Gentle giants Felix (black tuxedo male) and Oscara (grey tuxedo female) are 3.5 year old siblings looking for a new home.

They can be adopted separately as they are not particularly close, although they do co-exist well. They are super friendly and patient with people, love to be petted, and enjoy rolling around on their backs. They purr when you rub their little cheeks and are curiously exploring every last inch of their foster home.

Both Felix and Oscara are very excited about new toys, catnip, and scratching posts. They use their litterbox like pros. They’re also great at eating treats out of their fosterers’ hands.

They are very friendly cats in their ways as well – they come out to great each and every visitor to the apartment. Their fosterer thinks they would be excellent cats for a family.

Overall a perfect set of kitties!

If you would like to meet Oscara and/or Felix, let us know at [email protected] !

Hyde Park Cats is a local, all-volunteer group dedicated to helping stray and homeless cats in and around Chicago’s Hyde Park. We received our 501(c)(3) status in 2014 and have had over 1,200 adoptions since our founding in 2008. See all our adoptable kitties on our webpage: http://hydeparkcats.org/adopt/

All of our cats are in loving foster homes, which means the cat you adopt will be familiar with the sounds, smells and movements of life in a home and accustomed to living with humans. He or she has been interacting on a daily basis with people who know this particular cat intimately, and the foster mom or dad can tell you all about the cat’s individual personality, habits, preferences. You can’t judge a cat by its cover! And while we can’t predict the future or know everything about a cat, we can help you choose the cat who is right for you. We have an adoption application and an adoption fee, $95 for the adoption of one cat or $190 for a pair. This fee goes towards covering their vet costs. All cats adopted out by us are neutered/spayed, micro-chipped, tested for FIV/FeLV, and treated with Revolution.

Welcome Pippi Longstocking! Pippi is an active & curious 1.5-year-old cat who loves to play with her fuzzy ball, her kicker toy and chase a string or ball of yarn. She likes being petted on her head, but is not a lap cat, at least not yet. She will let you pick her up. To meet the lovely Pippi, write to us at [email protected] !

Hyde Park Cats is a local, all-volunteer group dedicated to helping stray and homeless cats in and around Chicago’s Hyde Park. We received our 501(c)(3) status in 2014 and have had over 1,200 adoptions since our founding in 2008. See all our adoptable kitties on our webpage: http://hydeparkcats.org/adopt/

All of our cats are in loving foster homes, which means the cat you adopt will be familiar with the sounds, smells and movements of life in a home and accustomed to living with humans. He or she has been interacting on a daily basis with people who know this particular cat intimately, and the foster mom or dad can tell you all about the cat’s individual personality, habits, preferences. You can’t judge a cat by its cover! And while we can’t predict the future or know everything about a cat, we can help you choose the cat who is right for you. We have an adoption application and an adoption fee, $95 for the adoption of one cat or $190 for a pair. This fee goes towards covering their vet costs. All cats adopted out by us are neutered/spayed, micro-chipped, tested for FIV/FeLV, and treated with Revolution.

Peter Alexander: “What do you say to Americans that are scared?”
Donald Trump: “I’d say you’re a terrible reporter. That’s what I say. I think it’s a very nasty question, and I think it’s a bad signal you’re putting out to the American people.”

Pete was correct about this. Don is in his own fantasy world, as usual. The entire nation is in a state of anxiety. How can you not be anxious?

I go for a walk around the neighborhood daily. Whenever I run into someone, one of us moves to the other side of the street. We might exchange a greeting, but we’re doing it from the a distance. High anxiety!

You listen to the news. Every day the numbers increase. You hear the high death count in Italy. More than seven hundred in a single day. You can’t help but wonder if and when it will happen here? It has to happen here, right? High anxiety!

I’m watching MSNBC Friday night. One of their sound engineers died from the Coronavirus. They’ve been having tributes to him all day. The last one stated that it was the first member of their family to die and as we go forward with this, you most likely will be dealing with this in your own circle of people. Are you fucking kidding me?! How scary is it to hear this said out loud, even though we’re all thinking it? High anxiety!

You keep checking yourself for symptoms. Is that a dry cough? Is it from a cold or the virus? Do I have a temperature? If so, how high? I admit that I spend a lot of time each day feeling my forehead. I need a thermometer. I can’t be the only one looking because they are nowhere to be found. I’ve been to four stores trying to find one. Long gone with no idea when they’ll be in stock again. I’ve called relatives to see if they have an extra one. Who knew thermometers would be as valuable as toilet paper? Btw, I do have a lot of toilet paper. I’m willing to trade some for a thermometer. High anxiety!

So what are we doing about this? How can we tone down the stress and anxiety level at least a little?

Deep breaths help. They really do help you chill…at least for a short time. Any relief is good. Maybe we should stop watching every news program available 24/7. Yeah, being informed is good, but take a break every so often. Last week I watched a baseball game from 1979. Four hours of no news. Yesterday, I watched a movie. Two hours of mindless entertainment. Going outdoors works. Fresh air is a good thing. Naps work, too…provided that you aren’t so anxiety ridden that you can sleep. All this stuff helps to keep the anxiety away. It helps to keep you somewhat sane.

