Pets

C’est un quinzaine très difficile; mon chat Jaques a été tres malade. Ses pattes derrière a arrêté deux semaine prochaine. Il a visité trois véténaires; il a diagnostiqué hypertesion grave. Il a été un mobilisation d’un thrombus et un retina detaché.

Ce n’est pas toute mal; il a médication a ses hypertension.

Ada has now moved on to the complicated businesses of feeding cats. She has not yet mastered the art of opening food containers and spooning it out; rather she has learned the ritual of selecting a food, ensuring there are plates to eat from, and disposing of the empty container. And adding to the noise level if food is not placed in front of the cats at the appropriate time of day.

One day, of course, she will master the art of opening the food. I expect that I will come through to the kitchen to find two cats unable to move and a delighted child.

When Ada wants to indicate the presence of of Jacques, she refers to them with her rendition of the noises Scarface Claw makes. If only I could explain this to him I’m sure he’d be dead chuffed.

Also: There is no entry in Wikipedia for Scarface Claw. WTF Wikipedia?

It is a well-known fact I can’t be trusted to go shopping on my own. Moore Wilson’s in the weekend alone can endanger finances. This is doubly, nay, triply true when there are things I can buy for Maire—and now, Ada. As evidence of this I present the following:

The child-sized armchairs are available from the Best Childrens’ Furniture Store In Wellington, or, as it’s more commonly known, Inhabit. They’ll even upholster it in an arbitrary fabric. I may be immune to—nay, contemptuous of—baby Nikes, but against perfect child-size furniture I have no defence.

Of course, it’ll be a while before Ada can really use her new chair. In the meantime the cats are more than happy to help out.

The game begins when a cicada flies into the living room. This marks the first part of the contest; obtaining the cicada marks the cat holding it as the ball carrier.

The ball carrier may hold the cicada for as long as they can stand legs crawling around their mouth and wings beating on their whiskers. While holding the cicada, the ball carrier should run to the safe spot in the house. The non-carrier is allowed to harrass the carrier into dropping the cicada into open play.

If the carrier drops the cicada or releases it for any reason, it is in open play, also known as the cat sadism phase. Both players may stand around the cicada, watching it or swatting as appropriate. If the cicada becomes airborne, whoever is quickest to snatch it out of the air may grab it and run to their personal safe spot, chewing on the delicious morsel as they see fit.

The game ends when one competitor pukes cicada wings on the carpet.

I’d love to make the link a perfect (or even simple English) haiku, but I can’t. So you’ll just have to settle for a less elegant pointer.

…welcome our new feline overlords:

In a moment of tax-rebate induced madness, I bought myself a new camera. This, of course, means I am overseeing a reign of terror inflicted on our cats.

Mostly they seemed unconcerned:

I’m pleased with the detail it captures; note the dirt on the chin and the hairs being picked up on the tongue (note the full size version is quite large):

There’s also a nice depth of field that I didn’t get out of my G3.

The built-in flash does provoke Satan’s cat Syndrome quite easily, though:

Wierdly the long lense I bought with it (a Canon 55-200mm unit) is actually often better for cat photos than the stock 18-55mm. This is because I can stalk them from a distance.

It helps to have cats that pose like perfect little models:

…although even the magic of clever cameras can’t save me from photos with not-quite-right-exposures.

But they gaze into a bold scoialist future, anyway: