How many days now since Andy knocked the bottle cap under the recliner, then I put the footrest up so he could recover it to continue his play? I think five. Oh well. Last night he finally pulled it out of the “cavern” and took off with it!
How many days now since Andy knocked the bottle cap under the recliner, then I put the footrest up so he could recover it to continue his play? I think five. Oh well. Last night he finally pulled it out of the “cavern” and took off with it!
He was patiently waiting for you to retrieve it for him, Mr. Doug. But a kitty can only wait so long before he has to do things himself in order to get things done. Winks.
True!
“THERE you are !”
KILL! KILL! KILL! (Oops! Andy’s thrill of the kill caught me up in my own frenzy to KILL THE BOTATLE CAP! LOL!)
Andy is persevering in his endeavor to get the bottle cap . This is an immense quality , Doug.
In frendship
Michel
Yes, he would decimate the bird population in the fir tree outside our back door if I let him be a full blown killer kitty boy. In the question of is his skill as a hunter nature or nurture, he definitely got the full blown hunt gene from his mother and father! I find it interesting that his favorite hunt mode is to “catch” his prey behind and under places where they might be in nature. When I’m fixing meals, he comes into the kitchen and waits till I open cabinets so he can make sure there’s no “critters” in there. (Fortunately, I have no cockroaches, rats, or mice, though Andy would take care of them. “What a good kitty boy,” I tell Andy after he’s sniffed around the cabinet. “There are no vermin in there, thanks to you!”
And what about a mechanic mouse for Andy to play ? 🙂
Our neighbour ‘s cat is a hunter too. Poor birds!
I have a catnip mouse that looks and “acts” pretty lifelike. Andy being a kitty, he doesn’t like it and acts like it scares him!
It may be hidden under the fridge – ans suddenly the kitten remember and want it at once. So ; Help !
amitiés
I bet there are some there. I find caps and other small objects everywhere.
Yes, bottle caps make great toys, and are easily hidden! 🙂
Andy used to be hesitant to join in when Dougy was alive. He’d wait awhile, then play. He’s loosened up since his brother died, and I am happy for him he is blossoming. (Not to suggest I’m anything less than still sad about Dougy. I miss him every day.)
Monsieur André looks really plushy here!
“Floofy” he is! As long as he doesn’t get matted up – he hates being brushed – I love the “floofiness”!
Did you know it was there?
Yes. I saw him knock it under the recliner. Also, there was an old walnut and other stuff. You know how it is with cats!
Oh yes I do! The best was when Pyshka was a little kitten who knew no better; she pilfered a piece of chicken for Barmalei and tried to hide it under the piano, but it didn’t fit. She worked at it so hard that it attracted my attention, and Uncle Barmalei didn’t get it after all.
That was a lucky discovery! Once, decades ago, my childhood dog, Peanuts was given a bone by my mother. A week or so later, every time she went into one room in the basement, she smelled a strong odor of rot: Peanuts had buried the bone, which had some meat still on it under a rug! Another time, Mom gave him an angel food cake that failed to rise, and he took that out in the back yard and buried that, too. No idea why Mom gave him the cake, but Peanuts had the right idea, eh? LOL!
You reminded me of myself as a little child. I was a terrible eater, and I had no use for dolls that every kept giving me. So I found good use: raised the dolls’ wigs and punched holes in their heads. Then the moment mommy or nanny turned away, I would stuff my food into those empty stupid heads, cover with their wigs and hide dolls under my bed or behind furniture. Housekeeper than had a terrible time finding sources of stink.
Your dog was smarter, I think; at least he had enough sense to bury the cake in the yard.
LOL! It sounds so unlike you, Dolly, but then I only know the adult version of that naughty little girl!
Oh it’s very much like me, Doug. I’ve always found unusual solutions to all challenges. How about reading under the table with long hanging tablecloth? For that I had to appropriate Grandfather’s old wartime flashlight.
Given your origins, I imagine being resourceful is why we are blessed to have you and your family here today! Despite the current traitorous president, I personally am glad we have immigrants coming to America to enrich our culture and lives.
