new Moonraker, a la James Bond,  plotting to take over the world. Her partner is Zip. I offered her a bar of soap I made yesterday, but she said she didn’t need it.

I knew he was different but never thought he came out of a quickly degenerating country’s darkest, mad digital corners.

Fox News is leading the charge, has bought all of it, and is reporting this looming Swift-planned political Armageddon every night. Last week, a Fox News anchor begged viewers not to believe anything Taylor Swift ever said, including the name of her new album or anything about Joe Biden; The Tortured Poets Department. Aha! Welcome to La-La land.

Who does she think she is kidding? Take a look.

Then, run to Costa Rica and hide. It’s Stupid Time In America. Perhaps the Internet wasn’t such a great idea after all.

I should have suspected something with Zip. He’s just too cute, too bright, too different. He flipped me in seconds.

Zip was always a different cat; he came out of nowhere and is exotically photogenic, intelligent, and determined, even for a cat. I no longer believe he is a cat; stop worrying about him.

The conspiracy sleuths studied photos of both Zip and Swift and insisted that Zip and  Taylor Swift looked just like one another. Just glance at this dark web photo.

Where did he come from? What does he want?

How smart and devious to plot the overthrow of the President from an out-of-the-way and quiet farm in remote upstate New York. Everybody loves donkeys. And Super Bowl champions. It figures once you read behind the lines.

I thought she came to the farm to visit with me and Maria this morning and maybe buy one of our mystery books or novels on sale.

Nobody suspected a thing until Fox News broke the story along with a sister network called “Impeach Everyone, and hate everyone else: Be a Republican Congressperson).

Instead, she locked herself up in the barn with Zip for a long time; you could hear the purring of the farmhouse. They were plotting!

Zip knew what he was doing. Swift, who dared to endorse Joe Biden and other Democratic candidates in 2020, has scared the Jesus out of those hard-ass brutal guy warriors of MAGA.

There is no fooling them; it seems Swift isn’t even real but a 3D or A1 representation of a wildly popular singer and songwriter and hidden Democratic pervert. Now they are picking on cats, of all things. It’s a nasty political move if you ask me. Cat people are tough as nails.

 

It doesn’t get any darker than this, but the secret of Bedlam Farm is out. When Taylor stopped by to join us for breakfast today, I thought Zip liked her too much. Swift is a notorious cat lover; she just wanted to come by, she claimed, to urge me to let Zip sleep in the bedroom on cold nights.

I agreed with her instantly; she’s impressive. Zip finally got in (I thought someone was using my computer all night.)

The proof:

Just look at the dark eyes of Swift and compare them to Zip, and you can see something eerie going on here. They are brother and sister. I never noticed the two of them together here; they were always out of sight.

First, the alleged Taylor Swift (a/k/a) Zip or Zippidoodle, as he is known in the other secret world, is a notorious cat lover, which we never knew was suspicious.

I always thought cat people were a little strange, but I’m just coming to love them. I never seem to get on the right track at the right time.

Swift has a long and well-documented love for her cats.

Being a cat is the perfect cover for her, and so is being Zip.

The so-called “Blank Space” singer is the very proud owner of three cats, including Scottish Folds named Olivia Benson and Meredith Grey, and a Ragdoll cat named Benjamin Button.

In a mass secret plot, it seems the cats are not cats but “woke zombies” who fled Florida and Texas to plot the next revolution, scheduled after Swift’s plot to endorse Joe Biden.

The teachers were caught reading a book by Toni  Morrison in a school toilet. Governor DeSantis and his secret police squad are looking for them both.

The woke cats, it turns out,  were only pretending to be friendly and sleepy. They were scheming.

Zip, it seems, was culled and nourished from the dark world of the Democratic Party,  home of pedophiles, progressives,  vaccine zombies (ugh! Liberals), and the school teachers chased into hiding for having taught young children that slavery was terrible and gay people are out to turn girls into boys into girls again.

The evidence is so convincing when you look at it. Swift’s boyfriend is Travis Kelce, a NFL player from the dark side.

Since Taylor has 280 million followers on Instagram, it has been reported – repeatedly – that she is a child of the devil, and also another devil, two-time Super Bowl Champion named Travis Kelce, a/k/a Benjamin Button.

Benjamin Button is the name of a notorious actor plotting to corrupt all the political voting software in America. As reported almost daily for weeks by Fox News, Swift (a/k/a her cat, Benjamin Button and the wily Zipster) is attempting to control American politics while using the Super Bowl as a cover.

