Born Free

I have a confession to make . . . I'm becoming obsessed with all things related to the movie Born Free.

I feel quite certain that I probably saw the movie as a child but I don't remember actually seeing it.  Then, a year or so ago I watched the movie and really enjoyed it.  It came on cable a few months ago, along with the sequel Living Free and I recorded both of them and watched them the weekend before last.

I'm not sure what happened but it affected me differently this time around.  I became very attached to Elsa, the lion the movie is based on.  Watching Born Free I wondered if she was still alive so I did a search of how long lions live.  The life expectancy of a lion in the wild is 15 years.  In captivity the life expectancy is 25 years.  When I read that I knew that Elsa was likely gone a long time.  And then I got annoyed because I felt that by deciding to release Elsa into the wild again that George and Joy Adamson effectively made the decision to cut her life expectancy almost in half for reasons that had nothing to do with what was in Elsa's best interest.  You see, by this point I had decided that they trained her to go back into the wild for recognition and fame.

So by the time I started to watch Living Free, I already didn't like George or Joy.  I would mention that I'm about to post a spoiler but since this is 50+ year old news I'll just say that if you don't know what happens and want to discover it somewhere else, you should stop reading now.  Okay then.  In the first 5 minutes of Living Free, Elsa dies.  I was totally shocked and immediately did a search of Elsa online.  She died at age 5.

I was upset and felt that George and Joy's selfish and egotistical decision had cut Elsa's life short by 80%.  I liked them even less.

But despite that, for some reason I ordered the book Born Free from my library.  I read it and it changed my opinion of George.  He was a good man who really cared about Elsa.  My opinion of Joy only got worse from reading the book.  Not only did it show no love or compassion for Elsa in the writing, it confirmed that for her it was an "experiment".

Since reading the book I've ordered the two other books in the series and have read excerpts from them.  I've also watched some documentaries and read archived articles on George, Joy and Elsa.

The bottom line is that through Elsa's story we see unconditional love from Elsa to the humans who raised her, despite that they didn't always act in her best interests and repeatedly betrayed her trust.  That love is what has me so obsessed with this story.  Elsa was an incredible creature and despite her having died before I was even born, I feel her loss and feel compelled to contribute in some way to a cause that would protect the species and educate people about their value.  It's an amazing story that if you haven't read it or seen the movie, it's worth the efforts to do so.

As for George and Joy, what I read about them and saw in documentaries is that my second opinions of the two were accurate.  George was an amazing human being who spent his life making sure animals were protected and treated with respect.  Everyone who met him loved him and only spoke highly of them.  Joy, on the other hand, was not a good person.  She was selfish and manipulative and cared only for herself.  The book Born Free was taken from George's notes, written in part by him and edited by him, yet she wouldn't share the income from the franchise with him.  In 1970 a lion George was rehabilitating attacked a child (the child survived) and he was forced to move to a more isolated area to continue his work.  Joy wanted to move on from lions (for more recognition) and refused to go with him.  He had no money and was living off of camel meat and tinned army rations while Joy gave money to foundations all over the world but she refused to help George because he didn't do as she'd demanded.  All comments about Joy in the documentaries and articles was that she was not a pleasant person and difficult to be around.  Despite having no money, George had workers to worked with him without compensation.  Joy, on the other hand, was murdered by a paid employee because of how she had treated them.  That says a lot about the people.

But, as I said, I feel a void and a sadness that Elsa is gone and it calls me to action on behalf of animals like her.  I'm not sure what I will do but I hope it is meaningful and honors a life that was cut way too short.

Odd Dream

I had an odd dream last night.  In it Matt Damon and Allison Holker were married and I worked with them.  I'm not sure what Matt's job was but Allison was a lawyer and they both were what society knows them to be - Matt an actor and Allison a dancer, currently performing on Dancing with the Stars.

It was a Monday morning in my dream and Allison had to perform that night . . . in Los Angeles.  The office was in Houston, Texas.  I asked Allison about it and she said she was going to be performing that night so I asked her when she was leaving.  She said she was leaving at 5:00 p.m.  I was trying to do the math in my head of the time change and time it would take to fly to L.A. from Houston but - at best - I thought she was cutting it really close.  I thought it was great that our company was allowing her the time off to participate in DWTS but as she was leaving I wondered if they realized she would have to be there two days now because of the Tuesday elimination shows they're starting now.  I couldn't ask her though because she was already out the door.

We'd been in a meeting with Matt, and I assume someone else because I had a bottle of alcohol in my bag and I was concerned it would be discovered and I would get fired.  I couldn't follow the meeting for thinking about it and wondering if it was buried deep enough that it couldn't be seen.  The reason I assumed someone else was in the meeting is because I didn't think Matt would rat me out and I'm pretty sure Allison was with me when I put the alcohol in the bag.

Anyway, I left the office and we were all in a living room with a wonderful view and I realized I didn't have my wig with me and thought I had left it at the office so needed to go back to get it.  (I haven't discussed why I would have a wig on my blog but it was in my dream so I'm including it.)  The wig looks like my real hair used to, just maybe a little fuller.  My real hair is growing in much darker though and is only a few inches long at this point so it's definitely a different look than people I work with have seen, and that also applies to the people I worked with in my dream - exception being Matt and Allison, who had seen me wigless.  Anyway, I went back to the office with my real hair showing and not one person seemed to notice a difference or not know who I was.

Someone I used to work with (and still worked with in the dream) came into my office and I found myself spilling my guts about the hair thing and she said she hadn't noticed anything different.  I woke up after that, never having seen or found my wig.

Weird.

Is it deja vu?

