Tag Archives: Toms River

Thank You, Buddy Amato.

Thank You, Buddy Amato.

What follows is my own opinion and reflects my personal feelings. It is not a statement representing any of the groups involved, and nothing I say should be construed as originating from said groups.

Everything was under control with this rescue, but Mr. Amato, who has no jurisdiction in Ocean County, decided to stick his nose in. The report on News 12 quoted him as saying “All the animals should have been removed. . .then you get them adopted. You don’t just leave them there.” Yes, Mr. Amato, simple as that. You take 44-plus cats, all sick, flea-infested, and emaciated, and easily fit them in a shelter that has only about a dozen cages. The shelter will find a way to fit them all in, even though they’re so antisocial that almost all of them need to be caged separately. The town council will feel so bad that they all need to be spayed and neutered, that the females that are too pregnant to be spayed will give birth to sick kittens that will need veterinary care, and that they’ll need other expensive treatments and individual attention before anyone would want to touch them, much less adopt them, that they’ll give the shelter all the money they need to rehabilitate and house the cats. And, after the shelter miraculously becomes larger and acquires at least ten more cage banks, people will pour in from all corners to adopt them, even though there were already plenty of good-looking, healthy cats being put to sleep after too long a time without being adopted. In fact, the shelter administration will get so much money, so much space, and so many clients, that they will no longer have to decide that a cat is too expensive to treat, or that one cat is more adoptable than another, and opt for euthanasia. Oh, no, every cat that comes in will be taken care of, no matter how much it costs, no matter how difficult it might be as a pet, and live out its days in comfort until it finds a home! Does it work that way in Monmouth County, Mr. Amato? Lucky you!

Unfortunately, it’s not that way in any town or county shelter I’ve ever heard of, and not that way in Toms River. That’s why the cats were going to be removed in stages by the rescue group. Tails With Happy Endings took out as many cats as they could house, and began getting them the veterinary care they needed, paying for it with its own funds, swallowing the costs for food, litter, bedding, additional cages. The idea was that since the town shelter would have had to put them all down, the rescue would take them in stages and get them adopted when they were healthy and well socialized, and the town would monitor the whole situation. Yes, it meant that some would be left in their same situation for a while longer, but they’d have a chance for a better life.

I doubt that Mr. Amato bothered to find this out before issuing his judgment. In fact, I doubt he bothered to find it out at all, because he apparently exerted his influence on certain officials of Toms River to have
Animal Control go back into the house and remove every single remaining animal.

In Buddy Amato Fantasy World, he’s a hero to these animals. Here where the rest of us live, their last memories before they die will be of having been captured ungently in a place of fear and filth. The shelter is already full of cats that have all their fur, that come forward in the cages to be petted rather than cowering and hissing, that are pretty and healthy and adoptable. None of them will be displaced by the “rescued” cats. Perhaps being dead is a better alternative to living the way they did, but it’s not a better alternative to the way the first batch will end up – the way they, too, would have ended up if Mr. Amato hadn’t swooped in to save the day. Bravo, sir.

Of course, now that the town doesn’t have to spend anything to care for all these animals, maybe they can purchase a vehicle for the same purpose. Outfit it with multiple gas chambers, capture animals in crates that fit right in, cold storage in the back, and they don’t even have to go back to the shelter. It could say in big letters along the sides “Buddy Amato Mobile Euthanasia Truck,” so he could get the recognition he deserves.

On a Lighter Note – Miscellaneous Updates.

On a Lighter Note – Miscellaneous Updates.

Cats: Clarence was adopted. Edgar and Alfie are still looking for homes. The new kittens are getting bigger, and are playing with the dog and the other cats. Pics to follow soon. Nigel had roundworms. Ick. Ickickick. All better now after medicine, but the episode confirmed. . .