One good thing about this is you and your feelings are not alone. Most people are describing how they are doing as okay, but anxious. We’re all in this together..except in the toilet paper aisle at the grocery store. There it’s everyone for themselves.

Other than this, I don’t know what to tell you. After all, I’m not a therapist. Hmmm…if you’ve got one, maybe give your therapist a call. She’ll probably have some better ideas….provided she’s not dealing with her own case of high anxiety.

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On Sunday, March 22, 2020 a prayer service for the community of Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta Parish was posted.

I was pleased to wake up Sunday morning to an email and Facebook postings of this lovely video.  It made me grateful for technology and social media that we can connect in this way during this time of the Coronavirus.

“Let’s choose to embrace staying at home as a blessing. Let’s choose to embrace receiving Spiritual Communion as a blessing.  Let’s choose to embrace praying at home without being in church with our community as a blessing for now.”~ Fr. Francis Li

Please join me and other Catholics (and some not-so-Catholics!) on my Facebook page, Twitter and Instagram.

I also write for Catholic365.com on occasion, and CatholicMom.com every 4th Thursday of the month so take a moment and check them out.

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The coronavirus isn’t deadly in every way. It’s brought back to life two old-fashioned means of communication: phone calling and letter writing.

It’s been nearly 13 years since Nielsen announced the phone call’s adieu in the United States. In autumn 2007 the number of texts sent on cellphones topped the number of phone calls. Today three-quarters of American households no longer have landline phones, and cellphones convey five times more text messages than voice calls.

Actual voice calls are reserved mostly for our mothers and for emergencies. Phone chats with my friends have been rare for years.

It was therefore striking that last Friday I had seven long phone conversations with friends as we coped with isolation.

Texting or email could have confirmed that the other person was all right. Phoning served an additional purpose: to hear the voice of an intimate during this weeks-long, maybe months-long, seclusion; to have thoughtful communication, not just an answer to “Are you okay?”

Email and texting don’t meet the need for intimacy and immediacy. An email may be answered hours later or not at all. A text message is likely to be hasty and impersonal. Neither gives the comfort of hearing an actual, familiar voice.

A telephone call can be as intimate and long as the two or more of you desire. Under the present circumstances, it’s nearly guaranteed that a ringing phone will be answered.

During this episode even my college-age nieces, who are major texters like the rest of their generation, are preferring to talk to their friends by voice chats. Admittedly, it’s with the addition of video via FaceTime, but they consider FaceTime like a phone call plus. “It’s the same as the phone except with a video stream so you can see each other,” Alex said.

They’ve discovered the limitations of texting.

“It’s way easier to talk to people over FaceTime than by text if you are trying to catch up and have an extended conversation,” Ashley said.

They’ve also phoned — audio only — their grandmother in an assisted living residence. Frequent calls from her family members are a lifeline for my mother, who can’t have visitors and doesn’t have a cellphone or a computer.

Concern about elderly people in senior residences motivated people to revive another old-fashioned style of communicating: a note or a card in a stamped enveloped delivered by the US Post Office.

Like phone calls, greeting cards and handwritten letters on stationery were replaced by electronic messages years ago. But last week USA Today reported about people who are initiating or volunteering for projects to make cards for elderly residents of nursing homes and retirement facilities who are confined to their rooms, seeing only the staff who deliver their meals and medicine. In case volunteers worry about transmitting the coronavirus on stationery, the story said that such transmission is “extremely unlikely.”

When we’re finally released from isolation, it’s likely that these old-fashioned modes will fade again. But I doubt that they’ll entirely disappear, especially phone calls. There will always be times when we are separated from loved ones, by miles if not by a virus, and want to hear their voices and really talk with them.

*****

ANTI-TRUMP QUOTATIONS: 106TH IN AN ONGOING SERIES

”I’m finding it hard to control my anger with Donald Trump’s response to this crisis. I have doctors and nurses and first responders begging for masks, equipment, and more tests. … Donald Trump promised to deliver for all the states weeks ago and so far has done very little. This is the time for serious people, not the carnival barkers that are tweeting from the cheap seats. All I can say is get to work or get out of the way.”
— Illinois Gov. J. B. Pritzker

J.B. Pritzker. (Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune)

The Belleville News-Democrat reported:

On CNN’s State of the Union show with Jake Tapper, [Illinois Gov. J.B.] Pritzker said the White House should issue a nationwide shelter-in-place order as the number of cases increases. [Emphasis added.]

Guv, you’re not happy enough knocking Illinois’ already troubled economy for a loop by ordering everyone to stay home? You think that making everyone (except “essential” workers, like real estate agents) cower in place is the answer?

Reminds me of what once was said in Vietnam: “It became necessary to destroy the village in order to save it.” Or to update: It’s necessary to destroy America’s economy in order to save the country.

The multi-billionaire Pritzker probably lost a ton in equities and other investments thanks to the stock market crash. But not enough so that he has to panic like the other Americans who aren’t part of Pritzker’s 1 percent. Spare us, oh guv.

[email protected]

www.dennisbyrne.net 

My historical novel: Madness: The War of 1812

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