Odd shadows

Today I went for a short bicycle ride (it was too cold to go far) and took a few pictures. This one I took quickly, because the cat was looking purposeful and didn't look like it would stop and pose for me. I didn't expect it to be very good.

On the computer I was surprised to see how unexpectedly lovely the photo turned out, until I noticed what I thought was a smear on the camera lens right across the wall and tree. I looked at my other pictures, and there was nothing. I checked the camera lens, and it looks fine. (I cleaned it anyway.)

The Man and I have been discussing what it might be. We thought it might be a light reflection at first. Then The Man said he thought it was something spray painted along the wall and tree. Then we talked about the shadows going down (on the ground), like the shadows of a fence, and we now wonder whether that line is the shadow of the top of the fence.

I don't remember the fence at all. I was watching the cat. At some point I will have to go back and find out just what was behind me when I took this picture.

In the meantime, what do you think it is?

Laugh

Work started last week, which goes some way to explaining my dearth of posting. (Not all the way. The rest of the way involves a lot of laziness.)

We now have, right after starting, three days of public holidays. This means a five day weekend, which is enough time for us all to get used to being on holiday again, and then suffer the trauma of starting work again, again. (I just used the word again three times in one sentence and I think it even makes sense. Do I get a prize for that?)

Today I went into Osaka to see a friend and inspect her kitten, who is growing fast and apparently turning into a rabbit, or at least his ears and back legs are.


While I was there, I showed my friend my current favourite YouTube video, this one, and she watched it three times in a row and laughed so hard I started to worry she might have a wee accident.

The video makes me laugh too, but it also makes me feel a little guilty, because I used to sleepwalk, too. I know how it feels when you wake up and know something is urgent but can't figure out what, or remember quite what terrible thing happened that made it necessary for you to try to climb into a small cupboard in the hallway. It is bewildering, and being laughed at when you are bewildered doesn't feel good.

So I have some sympathy for Bizkit, who seems to have hideous dreams about being chased, and I'm hoping he doesn't figure out how to watch YouTube videos. It would be humiliating for him to discover that ten million people have been laughing at him. It's bad enough when it's your mum and dad.

Kitten

Yesterday I visited a friend who recently adopted a very small kitten she found outside her apartment. He was only about two weeks old when she found him, and she had to feed him special kitten formula with a syringe. He has now graduated to soft food, and is doing very well. I think he is about a month old, now.

I tried to take pictures of him, but he was very hard to photograph. He was still a little wobbly on his feet but seemed to get around rather quickly all the same, often sideways, as if he hasn't quite got control of his legs yet. This makes him look slightly drunk, which is endearing in a very small kitten.

I thought he'd be easy to photograph, but he wasn't. I'd focus on his face and discover that I'd taken a picture like this:


I managed to get one reasonable photo from directly above him...


... but couldn't get down to his level to take a decent shot, because when I did, he galloped towards me, all sideways and wobbly. Or else he was behind something.


In most of the pictures I took he was either blurred or washing his bottom.


Oh, well. Perhaps I should just stick to photographing birds.

Taro

Way back in 2005 I first posted pictures of Taro, the campus cat. Taro was a young cat then, and full of beans. Sleepy beans, but beans, nonetheless.

Last year I spotted him now and again in the science building, waiting for the elevator.

Yesterday I saw him early in the morning. There is a area of campus that has been redesigned, with water features, which had just been filled up with clean water. Taro was very thirsty. He drank and drank and drank, and ignored me completely until he had finished. When he had finished, he gave me a cuddle.

Well, actually, he allowed me to give him a cuddle. He is a cat, after all.

Taro has slowed down a bit, and doesn't look quite so lushly well-groomed as he did back in 2005. But he is still a pretty healthy-looking cat, and seems quite content with his university life, and especially with the large new water bowls the university has provided just for him.



(Sorry about the small size of the picture. My keitei camera isn't very good.)

Nora

It seems that I am behind the times with these. Several million people have seen the videos already. But I can't help but be impressed, and if you haven't seen Nora the pianist, you should.

Nora's dedication to her art, her intense concentration, and frequent practice has paid off. She has become a (YouTube) star - and for good reason! Like most self-taught musicians her music can be unconventional and somewhat unpredictable, but it is passionate - and she is developing a style all of her own.

Go Nora!

My friend's cat is mental

I REST MY CASE.




(Also, I wish I'd had my good camera with me. The phone camera did not capture that cross-eyed, befuddled glare in all its glory.)

Campus cat

This is Taro, the campus cat, waiting for the elevator in the science building.



