Save Princess and Her Old Man

Princess and her old man must raise approximately $14,000 before September 24, 2015. They need the money to settle a back-rent debt with a very patient landlord. Unfortunately, the landlord's patience runs out precisely on that date ...when Princess and Paul will find themselves quite homeless. We're asking for your help to keep this from happening.

Princess is about 17 and a half years old -- a black DSH of uncertain ancestry. She had a traumatic kittenhood. The son of one of the old man's friends, living by a river, found a soaking wet kitten skulking around his porch -- thinking at first that she was a rat, and getting ready to kill her. Apparently, someone had tried to drown her. ((To this day, unlike other cats the old man has known, Princess has zero interest in going into paper bags.)) In any case, the son adopted her ... and then, at some point, passed Princess on to his mom. His mom owned a derelict theater downtown ...and while shoe-string-working on refurbishing the place, she opened her real estate business in one of the shop front spaces. Sometimes she slept there (in the unheated building) and sometimes she didn't. But, Princess was there all the time -- mostly completely alone. When the real estate office got converted into a bakery outlet, health codes made her presence problematical ... and the old man, Paul, was asked if he'd like to adopt her. He knew Princess from visiting with her in the real estate office, thought she'd probably get along well with his affable cat, Hermes, and said "Yes!" That was in November, 2004. And so the fate of Princess became linked to the fate of this hapless human.

Princess is not a well cat. Aside from old age rapidly creeping up on her -- mostly noticed in muscle weakness, loss of stability, flexibility and etc. -- she suffers from chronic IBD. She already had this condition when she came to be with Paul. He took her to the vet not long after arrival, when he first saw symptoms -- but it was several years and a close-to-death experience before she received her diagnosis and the right drug therapy could be initiated. Although there have been a few acute (and scary) flare-ups since then, she's doing pretty well on a regular dose of antibiotic and prednisolone. Her health suffered this past fall ... when the old man couldn't afford to turn on the heat until November. Now she's hoping (if cats do such things) that the oil in the tank will hold out until the nights stop dropping into the 30s.

Paul is the less interesting of the two characters. He's an old man (almost 69) with no children, no spouse, few friends. He's got his own set of health problems -- most notably, cluster headaches (since 1980) and diverticulitis (diagnosed a year ago). Trained as a philosopher, he taught for a few years at Cornell....but, after leaving academia many years ago, the (chronic) cluster headaches kept him from pursuing any sort of normal "career" ... since he couldn't be sure when one of these debilitating headaches might suddenly hit and put him completely out of commission for 15-120 minutes at a time. He tried lots of different ways of making money. Among other things, he put in time as a substitute teacher at a junior high, tarot card reader, balloon vendor, artist, writer, buttonmaker, computer consultant, knowledge engineer, reader/analyst of high tech trade press, online vendor of genuine New England apple crates ... and etc.. He's never been too successful. The break-up of a 27 year marriage around 12 years ago threw him into a financial pit ... and, while still struggling to pull himself even, the bottom fell out around 5 or 6 years ago. Since then, he's been trying to do his best on a monthly income of about $700 (plus food stamps) ... but has been falling steadily behind. Thus, there is the debt owed to the landlord.

There's not a cheaper place for Princess and Paul to live. If the $14K can be raised to clear the debt, the (friendly) landlord will be perfectly happy to let them going on living where they are. If it should happen that excess funds are raised -- Wow! What a thought! -- they'll go to paying some rent in advance, fixing the horrible shimmy in the 11 year old car, fixing the trailer's roof, heating oil ... and other such things which don't get done or bought because there are no dollars.

Most important, though, is Paul's goal of providing Princess with a better end-of-life than was her beginning. His deepest hope is to be able to give her what she needs all the way through to her natural ending -- and this means, first of all, preserving her home. Though it stings the vanity of the old man to ask: Won't you please help?

Thank you.