My birthday present

I am not in a good mood at the moment.  We have been dealing with a cat issue, but that’s for the end of today’s story.  That isn’t what put me into a bad mood.  No, it’s what I bought myself for a birthday present.  I decided to buy a Walther P22 hand gun for my birthday.  I just wanted something inexpensive to shoot and 22s are as cheap as you can get.  This isn’t one of those teeny tiny little things that you can’t aim, it’s about the same size as my S&W 9c.
 
Here in California they have some really stupid gun laws.  There are people trying to change some of them but things are still hung up in court.  If you have a CCW, obviously you are able to carry.  You’ve passed the background checks.  All is good.  It doesn’t make sense that the state should make people who have CCWs wait a 10-day waiting period from the time they buy the weapon until the time they can pick it up.  And I mean 10 days!  If you purchased it at 3:54 pm then you’d better not show up to pick it up until 10 days later at 3:55 pm.  You show up at 3:50, you wait.  This waiting period was challenged.  If the reason to wait 10 days is to do a background check and you already have a background check and additional checks due to the CCW process, then you shouldn’t have to wait.  The courts agreed.  Unfortunately, it is being appealed so I still have to wait. 

I was supposed to pick up my gift to myself yesterday.  I was in town but a little too early.  I didn’t want to hang around.  I decided to pick it up on Friday instead.  Today I got a phone call from the gun store.  The person told me they got a letter from the Department of Justice citing regulation 2822.0.  They are taking an additional up to 30 days to finish the background check because there may be an issue.  What?!?!

There aren’t any issues.  The person said it could be as simple as an unpaid ticket.  I don’t have an unpaid ticket.  The letter didn’t say what the issue is and the DOJ doesn’t have to justify the delay.  I concluded that since it was during the holiday season that the DOJ just didn’t have enough staff on duty to conduct their review…which shouldn’t be conducted anyway.  So now, I have to wait for possibly another month. 

Sometimes I hate California regulations and think it's a great reason to leave the state.   I have a friend that wants me to move to Colorado.  Another wants me to move to Oklahoma.  Both are preparedness folks and I would fit in to either group. Then I compare other places with the weather and growing season here and wonder if I'd be leaving just be leaving one set of idiotic regulations for another and a good growing season for one that isn't.  Any thoughts?

The cat.  We have four cats.  One is old.  One is borrowed (actually we are cat sitting for 8-10 months while the owner is out of the country).  One was given to us by a neighbor’s daughter…and it was a cute little orange cat so I just couldn’t resist.  One just showed up a few months ago.  All are good hunters, the one that just showed up a few months ago is great. 

A few weeks ago orange cat had swelling on his ear, which meant a trip to the vet.  He had surgery on the ear.  He came home a little groggy but after being knocked out it was expected.  The next morning there was just something about his behavior.  It wasn’t right.  He was still acting groggy.  I locked him in my room and went to work.  When I got home he had put himself in a corner and was just staring at the corner.  I picked him up and he was acting like he couldn’t see me or hear me.  Not a good sign.  I called the vet who said to bring him in first thing in the morning.    The vet is assuming that it was part of the same problem that he had with the ear.  Diagnosis: a blood clot in the brain, a stroke.

The cat stayed at the vet for two weeks.  Orange cat is now home.  His hearing is back but his vision is very limited.  There is nothing wrong with his vision.  What is wrong is the brain isn’t telling him that he can see.   We are hoping his brain changes and tells his eyes to work once again.  Orange cat gets around the house just fine, even without seeing.  He is more and more active each day.  His latest trick is the ability to not only climb onto a bed but to jump down.  Blind cat isn’t an issue right now because the house stays closed up.  From about March or April through October or November we keep a door open for the animals to go in and out.  If blind cat can’t see and he goes outside he may be short lived. 

Note about the vet.  While he is normally on the expensive side when compared to other local vets for routine office visits, he didn’t charge anything for the two weeks he had orange cat.  If he charged what any other vet would have charged orange cat would have been put down.  I don’t have any real strong feelings for any of the cats so it wouldn’t matter to me if we lost him or any of the others (other than the one that doesn’t belong to us).  I think the grandkids would be sad for a short time but since a cat would be replaced quickly it wouldn’t be an issue for them to lose a cat.  On the other hand, I still haven’t replaced big dog.  I haven’t found “the dog” so no replacement yet.   I’ve been looking: put an ad on Craigslist, and even looked at the pound.  There was one person who had what looked like a good dog.  Then they told me how much they wanted to sell her for.  Absolutely no way!