(He doesn't actually take the elevator, you understand. He just waits for it.)

Herding the cat

"Everybody! Remember what I told you. Look innocent.
The idea is to let him think that HE'S chasing US. "

"And when we get to the end, we hang around just out of reach, looking innocent AND tasty. "

"And then, while we're looking innocent and tasty, he jumps. Like this. Ha ha ha!"

"Ooh, it'll be so funny!"

"Shhh! Look innocent!"

"Here he comes!"

"Try to look tasty."

"Hee hee hee!"

"Shhhh!"

"Hee hee hee!"

"Stop giggling!"

"Damn. It didn't work. Now what?"

"We go back and try it again, at the other end."

"This is weird."

"I'm feeling kind of . . . spooked."

"I don't get it."

"I mean, I'm the cat, right? I'm chasing them, right? So why were they BEHIND me?"

"Something feels wrong. And I'm sure I heard a giggle."

"Are they still there? I'm afraid to look."

"Ah. Good. My secret escape tunnel."

"What am I saying? I don't need to escape! I mean, the place I go to plot my next attack on those cowardly ducks."

"It's your fault! You didn't look tasty enough."

"Nonsense! It was you. You shouldn't have giggled."

"Cats can't stand it when you giggle. It makes them nervous."

Shocking

The cat in yesterday's photo was not the only cat down by the river yesterday. There were three. One was a black cat, who was having a nap in the sun on the path. When I walked past he did not move, so I stopped to see if he wanted to be stroked. I held out my hand, and he stretched forward to check me out and got zapped by my finger. That made him jump.

It made me jump too. Now that the dry weather is here I've been remembering to use my anti-static thingy on doorknobs but had forgotten about my cat electrifying qualities. It's been a while since I had a cat.

It used to be that when I stroked my old cat the static charge took some time to build up. We had a routine. I would stroke him for a while, then zap an ear (usually but not always on purpose), he'd bite me, and we'd part company for a while until we got over the whole thing.

But these days it seems that I go around permanently charged, which makes it a bit harder to establish a relationship in which these little routines can develop. Yesterday's black cat did not seem interested in getting to know me past our first startling encounter.

Perhaps next time I should try the touching the ground routine, like I used to do with the coffee machine at one place I worked. That might work, if he'll forgive me enough to let me try again.

Can you touch your nose with your tongue?

New homes

Mamma Mia has left, taking her kittens. The rosemary bush is back to being just a rosemary bush instead of a shelter for single mothers, and seems unnaturally quiet. I don't know where she went. I came home and she was gone.

I have been rejected. I miss the hissing and growling from the rosemary bush. I hope she has found a good new home.

Speaking of new homes, down on the corner from our house there is a big tree, and in that tree some crows are building a new nest. I am offering no prizes for guessing what they are using to make this nest. I was going to try to get a picture on my way out today but the sun was behind the nest, and on my way home I forgot. But anyway, it's just more of the same, and I am becoming quite blasé about the whole thing. If the question of what crows build their nests from ever comes up in a quiz I'll be able to answer it right away. They build their nests from wire hangers. I don't think I have never seen any other kind, come to think of it, aside from the carrion crow's original nest. It seems that wire hangers are the new standard.

Kenju asked where they are getting the hangers. They are getting them from people's washing lines, I suppose. People hang their washing out on house and apartment balconies, and frequently use the free hangers from dry cleaners. Either that or the crows have found a way to break into dry cleaning establishments.

I saw a crow the other day on someone's balcony. I thought it might be there to steal a hanger or two, as there was some washing, but as I went past it had been distracted by a small bird in a wire cage hanging from the end of the balcony. It looked pretty funny, the crow peering into the cage as if to say, What on earth are you doing in THERE?, or, perhaps, Holy cow! look at all that lovely wire! I did not have my camera, unfortunately.

I will keep my eyes open for crows stealing hangers so I can get a picture, but don't hold your breath. I would have to be extremely lucky. I have seen a crow flying with a hanger only once, and by the time I got my camera out it was out of sight. It seems a little odd that I have only seen that once, though, considering the number of hangers involved, and I'm beginning to wonder if they commit their burglaries at night. I sometimes hear them in the wee hours, flying around and making raucous noises. I can't imagine the difficulty of trying to manipulate multiple hangers in the dark, but I suppose it is possible.

Maybe that is why they have those magnificently large cerebrums. It's evolution in action. The crows that poked their own eyes out with wire hangers died off, but the puzzle-solving brainy crows survived and flourished.

