Day 156 - the first Monday of June

Today is the 2nd day of the 23rd week, the 5th day of the 6th month, the 156th day of 2023, and:

• Apple II Day
• Baby Boomers Recognition Day
• Festival of Popular Delusions Day - this began in Germany as 06.05.1945 was the last day the Nazi's were able to delude themselves they were a power.  Now it is celebrated as a day for us all to give ourselves a reality check
• HIV Long Term Survivors Awareness Day
• Hot Air Balloon Day
• International Day for the Fight Against Illegal Unreported and Unregulated Fishing
• National Attitude Day
• National Gingerbread Day
• National Moonshine Day
• National Start Over Day
• National 'Thank God It's Monday' Day
• National Veggie Burger Day
• Sausage Roll Day
• World Day Against Speciesism - I'm a little foggy on this philosophical concept, but I think it has to do with thinking homo sapiens has the rights to do what they want with other animals, even prioritizing those we value for companionship or food over others.  I am guessing that the Bible's comments in Genesis, chapter 1, are a prime example of this.  
• World Environment Day

Quote of the day:

"In this short Life that only lasts an hour

How much - how little - is within our power"

~ Emily Dickinson, Poems 

Another Monday morning...   a pretty average one on the whole.

The weather hereabouts is pleasant - it gets warm in the afternoon and the A/C is needed, but I can open the balcony door in the morning, as long as the humidity is not too high and the air quality is reasonable.  Of late we have had a lot of smoke filtering into the area from different wildfires.  Triscuit appreciates the open door.  Now and then a crow swoops by, cawing, and she runs to the screen and tracks the bird's every movement until they flit out of sight.  

I wasn't allowed a cat or dog when I was growing up because I seemed to be allergic to everything.  There were goldfish [usually won at different fairs and Play Days] that were very short-lived and often didn't even get named.  There was a parakeet, a green budgie named Tweety - immortalized in a poem I wrote back in the second grade:

I have a pet named Tweety

He is a little sweetie

Out of his cage he will flutter

To land right in the table butter!

But Tweety was belonged more to my mother who actually tamed it, and taught it to speak than to me, altho I was responsible for cleaning the cage.  I wanted a horse, of course, but that was out of the question financially.  

My kids grew up with hermit crabs and Siamese fighting fish, and one budgie that was too wild to be let out of the care, and was found dead on the floor of it after just two years.  My son has ended up with various cats; my daughter with cats when she was in an apartment and now that she is in a house, with four dogs.  One of my daughter's rescue cats needed to be rehomed and I ended up with my first "real" pet after my mother moved out in 2008 - Kula, a Siamese who needed to be an only cat.  She had gotten Siamese cats because they were supposedly hypo-allergenic, but we think Kula wasn't a pure breed because his saliva made us both break out.  Nevertheless, there weren't any other allergy symptoms and I became a loving cat parent until he passed and Panda, then Triscuit came to live with me. 

Altho I was horse-crazy as a young kid [I blame Walter Farley's Black Stallion and Flame series], I never thought of a horse in the same way as do my cats - I didn't think of a horse as a pet, or food, I do think of it as something to ride.  As fond as I am of the Freddy the Pig series, and as convinced as I am of pigs' intelligence, I have never seriously considered making a pet of one while I still enjoy pork, ham, and definitely bacon.  I don't have a utilitarian view of Triscuit - she is definitely her own personality is is rather independent like all cats.   I would be horrified to learn that folks were raising cats for food, and admit that I have difficulties with other cultures who consider eating dogs or horses acceptable, or even a delicacy.    

All this speculation puts me in mind of a short story I read once [it was in an anthology by Harlan Ellison, and was called 'In the Barn' ] that made an indelible impression on me - how would I feel about humans used like dairy cows and how do I know how the cows feel about being used in this way?  And yet that reflection certainly never has stopped me from enjoying milk, butter, cheese, and ice cream

And so, that makes me guilty of speciesism and I guess that is going to be the one of the reasons I'm going to Hell today since I am not planning on repenting and changing my ways.

Happy Monday!