I thank you so much for the compliment, Doug, yet I think it is more a matter of genetics; my father wasn’t resourceful outside of his profession in which he excelled, but my mother was truly “a little engine that could.”
I had a friend, now long deceased, who was a perfect match to my music, literature, and avocational interests. One time when we were in the field bird watching, she noted her family had been farmers in Poland before they came to America. “If they hadn’t come to America, I’d be a peasant in Poland digging potatoes out of the ground.” What a waste that would have been!
A perfect example of America being “the land of opportunities.” It is true in my case as well, but in a different way. I came here with an undergraduate degree in music and arts and a Masters in English. The latter one was a small miracle; they didn’t easily allowed Jews to study for graduate degrees. Of course, I would have never gotten my doctorate there; that was completely closed for Jews, other than for brilliant scientists.
Their loss!
Well, I am sure you have heard about “the brain drain,” when Jews were allowed to leave. The joke was that Brezhnev fell in love with Sophia Loren and promised to do anything she wanted if she conceded. She said she would if he opened the borders and let people leave the country at their free will. “You are such a flirt, – said Brezhnev, – you want us to be all alone!”
LOL! Yes, the brain drain.
Certainly the US benefited from it.
Beyond a doubt among thinking people. Among the border wall types, it isn’t realized so much.
Oh well… A few years ago I read somewhere that among the ten best symphony orchestras in the world, five are in Israel. They said, if a Russian Jew comes off the plane not carrying a violin, that means he is a pianist. However, many of them came to the US instead. I remember a company in Philadelphia called United Engineering that was mostly staffed by Russian emigrants.
Yes, I believe that about immigrants to Israel! My first encounter with a survivor of the concentration camps was in the 1950s. He was a jeweler whose family came here by way of France, then Canada, then the unlikely Western Nebraska town of Gering. I think there may have been established family there first. I remember an enameled plate he made and showed us kids of the neighborhood. All these years later, what I recall about it is “blue”, the primary color. There was a neighbor who was friends with the family, possibly sponsoring them. I don’t recall. We would go over there for treats and television. The family included a girl our age – Tanya – who probably was the main reason we were introduced to the family, though I can’t imagine we were much fun for someone with such a broad experience travelling and living in several cultures before arriving in America. What really sticks in my mind, though, was he showed us the tattooed numbers on his arm and what he had to say about them.
Not many Americans come in contact with Holocaust survivors, and with years passing, there are fewer and fewer of them left. Holocaust is taught in schools here, yet kids see it as part of ancient history, something that happened ages ago. That’s why meeting a person with a tattooed numbers and listening to his or her story is priceless.
I agree. Mr. Shapiro died several years ago. Now, most of the survivors were children who survived the camps, an especially poignant group of survivors in my mind. For that matter, most people alive didn’t experience the Kennedy and King assassinations or the Vietnam war and the civil disrest of that time. For that matter, probably more than half of people alive today don’t remember the Berlin Wall coming down. It’s hard to believe the history one was alive to experience – the Cuban missile crisis, the fall of the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union itself! Gad! I feel onl. Mao swimming in the Yangtze. All that history is nothing like meeting someone who was there and survived. Those who deny it happened…!? When I visited Dachau in 1972, it was a day of light rain. I swear I could smell death in the air and I have tears coming on all these years later for the memory.
You have reminded me of one of the most traumatic experience of my school years. I went to first grade in Latvia, a little town called Liepaja, close to Riga. Halfway between Liepaja and Riga, in Salaspils village, there had been a camp where we, first-graders, were taken on a field trip. Imagine an impression it made on seven-year-olds: https://youtu.be/ASzVEkynGbQ
I get your point about living through monumental historical events, but Kennedy and Dr King were not every American’s relatives, ever though the entire world mourned those assassinations, while half of my family perished in Babi Yar. After the war, Soviet Ukrainian government made a garbage dump on top of mass grave in Babi Yar. That’s where I got arrested the first two times, participating in memorial services at Babi Yar. I can smell death even looking at the Holocaust Memorial here on Miami Beach!
Meanwhile, Minnesota history teaching standards eliminated all mention of World War I and II, as well as the Holocaust.