Give them a couple of years and they'll be standing for election.

What are you doing to my babies?

Yes, babies. There are two, at least. The mother had gone off somewhere and I took the opportunity to quickly try for some photos, holding back the rosemary and trying to focus with one hand.

It didn't work. It's just too dark under there. I got several photos that are so blurry you can't even tell they are kittens. But there were two, sleeping peacefully top-to-tail with their noses in each others bottoms. One is ginger and white and the other is dark grey and white.

And then mother came back, and looked so anxious I felt guilty. (Not guilty enough to not take a picture, though.) I left some food, by way of apology.

She accepted the food, but I'm not too sure about the apology.

Growl

You're asking for more photos, but do you know how hard it is to photograph a cat that refuses to come out from under the rosemary bush? I still haven't seen the kitten properly yet, only heard it. I THINK it is dark grey, although that could have been something else entirely. It is still very, very small, judging by the squeaks and lack of activity.


It was morning when I took this picture, and she hadn't wiped the sleep out of her eyes yet. Also, she was still too sleepy to bother spitting at me.


This evening, however, when I took her some fish, she growled and spat as I placed the dish under the edge of the rosemary bush. She was trying to say Thank you, but it came out all wrong.

I'm pretty sure she appreciated the fish, though. When I came back to check, the dish had been licked clean. I rinsed it out and left it full of clean water, in case she gets thirsty in the night.

I'm hoping to bribe her into letting me see her baby, eventually. At least I think I want to see it. I started thinking about the whole rosemary baby thing tonight, and, well ... I don't know. Maybe this whole thing is a big mistake. Maybe I don't really want to know what she's got hiding under that bush.

But speaking of growling animals, today The Man and I went to the supermarket, and as we were parking our bicycles we were having a little argument about something. It wasn't anything important or serious, but there was a bit of good-natured shouting. An elderly man walked past holding a small hairy dog just as The Man shouted something insulting back at me, so the insult went straight into the dog's face. The dog responded, as he passed me, by growling.

But it was a quiet, tentative sort of growl. It was a growl that said:

You're bigger than me so I don't want you to actually HEAR me growl, but I'm growling anyway, to show anybody who happens to be listening (and I hope nobody is) that I disapprove DEEPLY of that insult, and just don't do it again, all right? If you do, I will growl again, but not very loudly, probably, and I hope you won't hear me. I don't like this shouting business though, indeed I don't. Grrr! Oops. He didn't hear that, did he?

I didn't realize until I heard it that a growl could say quite so much. It made me grin all the way round the supermarket.

Single mother

This morning as I went to get my bicycle, our rosemary bush, which is large and fragrant and has spread along one side of the house, squeaked. This was a surprise. Generally the rosemary bush is a quiet and placid sort of bush, and although it does grow rather extravagantly I have never known it to squeak before. When I approached it to find out what was going on, it rustled and then spat at me, making me jump.

I could not investigate further because I had to go to work, but when I came home I approached the rosemary bush again, this time with my camera in hand.

The first picture was not really a success. This is a rosemary bush, spitting.



I took several more pictures, but only one got anything in focus. That was when I discovered I was being watched, very, very closely.



It looks like a single mother has taken up residence under our rosemary bush. I THINK there is only one kitten. There was only one squeaking this morning, but there could be more under the house, I suppose.

We will see.

Toys

When I was very small and we had just moved, our new (but old) house had a couple of huge rainwater tanks on a tankstand out the back. The tanks were not needed, and eventually my father took them down. I don't know why he took them down. Maybe they leaked, or maybe he wanted to use them for something. It's possible he thought they were an eyesore, but that sort of thing didn't usually bother him, so I doubt it.

But I was reminded of the rainwater tanks when I saw this comic. Those tanks were huge, and for a while we kids used them to play in. We'd run inside them, rolling across the lawn and banging loudly into trees and fences, or stand on top of them and roll them along feeling like acrobats. Those of us who were big enough could stand inside like a starfish and be rolled along by another kid, and then when the tank stopped rolling we'd stagger out, fall over, and with a bit of luck, not throw up.

I don't remember our parents ever buying us toys from a toyshop, but we still managed to have the best toys of anyone I knew. We had climbable trees, a trampoline, the longest swing I've ever seen (the older kids made it, and it hung from an eight metre rope. You needed someone to pull you by another rope tied to the main one, and you FLEW), and the rainwater tanks. I'm fairly sure that if I'd been asked at the time what toys I wished for I would have answered just like the guy in the comic.

It's possible this cat feels the same way.