8B — THE OBSERVER & BAKER CITY HERALD
THURSDAY, APRIL 9, 2020
COFFEE BREAK
Mom feels she is caught in the middle between dad, adult children
DEAR ABBY: My husband
wants me to stop speaking to our
adult children. He says they have
both offended him, and he wants
an apology from them.
My daughter didn’t help him
when he was out of the home for
a few months and had nowhere
to go. At the time,
she was living in her
boyfriend’s grand-
parents’ home. She
had asked them if
it was OK, but they
said no. My husband was hurt by
this and wants her to apologize
for “treating him this way.” They
no longer speak to each other and
exchanged hurtful texts until my
daughter blocked him.
My son, who just turned 18, is
in college. He came home for a
break and asked if he could stay
with his girlfriend. I said yes.
When my husband found out, he
ordered our son to come home.
My son pulled the “I’m 18; you
can’t tell me what to do.” He then
said our family crisis was causing
his girlfriend to have anxiety and
depression. This upset my hus-
band because he felt he was being
blamed for her issues and disre-
spected when my son refused to
come home. My husband feels I
should stop speaking to him, too,
to support him.
I cannot bring myself to do
this. My husband says our mar-
riage is over if I can’t support
him. What would you do?
— IN A FAMILY
MESS
DEAR “MESS”:
DEAR
Your husband is a
ABBY
handful. With his
authoritarian atti-
tude, he cannot seem to stop him-
self from alienating family mem-
bers. He is acting like a bullying
child. Right now, he is two for two
and counting.
I do not think you should stop
talking to your daughter for things
beyond her control or for telling
the truth. If you have any power
at all in your marital relationship,
please insist that all of you get
family counseling from a licensed
professional. Your husband needs
to learn to communicate more
effectively with his son. If your
husband refuses to participate,
and he may, then you have some
important decisions about your
future that I cannot make for you.
DEAR ABBY: My younger
sister died two years ago. She was
only 43. She left behind her hus-
band of 19 years, three children,
my parents and myself (along with
many other family members and
friends).
Her choice was to be cre-
mated. As a family, we discussed
my brother-in-law’s plans for
the ashes. He discussed various
options and we, of course, shared
our desires and wishes. Her
ashes remained in the cardboard
box from the funeral home on a
shelf in their living room until my
brother-in-law moved into a new
place a year later.
My mother fi nally confronted
him. She said it was disrespectful
not to have fi nalized a resting
place for her daughter. She said
she knew the ashes belong to him
because he’s the husband. His
response was he was sorry she
felt that way. Now we don’t know
what he’s done with them. He
became engaged 15 months after
my sister’s death and has been
living with his fi ancee.
This seems so wrong to me and
so dismissive of my sister and my
family. What can we do? We want
a fi nal resting place for her. We
think his actions show he obvi-
ously doesn’t care.
— DISILLUSIONED AND
HEARTBROKEN
DEAR D&H: That’s not nec-
essarily true. Your former broth-
er-in-law may care so much about
his late wife that he cannot let the
ashes go. I hope you will main-
tain contact with him because it’s
a way to keep track of those ashes.
As his wedding date grows near,
he may soften his stance and allow
them to be divided, perhaps with
some prodding from his new wife,
which may be the solution that’s
best for everyone concerned.
DEAR ABBY: How would you
suggest I deal with people who
continually want to sabotage my
diet? I worked very hard to drop
more than 30 pounds. I also have
digestive health issues that are no
one’s business.
An example: During the coffee
break at a meeting at work,
someone offered me lovely home-
made baked goods. I said, “No,
thank you.” I then got a snide
remark about being ungrateful
for all the “effort that went into
them” and was urged to “ just try
a little bit to be sociable.”
Another time someone plunked
a huge chunk of frosting-laden
something in front of me. Or, a
friend brings me a large quan-
tity of candy or wine or strange
“gourmet” stuff I can’t eat, all of
which wind up in the trash even
after I have asked them to please
don’t.
When I visit my mother, she
continues to pile stuff on my plate
even after I repeatedly say, “No
more, thank you.” Then I get a
lecture about wasting food. What
do I need to be doing or saying
differently?
— SABOTAGED IN
CONNECTICUT
DEAR SABOTAGED: Take
your easily offended co-workers
aside and tell them that you cannot
eat their tempting pastries because
your doctor has told you you
mustn’t. I am sure it is the truth,
and you should not feel guilty.
As to your mother, the next
time she accuses you of wasting
food, I don’t think you would be
out of line to tell her that she, not
you, is the one wasting food by
piling more than you can eat on
your plate.
Tiger at NYC’s Bronx Zoo tests positive for coronavirus
By Jennifer Peltz
Associated Press
NEW YORK — A tiger at the
Bronx Zoo has tested positive
for the new coronavirus, in what
is believed to be the fi rst known
infection in an animal in the U.S.
or a tiger anywhere, federal offi -
cials and the zoo said Sunday.
The 4-year-old Malayan tiger
named Nadia — and six other
tigers and lions that have also
fallen ill — are thought to have
been infected by a zoo employee
who wasn’t showing symp-
toms, the zoo said. The fi rst
animal started showing symp-
toms March 27. All are doing well
and expected to recover, said the
zoo, which has been closed since
March 16 amid the coronavirus
outbreak in New York.
The test result stunned zoo
offi cials, but director Jim Breheny
said he hopes the fi nding can con-
tribute to the global fi ght against
the virus that causes COVID-19.
“Any kind of knowledge that
we get on how it’s transmitted,
how different species react to it,
that knowledge somehow is going
to provide a greater base resource
for people,” he said.
The fi nding raises new ques-
tions about transmission of
the virus in animals. The U.S.
Department of Agriculture, which
confi rmed Nadia’s test result at its
veterinary lab, said there are no
known cases of the virus in U.S.
pets or livestock.
“There doesn’t appear to be,
at this time, any evidence that
suggests that the animals can
spread the virus to people or
that they can be a source of the
infection in the United States,”
Dr. Jane Rooney, a veterinarian
and a USDA offi cial, said in an
interview.
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The USDA said Sunday it’s not
recommending routine corona-
virus testing of animals, in zoos
or elsewhere, or of zoo employees.
Still, Rooney said a small number
of animals in the U.S. have
been tested through the USDA’s
National Veterinary Services Lab-
oratories, and all those tests came
back negative except Nadia’s.
The coronavirus outbreaks
around the world are driven by
person-to-person transmission,
experts say.
There have been a handful of
reports outside the U.S. of pet
dogs or cats becoming infected
after close contact with conta-
gious people, including a Hong
Kong dog that tested positive for
a low level of the pathogen in
February and early March. Hong
Kong agriculture authorities con-
cluded that pet dogs and cats
couldn’t pass the virus to human
beings but could test positive if
exposed by their owners.
Some researchers have been
trying to understand the suscep-
tibility of different animal spe-
cies to the virus, and to determine
how it spreads among animals,
according to the Paris-based
World Organization for Animal
Health.
The American Veterinary
Medical Association and the fed-
eral Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention have been recom-
mending that out of an abundance
of caution, people ill with the
coronavirus should limit contact
with animals — advice that the
veterinary group reiterated after
learning of the tiger’s test result.
In general, the CDC also
advises people to wash their
hands after handling animals and
do other things to keep pets and
their homes clean.
Check out
our new
TV Magazine
Julie Larsen Maher/The Bronx Zoo/WCS
Nadia, a 4-year-old female Ma-
layan tiger at the Bronx Zoo, New
York City, has tested positive for
COVID-19. She is expected to re-
cover.
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