Andy is blessed with abundant “pretty”!

But he wants you to know…

..it takes lots and lots of time to maintain it!

Hee! Hee! Now that that’s taken care of, Andy takes time to play cute!

“Hey Andy! What should we do for the blog for today?”

That was easy, Andy and I decided these two photos are enough. We’re kind of tired from a busy morning.

“Happy Easter”

Andy and the late Dougy were intrigued by Valentine. Valentine looks nearly identical to them! Regardless, Andy and I enjoyed the early Easter card from Valentine & family! 

Andy? Dougy? No, this is the beautiful Valentine!

Do you think Valentine is scared by this plush spider?

Says Andy, ” We kitties are never frightened!”

Andy likes to go black & white when he critiques a black & white film. It’s a kitty boy thing.

Is this going to be a “deep” philosophical film? There’s a question right on.

Silly dialogue! And who’s “Roger”?

Good grief! What’s “Sam” got to do with it?

[At this point I had to remove Andy from the room because of the barfing sounds….]

One of Andy and my favorite videos is a Turkish documentary about seven cats of Istanbul, Kedi. The Turks, it turns out,  are very much kitty lovers, and Andy and I wish we could go to Istanbul to enjoy their kitty cat culture and meet the stars of this video!

Short of a jet trip to Istanbul, there is a Turkish blogger friend I follow for her sensitive and loving photos of her cats and those that frequent her yard, nia.

“when it snowed”

The kitties attracted me to Nia’s photography, but that is only part of the charm of her blog. You also get to see modern Istanbul, rural Turkey, Ottoman-era architecture, nature, and any and everything this lovely person finds interesting through her excellent photos. 

“wildflowers”

Here’s a “sample” post about her cat İbiş:

Little Monster or Little Big Panther? ‹ photographyofnia ‹ Reader — WordPress.com 

Cat people will recognize the charms and characteristics of cats are universal when they read about İbiş. Nia’s description of the difficulties trying to photograph her cat are familiar, as are other things İbiş does that vex and intrigue “People of the Cats”. LOL!

What?! What?! What?!

You let mousie share the recliner but not me???

Andy gave me his “take a picture, it’ll last longer” look, so I did!

Andy’s face is a blur from following the motion of the toy…

…for a short time.

“Kitties in China have to chase mice and sparrows, Andy. They’d love to have catnip kitty toys like this one… that was made in China, which I mention because you love irony.” I guess he still thinks this toy is a dud.

It starts innocently enough.

The kitty stops all activity and just goes into…

…”the vacant stare”. You try to see what kitty is looking at, but there is nothing of interest as far as you can tell. It is creepy!

Finally! A sleeping kitty makes sense.

Darn that kitty boy! Blocking the closed captions. “Andy! The Third Man is one of my top all time favorite movies! Brilliant use of close ups and camera angles to built tension and suspense! No end of plot twists. Joseph Cotton, for blinking sake, as Holly Martins! And Orson Wells, what can I say, as Harry Lime, opportunist and black marketeer in penicillin in the morass of post war Vienna…. Oh, you are just a kitty. You can’t understand.” 

Hee!Hee! Andy moved just in time for me to catch a caption error – or was it a caption writer’s joke or way of adding suspense for the caption reading audience?? -where German is translated into… German! Fortunately for me, with my considerably crappy 1st Year College German for help, “passiert” happens to be in the classic line in my Conversational German second lesson: “Wenn es regnet, passiert des meistens”. I get it. Hee! Hee! I get it! So much of the dialogue is in German spoken with a Viennesse accent, I guess, that I have difficulty following most of it. That adds another layer of suspense. Each time I watch the movie, more of it unveils, revealing just a fraction more of the plot that Holly Martins and I don’t yet know – “Don’t go there, Holly Martins! Don’t do that!” As for Andy…

…he moved to the ottoman, where I could use the closed captions but where he missed the kitty cat scene in Anna Schmidt’s apartment. Holly Martins, drunk, reaches down to Anna’s unnamed cat. The cat refuses to react to a string Holly Martins tempts it with. Anna reveals that Harry Lime is the only person other than she that the cat likes, the reason it won’t play with Holly Martins…. Oh! A new detail I’ve missed in past! Shortly after, the cat will reveal Harry Lime’s hiding place in the shadows, letting Holly Martins know his old friend is still alive. Wow! Thanks, Andrew! I think you deserve a chin “scritch” for helping me see new things in the cat scene.

=(^+^=

Watching The Third Man again for the umpteenth time was my treat for doing little to nothing for my weekend. I never tire of this brilliant film. As a former US Army motion picture photographer, the camera work is impressive to me in the way it advances the story. It is a very visual film. In past, I was more involved with the German dialogue, trying to follow most of it, even if I got little: “Bitte, langsam sprechen!” That helped in early 1970 in Germany, but actors in this film speak in “24-frame-per-second” Deutsch. Little relief, then, though the little bits and pieces fill in, well, little bits and pieces of the plot I’ve missed before.   

Where’s Andy?

We just played a vigorous game of “mousie”. (Andy’s favorite game de jour!) It must have been an especially good game for Andy because he slipped off for a nice nap in the guest bedroom.

Aw! Here’s my sleepy boy, back from his nap…

…and looking forward to a nice under chin “scritch”!

Of course, a “scritch” requires a follow up kitty bath.