Friday, August 10, 2007

Debra - A MORAL DILEMMA


One of the nice things about life as a self-employed person is that you can work late when you need to work and sleep in when you need to recover from work.

I need to sleep in a lot. My productive time is often late in the evening. Even after midnight. The house is quiet. The phone is quiet. The animals are quiet. (2 cats. 1 dog.)

My hubby has a corporate job so he's up at the crack of dawn, walking the dog, checking his business email before he goes to work. (You know the type.) We have a routine. He likes the house and fresh newspaper to himself in the morning. I like to sleep. Everyone's happy.

Until last week. I'm up late Wednesday night. No worries. I have a cushy Thursday to sleep in because I'm not leaving town until Friday morning. Great. Game plan in place.

I thought.

At the crack of dawn (slightly before 7 a.m.) there arose a clatter. I did not get up to see what was the matter. The dog raced down the hall, jingling her tags. I heard my husband walk heavily through the room. The footsteps stopped at my side of the bed.

"Honey, we have a moral dilemma." (see photo)

I pried open my eyes to find a tiny (and I do mean tiny) black kitten in hubby's hand. I looked at the pile of bones that was masquerading as a kitten, flung off the covers and said, "There's really no moral dilemma now is there?"

We are programmed to protect the young. I was guessing 4 weeks old. The vet said he thought 5 weeks but not more. She was emaciated. Had 2 kinds of worms and a $80 vet bill.
This picture was taken Wednesday night, the day before her 6 week birthday. By then she'd had good food for a week with yummy Goat-a-Lac formula.

Her name is Lucky. (Uh...not my choice.) Hubby is very attached. I think this is actually the first baby he's ever rescued. She was crying piteously from tall monkey grass as he passed on his morning walk. He almost walked away because he couldn't see anything. Then the grass moved. He picked her up, carried her home, thinking he had a moral dilemma.

But he hadn't been raised by my mother, who's motto regarding animals is this: "If it can crawl in here, it can stay." So now, since last week, when the animals are quiet late at night, the count is 3 cats, 1 dog.

How about you? Had any thorny moral dilemmas lately?

I took a quiz about my moral/political/ethical style. Here's what they said:

You are focused on social inequity in your daily life. You have a higher tolerance for ambiguous reality models. Your moral system is highly based on greatest good or utilitarian principles. You have a higher than average self-image and an above average need for social interaction. You have elevated spatial analysis skills. Your long term memory systems are more widely distributed in your brain than the average person. You exhibit an elevation in awareness of social ranking. You are strong willed.

I'm not sure...but I think they called me a snob who can think her way out of a paperback and wouldn't leave the wounded behind unless it was really really necessary for world peace.

17 comments:

Samantha Hunter said...

Oh, Lucky is gorgeous! Congratulations on the new addition, and how sweet you and hubby are. :)

No moral dilemmas lately, I don't think...

I took the quiz, and it said:

" You are focused on social inequity in your daily life. You have a higher tolerance for ambiguous reality models. You are more likely to weight androgen features in your social ranking analysis. You have an elevation in activity in your left prefrontal cortex. Your moral system is based on both personal and utilitarian principles. You have a higher than average self-image and an above average need for social interaction. You have a right hemispheric orientation in how your regulate your behavior in society. Your long term memory systems are more widely distributed in your brain than the average person. You are not oriented towards awareness of where you fit in with social groups. You are not very politically focused."

Disagree with the last bit -- I am very politically focused. I pay close attention to issues, races, etc, feel it's very important to speak up, be involved, vote, etc.

I also find it interesting they think I have an above-average self-image. I think I'm confident, comfortable with myself, but I would consider that average, I guess, for women my age.

Hmmm. It was an interesting quiz though...

Sam

Helen Brenna said...

Oh, Deb. I'm with you, Lucky isn't a moral dilemma. At all. One of my first cats, I found 2 brothers, was very sickly. Had to do weeks of vitamins, deworming. He ended up bigger than the other one!!

My biggest dilemma these days is finding a balance with my daughter, who's heading off to college in 3 weeks. I want her to know I love her and will miss her, but I won't miss her so much that she has to worry about me. I don't want her thinking I can't wait for her to go, either, and won't miss her at all.

Off to take the quiz ...

Unknown said...

Well, that has to be one of the cutest kittens I've ever seen. And are those BLUE eyes? WOW.

My son and his wife are going to be acquiring two kittens this week some time. I can't help wishing "Lucky" was one of them. I hope they're half as cute.

Meanwhile, my mom wasn't an animal person. . . she tolerated the family dogs. But we've always been animal people. My kids only brought home a stray dog once. . . a basset hound wearing a bandana. They wanted to keep him, but I suggested we call the neighboring horse ranch and --sure enough-- he'd wandered away from there. The boys were crushed. We got a dog of our own soon after.

Congratulations on the expanding family. How are the other cats taking to the new kid?

Debra Dixon said...

Sam ! I'm so glad you took the quiz. I really wanted to know if they customized it much. And once you get past those first two sentences, it is very different. And I think that any confident person is totally above average in self-image. So many people I meet truly do not feel comfortable being who they are.