The first wave in the plot is several NFL photos of Swift traveling the country to support Travis (a/k/a Meredith Grey), appearing in private boxes to watch the games.  

According to Fox News, the couple has been plotting their liberal leanings as a way of brainwashing gullible (female) fans and notoriously stupid, chicken-guzzling, and raw male NFL fans.

This makes perfect sense to the elected leaders of the Republican Party. I’m still trying to work it out.

The story broke open recently when Donald Trump’s favorite (other than himself) Presidential  Candidate, Vivek Ramaswamy, posted this on the nation’s favorite hate website X: “Thinking about when Taylor Swift called out the Soros family in 2019 for buying the rights to her music and then how she came out a super liberal in 2020. “Just some wild speculation over here. Let’s see how it ages over the next eight months. ”

Ramaswamy is way too smart to be fooled. Perhaps he learned that the actual name of Democratic Donor  George Soros (the Republican Party’s favorite evil Jew) is Olivia Benson.

The Internet, reports Rolling Stone Magazine, is exploding with theories that the Super Bowl is not a national football game but a “newly discovered “election interference psyop and the Super Bowl itself is “totally scripted: to elect Joe Biden. World War III will then follow, goes the buzz, the Superbowl leading into a 2nd Biden term, and “millions will die” in the civil war that follows.

Zip, Zipdoodle, Zipski, Zipadog, how would you slip into our lives and use our little farm as a secret base to hide your identity and plot here? The donkeys will be ashamed. On the other hand, 180 million followers is a lot of donations. That would fund a hundred new septic tanks.

As an author, here is my favorite newly uncovered plot to prove a Swift/Zip overthrow of the government:

Swifty-obsessed MAGA internet lovers theorize that Swift may be behind the spy comedy movie Argylle.

The film’s production company claims that the movie is an adaptation of the thriller by a mysterious writer named Elly Conway. It turns out that Elly Conway is the name of the fictional author in the movie (played by Bryce Dallas Howard), who has written many spy novels. Many people believe there is no Conway, but his Instagram is suddenly active. Many of her followers believe that she is Taylor Swift, getting ready to rally her Army of followers planning to elect Joe Biden.

How would this all work out? Hmm..I’ll get back to you.

(Rats, I feel like a loser. Not only have I been betrayed by a Tuxedo cat with green eyes, but my book-writing career seems boring and irrelevant. All I did was write a few memoirs about life in the country and my life with dogs. Nobody ever accused me of doing anything but being a little crazy.

I now have a cat whose real identity is false and who perhaps uses my farm as a staging area for a revolution.

The good news is that my blog will take off like a rocket if this is all true.

And I’m saving the real story to the end. Zip is a messenger who comes to plot with me. I AM Taylor Smith, a lumbering and bald 76-year-old man with a bad foot and heart disease.

I am the best imaginable cover for Swift, who can walk the farm every day forever without being spotted. Sorry if I’ve misled you all.

The other big news is that this year, I might watch the Super Bowl with a bunch of paranoid and puzzled dads who don’t care who Taylor Swift is; they want to see some football people knocked on their asses by 400 lb giants of color. Politics is pretty wild now. And they believe every single thing Fox News says.

Stay tuned; Zip denies all and insists he isn’t going anywhere. He did ask if there is room for tanks in the back pasture and would be mind having tanks on the farm. It’s a Super Bowl game thing, he insists.

I want to write more, but I’m secretly at work on my new album and trying on a slinky dress for a concert appearance.

(Note: I’m sure most of you will get this as satire, but times being what they are, I need to mention that this is not true; it’s a satire of our all too strange world, and there is a lot of daunting truth in it Don’t Bet On Everyone Knowing it’s crazy talk. This is America The Stupid)

 

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28 April

Morning In Bedlam, The “Adelia Test.” Out At Last To Graze, Dog Treat Committee, Hens On The March,. Does Adealia Care?

by Jon Katz

Today was a big day on the Bedlam Farm Calendar. After months eating grass, we let the animals lose on the South Pasture, the first time in 2023 they got to ease fresh grass, their natural food. They are very happy. We’ll do careful rotational grazing. Two hours, in an out, every day, a different pasture.

The farm looks great, the blue sky is beautiful, the dogs are guilt-tripping me for treats. We thought the foot stuff would be all over, but we got our dates mixed up. Next Thursday the stitches come out, until them I am limited in my movements. But I can write and  raise money for good causes and take pictures.

