Stacy Horn

After work, after running errands, then taking care of the cats, it’s practically time to go to bed. I still have half a book to fact check, and illustrations to pick out, and Echo to run. How am I ever going to manage and not feel like the Alice in Wonderland quote, “My dear, here we must run as fast as we can, just to stay in place. And if you wish to go anywhere you must run twice as fast as that.”??

Someone decorated a tree in front of their building with robins.

I dropped my computer while taking a picture of my new haircut—which I love, it’s shortish and I’m growing out my bangs after having them for decades, it’s a genuinely new look—and in my excitement I completely broke my computer. It’s almost ten years old though, it was time for a new computer anyway. I just wanted to wait until more cash came in.

So, I’m stressed. But very happy with my brand new, shiny Macbook Air! Thank you Ben (who helped me and got a discount for me)!!

These are the flowers of my childhood. I see them and I go back to our house in Centerport, Long Island, when we lived in this beautiful wooded area filled with ponds and streams and these flowers (and others).

Bodhi, the tiny kitten who aspirated while I was feeding him is back from the hospital! With an infected eye which he probably got from the hospital and so he wouldn’t have gotten if it weren’t for me. But still! He’s alive! Oh thank God. I’m not sure how I would have handled it if he didn’t make it. One of the bottle babies I got later that day is not looking good. They warned us this is part of the job, but still. I hope I don’t come back on Sunday to learn he’s gone.

I had to feed Bodhi again of course, and I was scared, who wouldn’t be?? But it went well. He latched onto the bottle and I got to watch that blissful eyes-closed, ears twitching thing they do. (For the record, that kitten is being fed incorrectly. A kitten being bottle fed should not be on its back, but stomach down, like they would be if they were feeding from their mother. Not a criticism of the person in the video, who probably doesn’t know and was just doing their best to help a kitten.)

From street artist Hans Honschar, @honschar.

Today a kitten aspirated while I was bottle feeding him, and he is now in the hospital. I googled aspiration to see what his chances are of survival and it’s not good. I am a wreck, but I have to say, all the people at the ASPCA really rallied around me to assure me that it wasn’t my fault. My coach sat with me, she sent various people to me throughout the day to confirm it wasn’t my fault. AND, the fellow Nursery Caregivers kept stopping by and asking if I needed help, and I totally did.

I was just freaked out and off my game for the rest of the day and if they hadn’t stepped up to the plate and helped me feed my kittens and clean their cages I don’t think I would have gotten everything done.

AND, an hour or two later they gave me three new bottle babies who were born last night! I had to immediately start feeding them, these tiny, tiny things. I’m guessing it was a getting-back-on-the-horse thing, and my coach was with me the whole time.

A lot of people helped me, but I have to thank Colleen, Jess and Giselle in particular. I’m pretty sure none of them know I blog, and I’ve already thanked them in person of course. What else can I do? I should bring donuts tomorrow for everyone or something. Except I don’t know if they will all be there tomorrow. But they were all so professional and caring.

The kitten, Bodhi, was still alive when I left work, it’s just that I now know that if it got into his lungs he will likely develop pneumonia, and he won’t make it. So, yeah. He was one the first kittens I successfully bottle fed, so this will kill me if I killed him.

Another picture of Finney. His pain meds have arrived and I will be giving him his first dose in a half an hour (backstory: one of my cat’s cancer returned).

There’s a great article about Echo in the Atlantic, the online service I founded in 1989!! Thank you, Sandy. You did a great job.

An early version of our web page. I would love to go back to that. For nostalgia’s sake. I’d love to go back to our first, but I don’t even have a picture of it.