I recently changed vets for my dog.  It's a long story but I had changed vets around 5 years ago and I liked the vet initially.  Over the years though I've come to realize that she's really in the wrong profession.  She's afraid of dogs and I believe her negligence contributed to me losing one of my dogs.  Attributes I would think you'd want to avoid when looking for pet care.  So, at the end of last year when we were in the middle of getting my dog, Harley, off of steroids and she went on maternity leave, I decided to find a new vet.

I reached out to a friend of mine who I would trust my dog(s) with if something happened to me and she referred me to the vet she went to when she had pets (she lost both of her sweet babies within the last year and a half).  I took Harley to see this person and she was quite competent and nice and immediately addressed an issue he was having and he was like a new dog.  Perfect, right?

Well, last night I was reading through blog posts from my other blogs (yeah, this isn't my only blog - it is, however, the only one I've posted on in years) and apparently I "switched' vets about 7 years ago.  It's not specific and I only have vague memories of the incidents I mention but I'm pretty sure I had switched to the vet I'm currently taking my dog to.

It wasn't pretty.  After one visit and a few phone calls I went back to the vet I had moved from.  I didn't have an issue with the first vet, it's just he's so far away and it was making getting treatment for my dogs difficult.  It got bad enough that I did have to change vets 5 years ago.  At first the vet seemed good and competent but over time and a series of issues later, I realized I had to move again.

Finding good pet care is as important to me as finding good doctors for myself but the sad thing about it is, it doesn't seem to matter if they're a people doctor or an animal doctor, they just don't seem to provide the same quality care you know they'd expect if they needed medical attention.  I'm going to stay with this new vet for now but I'll be keeping my eyes out for any issues and I won't wait so long to make a change the next time.

My Biggest Fear

The older I get the less social I seem get.  It's not something I particularly like about myself but it's the reality of things.  In the last few years though, I've been working to remedy that and not just rely on others to maintain our friendships.

 

Add to that, I like being single.  It's hard for me to imagine sharing my home with someone else and having to answer to someone else as to how I spend money or who I can socialize with.  I know some will jump in and say that's not how marriage is supposed to be but I know how mine was and I know what my friends say about their husbands now.  For as much as some have a partnership and enjoy each other's company, I don't have one single married female friend who doesn't live in a hierarchy where the man rules the roost.  They may have some balance in their relationships but at the end of the day, the man calls the shots.  I've had that and don't relish the thought of returning to that.  No, I like being single.

 

Then I came across something recently that makes me want to be more diligent in maintaining friendships.

 

It started with an interview of a celebrity.  This celebrity mentioned a family member (also a celebrity) and spoke of them in the past tense.  So I looked up this family member on the internet movie database.  Apparently this person had died at a young age roughly 40 years ago. 

 

I was reading their profile and discovered that someone they'd had a long term love affair with was found dead in their home in 2011.  The coroner's report revealed that they had been dead approximately a year.  A year!

 

Before I did a search on this person and started reading articles about their life and death (they were also a celebrity, for the record), I wondered how this could happen.  Did they own their home free and clear?  Otherwise I would assume the landlord or mortgage company would have found this person before then.  Utilities wouldn't matter because they'd just shut them off and wouldn't come looking for you.  But what about the lawn and grounds?  How would they be maintained?  In my subdivision they'd eventually send someone over and charge you for the work.  I'd assume as much in a ritzy Los Angeles neighborhood.

 

Then I wondered, did this person have automatic payments set up?  If so, there'd need to be sufficient money in the account to cover this year.  But even at that, wouldn't the lawn guy eventually come looking for you?  Somebody's got to notice, right?

 

Oh, and supposedly the thing that caught the attention of the neighbor was overflowing mail that was yellowing.  The interesting thing with that for me is that I get excited to get mail so when I hear the mail person driving around, I will look out the window and watch them come to my house to see if they're delivering anything.  The house next door is vacant (for all intents and purposes).  It was bought just over a year ago by a family who has yet to live there.  They do stop by and mow the lawn and had a couple of parties there last summer, but otherwise the house is essentially vacant.  A few weeks ago, as I was looking out the window to see if I was getting any mail, the mail person got to their house and shoved some mail in.  Then the mail person reached back into the mail box and shoved some more.  I assumed the mailbox was full.  After another minute, the mail person pulled all the mail out, sticking it into a pouch on the dashboard, and then stuck in one sheet.  I assume the sheet told them something like they'd need to come pick up their mail at the post office.  My point is, the mail person didn't let the mailbox get to an overflowing condition where the mail would turn yellow.  And again, where this was happening was in an upscale LA home.

 

Well, after reading the articles on this person's death I still have some questions.  There were a few discrepancies in how the body was discovered but the facts were this:

 

1) The utilities were still on because the body was laying next to a space heater that was still on.

2) The yard was overgrown.

3) The overflowing mail was yellowing.

4) The house was as close to the road as it can get - not offset where people couldn't see what was going on.

 

People ignored this poor person, turned a blind eye - for a year.  The neighbors ignored the situation, no one came to check on them.  And apparently this person didn't have good enough friends that they came and checked on them.  In my mind I imagine that maybe a few calls came in for this person.  But when they didn't call back, no one cared enough to make sure they were okay.

 

That scares me.  I have a fear of that happening to me and then reading that it happened to someone who had been a high profile celebrity, well, it just freaks me out.  It also makes not want to have accounts set up as auto pay.  I don't now but this makes me want to never have it set up and always have some sort of required payment (other than taxes) attached to my house. 

 

It also makes me want to be sure I really cultivate more close friendships so that someone would notice if I wasn't around.  I don't want my mummified body to be discovered by a neighbor I didn't really know and who didn't care enough about me to check in on me until the dilapidated condition of my home brought down their own home values. 

 

The lesson here is to appreciate your friends and continue to cultivate and nurture those friendships 'til the bitter end!  (No pun intended.)