Helen-- I'm so glad to know that the sickly kitty turned out big. Around here, we have a 13 year old cat and a 7 year old cat. I had already told my husband that the next kitty was going to be a Maine Coon because I was a BIG cat. I always get these little tiny things. Our first cat together was here 18 years and weighed a whopping 5 lbs in her prime.

Betina-- LOL on the bandana! Now that's a nice comforting thought when you aren't ready for a dog and the boys wag a lost one home. Gives you time to get used to the idea that they boys want a dog and you know that this one is going back somewhere. We did look around the neighborhood for a sign or a newspaper ad, but a) we probably wouldn't have given back an emaciated kitten and b)no one was looking for Lucky. We felt sure she was from a feral litter and were just "lucky" that she needed us enough to tame very quickly.

The other cats aren't speaking to me, mostly because we have to keep her quarantined until her shots and we know she's truly healthy. So, I split my time, which means less for them. The dog is surrogate parenting with me almost 24-7.

Susan Kay Law said...

Debra, how do they always find your house? It's like you have some sort of homing beacon that only speaks to lost animals.

Very, very cute, though.

Susie

Debra Dixon said...

Susie-- I have NO idea how they manage to find us. But each of the 4 animals in my house is a stray. I can only hope I'm building karma to override the shallow areas of my being! LOL!

Michele Hauf said...

Wow, I don't think I've ever had the desire to take in a stray. Though, living in the suburbs, if I do see a cat wandering about, I can assume it belongs somewhere. One winter we had a big fat tabby camped out on our deck, shivering and half frozen. It looked too clean and cared for to be a stray, so I forced myself not to let it inside to warm up, and perhaps think it could remain on our deck, because there is where the food was. (My two cats would have attacked it anyway.) So while it crushed me to watch the thing out there, for days, I was relieved when finally it left. Must have remembered where home was.

There is a baby bunny hopping around our yard, though, that I have been leaving lettuce out for (organic lettuce, of course). It's eaten any flowers worth eating, and the hubby just shakes his head, but I can't help it. It's so darn cute.

Debra Dixon said...

Michele- You'll let a bunny eat your flower garden and buy it organic lettuce but you don't take in strays?

Ha!

Michele Hauf said...

Hee.

Kathleen Eagle said...

My granddaughter caught me reading the blog, saw the picture and thought I was shopping for her. I told her that we can either get another cat or keep Grandpa--who would have rescued the cat, but it would have gone straight to the local no-kill pound. I'd love to have another dog--we're basically dog people--but I'm resisting. Darling granddaughter wants to visit Deb.

Debra Dixon said...

Kathleen- So sorry to stir up the granddaughter! (g) I'm betting you end up with another dog before too long.

Dara Edmondson said...

She's so adorable. I'd have done the same thing. I just want to know one thing:
"You have elevated spatial analysis skills." What the heck does this mean??
Thorny moral dilemmas - hmm. Yes - actually. My 13 year old daughter gave me some dialog and some plot advice on a YA short story I was writing. So, I wrestled with whether to give her credit for it as a co-author. After all, she did only a little work. But after careful consideration, I decided to give her co-author credit. She helped, after all. I didn't want to give her the impression that's all it takes to write a story, but her good deed should be rewarded. She was thrilled when we got the cover with both our names on it. Right choice.

Debra Dixon said...

Dara-- How great that you shared a book with your daughter. Very cool. I believe that people who are exposed to kindness, sharing and accomplishment tend to follow that pattern. :)

RE: "elevated spatial analysis skills"

I can look at a 3d image object and tell you which pile of pieces belong to it. Or take the deconstructed pieces of a 3D object and put the pieces back together in my head to select the right finished object. I knew I had this "skill" already from various testing as a youngster/teen. I took some sort of a test in like the tenth grade and scored off-the-charts on it. I have no idea what this skill is good for, but I suspect it's why quilting has been easy for me.

Dara Edmondson said...

I get it now. Lucky you to have such a hard-working brain;-)

flip said...

You are focused on social inequity in your daily life. You have a higher tolerance for ambiguous reality models. You have an elevation in activity in your left prefrontal cortex. You have elevated spatial analysis skills. Your long term memory systems are more widely distributed in your brain than the average person. You devote more neural resources per social interaction than most people. Your communication preferences strongly favor your auditory cortex over your visual cortex.

I disagree with the last line. As a reader, I much rather use my eyes learning than listen.

Erika said...

I wasn't going to post a comment because I'm late, but after reading what other people's results were from the "quiz" I had to post mine. I don't think this was very customized (or accurate).

"You are focused on social inequity in your daily life. You have a higher tolerance for ambiguous reality models. You have a higher than average self-image and an above average need for social interaction. You have a left hemispheric orientation in how your regulate your behavior in society. Your long term memory systems are more widely distributed in your brain than the average person. You devote more neural resources per social interaction than most people. You exhibit an elevation in awareness of social ranking. Your communication preferences strongly favor your auditory cortex over your visual cortex. You are not very politically focused."

I don't know . . .

Debra Dixon said...

ktzmom-- Cool ! I've been very interested in the quiz results. I had two other folks email me results and they were similiar but *both* different. There are probably only so many things a internet quiz can actually return, but I haven't seen the "communication preferences strongly favor your auditory cortex over your visual cortex." So that's new for you!