About a decade ago, Adelia, a government office worker in Cleveland, wrote to tell me she did not love her life, she said, was drab and empty.

Her work was soul draining, she lived in a crowded, ugly apartment building, her desk has no window, there were few trees nearby,  and she lived alone, she was recently divorced.  Her children live far away and rarely visit.

“I love your pictures and your life,” she said, “you are your own soap opera, something is always going on! I can live vicariously thorugh your life.”

That was flatltering. What kept her going, she said, were photos of my animals, scenes from the country, and images of a beautiful sky. These are all things she did not have and coveted.

I hear from Adelia every month or so, she still begins every day with my blog (and now, Maria’s as well), her life has not changed, and she still is sustained and uplifted by the stories of our lives and the pictures we post.  Food for my soul. She loves the flower photos and pokes me when they don’t appear.

Adelia, you are an important presence in my life and creative work. When I post a picture or a story, I often ask: “is this sonething Adelia and the many other Adelia’s in America would like,” and then I put it up.

Most Americans now are  utterly detached from nature and the animal world, I know  often makes people feel disconnected in their loves and snared by the worship of money and security, neither of which are attainable for most of them. People year for animals and nature, it is natural. They move away for money and work.

For me, stories and pictures have to pass the “Adelia” test. Would Adelia care? Is she getting enough color and light, enough country scenes, enough oictaures and  stories about our animals, our farm, and our life together. I thought of her all morning, and every photo is one I believe she will love to see.

Hens on the march. Every day.

 

I am happy to see the new Pole Barn siding taking sheep. The barn has retained its dignity. We’re painting it on Sunday.

Treat Committee, Outside the bathroom door while I brush my teeth

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4 January

Zinnia: Labs And The Lure Of The Dead Deer. Vet Appointment At Noon

by Jon Katz

Zinnia is improving; she gobbled up a hamburger/rice meal I cooked this morning. She’ll be okay by tomorrow if I know my dog. We are seeing the vet at noon.

She isn’t quite herself but is getting peppier. I’ve had Labs for much of my life, several since moving to the country. Every December, when deer season ends, the Labs come across some dead deer body parts in the woods and eat them. It’s like dark chocolate to them.

Then they get sick. (Zinnia never misses this Christmas rite, not once in her young life). If I rushed them to the vet every time one of my Labs threw up for a day or so, I’d be stone broke. To me, a Lab that eats something gross is not a drama or a crisis; I call it Living With Labs In The Country.

There are no signs of anything being caught in her stomach ( some Labs love to eat rocks, rubber balls, socks, and wood) – tenderness, blood in the stool, blood in the vomit, loss of appetite. Things are often getting stuck in a dog’s belly, but there are almost always visible symptoms from continuous vomiting to crouching over to tenderness in the stomach and abdomen.

At some point, the vet asks to see the dog. I’m waiting for the call.

A few days ago, Zinnia joined Maria and Fate for a walk in the woods. Zinnia rounded a bend, and when Maria caught up, Zinnia was chowing down on a deer carcass that was rotting away. Lab owners know that there are few things Labs won’t eat if they smell bad.

Zinnia ate quite a bit of the decaying leg before Maria stopped her and threw much of it up immediately; the rest came out of my study and once more in the bedroom.

This isn’t my first time at the circus. I called the vet, and we both agreed to see what happens. Vets are insanely busy these days, but they will almost always make time if there’s trouble.

What happened today was some more slight vomiting,  which seems to have stopped, and her appetite is undiminished. She inhaled breakfast. She does look a bit funky to me. I’m concerned, as I always am, when my dogs don’t feel good. I’m sorry, but we are not yet in a crisis in my mind.

This is a familiar ritual in my life. I always call the vet immediately when my Labs do something stupid like this,  which they always do, and go over the details and the dog’s behavior, eating and otherwise. I capture stool and urine samples. I scrutinize the vomit for clues and use up another can of odor off. One of my Labs – I think it was Lenore – loved to drink engine oil.

A visit to the vet usually costs hundreds of dollars these days, and I have three dogs and no more royalty checks, and lots of dead deer in the woods after hunting season. There is not nearly enough money in my bank account to rush a Lab to the emergency clinic every time they at something awful.

I always try to deal with it myself and always have if I can. If the vet wants to see the dog, we go right in. From that point, I do exactly what she tells me to do and come home with medicine, two or three bags of antibiotics, stomach-settling pills, and a hefty bill. My guess is that will be the story this time.