Bifocals: I need a different prescription. Distance is fine, but the bottom part of the lens is uncorrected. I can see up to about a foot away uncorrected, and from about four or five feet away with distance correction. This means that there is a very large, fairly essential distance that I see poorly through either lens. That area includes anything at arms’ length, like scooping litterboxes, which is why I didn’t see Nigel’s roundworms earlier. Not that I want correction specifically for sighting feline parasites in poop, but you know what I mean.

The Raiders Cane: Unfortunately, I made the silver clay with silver and translucent, and it baked up to a dark color. The contrast was lost, so I have to try a different mix. Not such a bad thing, though, because it gave me lots of “scraps” to try out my new bench grinder/buffer. Heh. I’ll also try out a different method for reducing the cane to see if it lessens some minor distortions.

Being a Band Mom: Part of the reason for the dearth of posts. I had many cookies to make, had a lot of driving to do. The kids put on an excellent show at Giants Stadium in the cold and the pouring rain, not that the judges appreciated it. Their scores went up, but they were among several bands that somehow scored lower than other bands with less impressive (IMO) shows. I’m not going to name names, but some schools were unfairly treated in the rankings. We’re heading down to Baltimore this weekend for the last competition of the season. Since the judges apparently base their scores, in part, on the bands’ previous scores, there’s no question that there will be any upset in the rankings, but I still know that these kids are doing a truly impressive job.

Going to the Movies

Going to the Movies

You know, it gets less and less worth not waiting until things come out on DVD. Yesterday the kids and I went to the new Marquee Theatre in Toms River. Yeah, new is nice, but it wasn’t as nice as I was hoping. They claimed to have stadium seating, but it was actually somewhere in between regular seating and the stadium seating I’d gotten used to at the Clifton Commons. My view might not have been blocked by a tall guy in front of me, but his hair would stick up into the picture. I’m not sure if it was worth the extra dollar in ticket price and the extra driving (we could walk to the AMC Seacourt Plaza if we wanted).

But, we were at the movies, and that was good. The large popcorn was actually large, and we settled in for the 12:15 show of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Now here’s where my irritation really started. There was a commercial for an ABC “Family” show (about a frat house!). A long commercial recruiting for the National Guard. A commercial for laundry detergent. A commercial for fabric softener. A commercial for Yahoo. A commercial for Sprint. Another commercial for another ABC “Family” show (I wasn’t paying attention at this point, but it still seemed a bit unlike family fare.) Three previews. The movie actually started at 12:38. You know, when you spend over $40 to see a matinee, you shouldn’t have to watch commercials. I know I’m fighting a losing battle here in a day when even educational materials have corporate sponsors, and every entertainment concept is a movie, book, TV show, kids’ meal toy, sheet set, video game, breakfast cereal, etc., simultaneously. I hate tie-ins, I hate coupons that require the purchase of several items, I hate billboards, I hate supermarket checkout TVs. I hate being sold to all the time, and especially when I’ve already bought something. Leave me the F alone or I’ll F’in boycott your product. (Not quite infuriated enough to spell out the whole word, you can see!)

Now, the movie itself was enjoyable moreso than not. It did have the disclaimer at the end “Based on the book by J.K. Rowlings”, which was good because some of the editorial choices made it quite different from the book. I usually forget so much of a book after a while that I don’t see as many of the differences as some people do. (Notable exceptions: Dune, Ella Enchanted) However, a good deal of what was on the screen, visually, matched how I imagined it as I was reading it, so it triggered memories of what was supposed to happen next. When it didn’t, or it happened differently, it jarred. The screen adaptation might have to be changed for the next movie to keep it consistent with the changes made in this one.

I might go back and read the books in order again. Hubby is expecting his copy of Deathly Hallows to be delivered from Amazon today, and nobody else in the family is allowed to disturb him or touch the book until he’s finished. heh. I could use the opportunity to go back and refresh my memory. And one day we might do a movie marathon of the whole series. After they’re all out on DVD, so we can enjoy the experience of being entertained without feeling like marketing vultures are circling above us waiting to eat us up.