Tuesday, April 17, 2007

On a -completely- different note

my cat is Unclear On The Concept.

that is: say he wants to play. "play" means, when it doesn't mean "attack my leg and fasten on with teeth and claws and kick like a very painful bunny," some variant on "chase the flying mousie."

When he was a kitten, he actually used to fetch. it was a delight. I'd throw the mousie: he'd bring it back! Throw it: he'd bring it back! Sometimes he'd bring it right to me all on his ownsome! It was adorable. and: CONVENIENT.

Now? Well: I throw the mousie. He runs after it. Assuming he's far enough from it to begin with.

Then he runs back to me. Without the mousie. And looks at me, expectantly, with that little half-mad gleam.

Guess who's fetching now?

Oddly enough, the dogs I grew up with evinced the same pattern, except for the one (bless his fuzzy heart) who never quite got the subtle nuances of "sock" in the first place...

p.s. I have a new printer/scanner/thingie as well as a brand! new! digital camera! being a luddite and a chicken, i've yet to unpack them, much less try 'em out. but when i do: eventually, stay tuned, finally, for pics of Wee Beastie.

10 comments:

antiprincess said...

give up the kitten pix. pronto.

Zan said...

Bring on the beastie! Our Evil Overlord China demands it! (She's sitting between my feet as I type this, alternating between giving herself a bath and biting my ankles. She loves me so.)

belledame222 said...

well, between 1) my figuring out how to work the camera, 2) my bothering to unpack the printer and 2a) figuring out how to set it up and 3) figuring out how to scan photos, it may be a while. but i will keep y'all posted.

R. Mildred said...

Cats needs a ready supply of those large paper towels to utterly destroy - they see them and will immediatelly start attacking and trying to disembowel them (which is what the kicking is about).

I have yet to figure out why tubes of soft tissue set them off - I think it's some sort of weird cat psych thing like Cat Chess.

belledame222 said...

i don't understand why the crinkle noise sends 'em into such ectasies. some inborn predator thing that's supposed to be like the crunching/rustling of little rodent feet in leaves, i guess.

god knows what the evolutionary purpose of the "lick plastic" impulse is...

Anonymous said...

Sorry for the off-topic comment, but I wanted to thank you for pointing me to Big Bunny!

I had to take that post down-blurry pictures right now are making me very ill-so I wanted to drop in and say thanks.

belledame222 said...

oh, hey, thanks. glad you enjoyed. sorry you're not feeling well! hope that gets better soon...

Anonymous said...

Wait, why would you need to scan digital photos? Or are you talking about scanning prints you already have?

If you're talking about printing digital photos and then scanning them, then we need to talk.

belledame222 said...

um...both? that is, um, i wasn't really thinking very clearly...

yeah. well part of it is i'm sort of all or nothing, i bought 'em at the same time, they've sort of morphed into one big Task To Be Done, and...

trails off in embarassed silence.

right. yeah. in both cases i still need to figure out how to work 'em. was my point.

look, i TOLD you i was a luddite...

Anonymous said...

I can probably help, especially with the getting-photos-off-the-camera-and-onto-the-PC thing. I have A System.