Isn’t it always the story for you too?

I love my vet and trust her. She has always come through for us, and we have been through enough dog dramas, even for Oprah.

Last night, I got four or five messages from alarmed dog lovers demanding that I rush Zinnia to the emergency room; they said her life might be in danger. I am allergic to drama at this point in my life, and as I have said a thousand times,  there’s more drama on social media with dogs at any given moment than in all the plays on Broadway.

My policy is simple: I get dog medical advice from professionals, not strangers, on social media.

The latest alarm came in this morning on my blog posts: “Jon, I realize you hate getting advice from strangers online but look at Zinnias face from today’s post compared to your post of 12/22. Her face was so full just two weeks ago, and today it is thin, gaunt, wayworn. Unfortunately that you are waiting until Thursday to seek help. Just my opinion. Sorry if it angers you.”

Part of the sick animal ritual is that people who know me know I don’t like unwanted advice, and so they can’t wait to give it. They will confidently diagnose my dogs online without ever laying eyes on them and, without the slightest doubt or hesitation, tell me what is wrong with the dog and what I should do as if I could not possibly know.

I told Sheila that I was not in the least angry with her; I have given up on the battle over unwanted advice, nobody cares what I think or pays much attention to it. Time to let it go.

Thank you, Sheila, for caring, I appreciate your concern, honestly, you seem like a sweet person,  but I’m afraid your assumptions are inaccurate, which is the problem with taking advice from strangers online. It is so often bad advice, but how can I know?

Isn’t it better for a trained professional to look at the dog and make a sound, reasoned judgment right in front of me? Vets are accountable for their diagnoses, are people on social media?

And do you believe that looking at two photographs on my blog gives you a greater understanding of my dog than I have? What kind of a clod do you think I am?

Not only was I not angry at Sheila, but I loved her message. I smiled more than once. According to Merriam-Webster, “wayworn” was first recorded in 1758 but is rarely used today. It means “wearied by traveling.” It’s the first time I ever heard it.

Zinnia is, as we speak, snoring with her head on my food; she just had a good chew on an old marrow bone. I don’t see a dog that is “thin, gaunt, wayworn, and very sad.”  Before coming into my office, she dragged Bud all over the yard and pulled his collar right off of his neck.

Like me, she could lose a few pounds without worry.

Sheila might think of writing a dog story for a soap opera.

As the vet suggested, Zinnia has lost some weight, perhaps two or three pounds. We cut back a bit on her kibble. Her face is not gaunt in any way thin or gaunt, and happily, she’s lost some weight around her neck, as we wanted her to do. We weigh her at the vet regularly, even when we don’t have an appointment. She’s due for another weigh-in soon.

I told Sheila the truth.

I am not in any way angry with her for caring about Zinnia. I know some people think I’m a nasty raging bull when it comes to advice, but honestly, I rarely get angry, and never for long. It’s folly to diagnose me online, also.

Sheila’s assumption saddens me in that she thinks I needed her prompting to notice that my dog is falling apart or to take good care of her. It’s evident to most people, including my wife, that I’m over the moon about Zinna. I don’t deserve that.

I’m always concerned when my dogs get sick in any way. Still, I have also learned not to panic or jump on the drama train or declare an emergency over something that does not appear to me (or so far, our vet) to be severe or life-threatening, given the symptoms, eating habits, and behavior.

I know my dog a lot better than Sheila or the other people messaging me do, and I don’t need anyone to get me moving if that’s necessary.

And here’s the ironic part of the story. As I started writing this paragraph, my phone rang, and it was the competent and experienced Cassandra calling from the vet’s office. This morning, she read my blog and saw that Zinnia wasn’t 100 percent and asked me to bring her in at 12:30. I’m going and will return with my plastic bag full of pills and a receipt and an ever-smaller bank account.

It was a command, not a request.  Cassandra misses nothing and it is very foolish to disregard her opinions, as I’ve learned more than one. My vet’s office is thorough and vigilant.

I know the rest of the script.

The pills will settle Zinnia’s stomach, and I’ll do my part by cooking up more rice and perhaps chicken this time. By tomorrow, she will be racing around the pasture, chasing balls and lying on my feet while I write.

Next January, we’ll do it all again unless Zinnia encounters some other gross carcass in the meantime. The odds are good.

Sheila, it is never wrong to love a dog. I’ll keep you posted.

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Bedlam Farm