Yes, the murdering Einsatzgruppen were unbelievably brutal. It’s unimaginable how a person could be so brutalized as to think what they did to Jewish populations in Eastern Europe was acceptable human behavior. I feel bad your family was among the victims of those animals and that you could be arrested later, post war, could be arrested for honoring the memory of those who lost their lives in those tragic events. I read a book about these people – can’t recall the name – involved in the murders. It was the standard thing: decent people turned into murderers, “just following orders” crap! Horrific waste of humanity!
I thank you for your compassion and understanding, Doug.
It is never easy to understand how a “normal” person can be turned into a monster….
What’s normal? I don’t know the answer. Is it normal by societal norms? Then, which society? Which culture? Which social system? I believe some people are simply twisted inside and/or are severely impaired by a serious mental disorder. Perhaps we should ask the super-intelligent Andy for his opinion…
Yes, it would be interesting to have his opinion. “Just following orders” is the answer of a soulless robot.
When I was learning to be a motion picture photographer at Ft. Monmouth, NJ, my class had mostly US Army guys, one Vietnamese sailor, two US Air Force guys, and one Marine.
My Lai was a recent event, and the ethics of following an illegal order was brought up. The Vietnamese sailor had no opinion (that he was willing to share!). The Us Air Force guys couldn’t imagine following the order under any circumstances, e3ven a legitimate one if it involved killing people. The US Army guys were uncertain if they would follow the order, though were mostly of the opinion they’d probably sweat it out and risk a court- martial The onlyu one who had no doubt about just following the order and dealing with the ethics of it later was the Maine! Even decent people can be brainwashed, unfortunately, as national politics show and as manifested by the January 6th insurrection!
Very interesting breakdown of different mentalities. In the Israeli Army, still considered one of the best in the world, a soldier might approach an officer who has just issued an order with “Moshe, are you nuts? What is it you want us to do?”
One of the benefits of a draft military is you get civilian responses to idiot orders! I often feel returning to a draft military in the US would be better than an all profession al one because those who wanted to make a career of it could, but those who got caught by the draft would have a chance to serve their country – and keep the professionals in line when they issued idiot orders! LOL!
I think it’s a good idea, Doug. However, joining the military of their own volition also has its benefits both for young people who join and for the country. Perhaps I am biased because a nephew of mine has just enlisted in the navy, His great-grandfather, whose name he bears, was a Captain of the First Rank (I don’t know the equivalent in the US, but in Russia it’s pretty high – the next step up is an admiral) and a decorated war hero. We are all very proud of him. He is a smart kid, and, being of Russian origin, I don’t think he will follow orders blindly.
In the US, that might indicate he has command of a ship. At least, captains here do. Actually, Wikipedia had an entry for that Russian rank, and it is, indeed, equivalent to captain in the US Navy and has the same responsibilities, namely (copied from Wikipedia): Captain is the name most often given in English-speaking navies to the rank corresponding to command of the largest ships.[1][2][3] The rank is equal to the army rank of colonel. That’s pretty impressive! Best wishes for your nephew’s navy career! He has a big step to follow.
Since all people aren’t suitable for or inclined to be in the military, I feel there3 be an alternative service in things like the Civilian Conservation Corps of the 1930s or National Health Service.
I thank you for the Wiki information, Doug. But in Russia there is also a Captain Second Rank who also commands a large ship.
On a humorous note, we had a sizable Greek population in Odessa, and most Greek men wore captain hats and insisted on being addressed “Capitani,”
Thank you for good wishes; I will relate them to my nephew.
I did not know about any alternative services other than Peace Corps – very interesting.
AmeriCorps is another alternative to service to country. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AmeriCorps
The Peace Corps still is around, too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_Corps
And, of course, there are local opportunities for volunteering.
Yes, I know about Peace Corps, but AmeriCorps is something new to me, thank you.
Local volunteering goes without a saying, of course.
Our Marcus cat used to steal Rick’s collar tabs from his work shirts. 🙂
LOL! It must have been a big day in Marcus’ kitty career to learn he could extract them from Rick’s shirts! LOL!
Marcus is very talented. 🙂
I can’t imagine how he came upon that behavior.