Need help with a feral kitten I'm fostering.

So, we're having Thanksgiving dinner and I look out on the patio and there's this white, long-hair furball, maybe about 7 or 8 weeks old, GORGING herself on my outside cats' cat food. This tells me she's starving. I tried to go out to the patio to ascertain if she was wild or not, she is. Since I can't bring her in without trapping her (something I never do unless there's a medical emergency) but I'm watching her in the back yard for a couple of days and notice she's made friends with one of my 6 cats -- Erica. At one point, Erica sort of goes and gets her and leads her to the sliding glass door which leads into our family room. I opened the door and in she comes. I closed the door and have had her in ever since.

After 2 or 3 days she sees we're not going to reach for her or try to coerce her so she's comfortable sleeping on the futon and the chair and the table and on my desk -- out in the open. She's still following Erica around like they are Besties. Erica is tolerating her, even bathing her, but Alaska (we named her) is FULL of fleas and too young to treat yet (she's getting there) so it's understandable that Erica is not wanting to be too close to her.

ANYWAY . . . anytime I try to come up to her, including on her level, and very gently, she dives under something. I've been able to pick her up a few times but only when she was unsuspecting and she doesn't seem to want to stay in my lap even though she purrs loudly when I actually get her there.

I know her instinct is to dive under something when she's afraid but I need to be able to touch her at will so she doesn't freak out every time. As I said, I'm FOSTERING her (I already have 6 cats) and it's important that she be able to be handled in order to be adoptable.

I'm taking her to the vet on Tuesday to get her shots, an estimate of how old she is and maybe get her de-flead if she's old enough. I'll get her spayed as soon as it's medically possible.

This is my question: How do I get her to allow me to pet her/touch her/hold her without her freaking out?

Btw, she's solid white except for a black "skid mark" on her head and she's got one green eye and one blue eye. Cutest damned thing I ever saw.

Jon Stewart Surprises John Oliver With An Emotional Goodbye On His Last Episode Of 'The Daily Show'

Local, family-owned, green, hormone-free milk.

This is Rosa Family farms

http://rosabrothers.com/

They're in Hanford, CA (just SE of Fresno) they've been family owned since 1953. They're green, they're humane, they don't feed their cows hormones, and they're completely transparent (you can tour the facilities). Yes, the milk is more expensive but given the pluses, I think it's worth it.

The milk comes in old-fashioned glass bottles. You pay a $2.00 deposit on the first bottle. When you go to buy more milk, just bring the old, rinsed-out bottle back so the deposit is a one-time thing. They offer lots of different types of milk (chocolate milk, orange crème, root beer milk) and it's all VERY fresh.

I've no financial interest in the company but I just think it's a good idea to try and buy local as much as possible. There's a list of places where it's sold on the website. Mostly at Save Mart and mostly in the San Joaquin Valley and Central Coast. You can also have it delivered.

Just an FYI.

Cheers for Obama,

jeers for G.W. Did anyone else catch that? There was a HUGE response when they showed President Obama on the big screen. JEERS when they showed W. I enjoyed that.

ETA: Watching Mandela's Memorial Service on livestream.

WARNING: There is a current thread that contains a graphic image:

A post within this thread: F*#k you Michael Vick, you dog killing asshole (Foles FTW!)

Contains a horrible graphic image of an abused animal.

IF YOU ARE GOING TO POST GRAPHIC PICTURES PLEASE INCLUDE "GRAPHIC WARNING" IN THE THREAD TITLE!

It just happened again! I pull up a post and there is a horrible, horrible picture that had NO WARNING in the thread title. Some people, such as myself, are hypersensitive to horrible graphic pictures and cannot stand to look at them. When we view them, they literally stay with us for the rest of our lives. For the first few days, we can't get the pictures out of our minds and we have a severe emotional reaction to them. These images never leave our minds.

Please, please, PLEASE, if you want to post some horrific picture, PLEASE include a "GRAPHIC WARNING" sign in your thread title.

I'm going to keep this kicked because too many people seem to get their ya-yas by doing this lately. I don't know if they're completely ignorant or they just don't care. Either way the psychological damage is incalculable.

For those of you with this condition the Thread: "Dog of the year helps 8-year-old boy with autism find his voice" contains one of these horrific pictures.

In 2014, NO Seat Should Run Unopposed!

Voter suppression and gerrymandering will, indeed, be HUGE obstacles in the upcoming elections and both will have to be dealt with; however, one area that seems to get no attention is the lack of Democratic candidates in too many elections.

After Dean, the Party Intelligencia decided to go back to the 6-state strategy. The result is that there is no party support, in any way, for the vast majority of elections. That means it's up to the locals to find, recruit and support challengers in EVERY race. I can't tell you how often the Republican Congresscritters from my area run unopposed. Either that or the Democrats throw in a "sacrifice candidate" who is, basically, a placeholder and does no campaigning, no debates, nothing. The thing is, I know this situation isn't unique to my area. I would think that this is a part of our Democratic process in which all DUers can engage. If you're looking for something to do in the 2014, maybe consider candidate recruitment. Or . . . run yourself.

Help Counter SNAP Cuts by Making Extra Donations to Food Banks

As terrible as this SNAP cut is (notice they could find money to continue the Bush Tax Cuts for the Wealthy), it's even worse given that Thanksgiving and Christmas are just around the corner. Not only that, kids will be out of school during those times which means no school breakfasts/lunches.

I've decided that every time I go to the grocery store I'm going to try and buy 5 extra cans of something -- tuna, soup, spaghettios, whatever I can find -- and donate them to our food bank. If I had money I'd donate that too but I don't so this is one little thing I, as one solitary individual, can do. I'd like to invite other DUers to think about doing this or something like it to help alleviate some of the extra strain our local food banks will be under in the coming weeks. I've volunteered at my local food bank many times and I can tell you every little bit helps and is greatly appreciated.

Thanks for your consideration.

LTH

My Spicy Peach Butter Won First Place at the Fair!

Yay me! My Savory Salsa won Second Place which is pretty good for a gringa competing against all those Mexican women who have been making salsa since forever. The Mango Jelly didn't win anything this year but both Macramé Bracelets won second place in their respective divisions (Jewelry and Macramé). Made a whole $22.00.

In Priase of the Relish Tray

I recently went to visit some friends in The Bible Belt and was reminded of their use of relish trays at dinner and supper (lunch and dinner, respectively -- had to re-learn that one). I was inspired to do the same thing with my own meals.

I'm not a big fan of lettuce, most of the time it's out of season, takes a great deal of water to grow and doesn't hold a lot of nutritional value. Besides, I hate cutting up salads. Love the salads themselves but I hate the work. Enter the relish tray. You get a lot more variety, you just replace the things that have been used the previous meal and I think you get a lot more variety.

Some favorite ingredients include: celery sticks, baby carrots, radishes, cherry tomatoes, green onions, peppers, pickled okra, bread-and-butter pickles, dill pickles, olives (green and/or black), broccoli, cauliflower, cucumbers, and anything else you can think of.

I haven't been in here much and I just wanted to share that.