Category: Critters

The critters we love and the critters that deserve our love.

Categories
Critters Plants

Baby greens

I haven’t been in much of a mood for cooking lately, usually making do with soup, eggs or rice and vegetables, and cottage cheese and fruit. Inspired by Joe’s recent writing, though, I decided that the roommate and I needed a really decent meal tonight.

At the store, sirloin steak and sour cream were on sale, so that set the main dish: beef stroganoff, with lots of sweet Vidalia onion, and mushrooms. The baby greens also looked good, and I picked up a radicchio, as well as a curly endive and Belgium endive. To complete the salad fixings, I added vine ripened tomatoes and snow peas.

I can’t do a good vinaigrette to save my life, so I also added a bottle of Newman’s Own Balsamic Vinaigrette.

At home I made a lemon cake, which seemed a nice desert on a rainy day. While it was cooling, I browned the steak and then sautéd the onions and mushrooms before adding water, dry sherry, and tomato juice. While these simmered for two hours, I crisped the greens, and frosted the cake with cream cheese frosting.

Just before dinner, I sautéed the snowpeas in olive oil and a small bit of garlic, until they were bright green and still slightly crisp. I tore the small lettuces into pieces, added the snowpeas and sliced tomatoes, some small, crusty pieces of french bread, and then tossed it with the vinaigrette.

I served the stroganoff over egg noodles, with the salad on the side, cake for desert. I think my roommate liked it, if him going back for thirds is any indication. I had more restraint–I only went back for thirds on the salad. Zoë, however, was a real pig and had four helpings of the baby greens.

Categories
Critters

Like a frog and a fly

I am reminded of frogs.

Frogs are very cool creatures. They eat bugs and make the most amazing sounds that always remind me of warm summer nights, down by the lake. However, frogs are not particularly intelligent, and their behavior is almost completely governed by outside stimuli.

For instance, a frog can’t differentiate between a tree swaying overhead or a crane, and will fall silent within the shadow of either. Frogs also have very specific visual receptors that are only triggered when ‘food’ comes into range. When a fly hovers into view, the frog’s tongue lashes out instantly, *thwapt!*, an appropriate response. On the other hand, its tongue also lashes out, *thwapt!* if a Boeing 747 flies overhead. The frog can’t help itself–its behavior is hard-wired.

All of which leads me back to my recent trip. When I was in Florida, and on the trip down and back, I deliberately avoided the Internet and all aspects of weblogging–a very rare event for me. It was good to get out of the daily cycle of read, read, read feel amused/interested/uninterested/outraged/sad/impassioned, react, write, write, write, feel depressed/satisfied/dissatisfied/silly/happy, react, and repeat. After a while, just the appearance of a weblogger or a word is enough to generate a reaction. It can get exhausting, like being a frog at an airport.

While in Florida, though, surrounded by people with shielded minds, hidden thoughts, and past experiences and future hopes totally hidden from view, I was able to experience events at face value and just let them happen. I did not have to pay attention to the happiness or not of those around me; did not have dig deep to find the hidden meaning of every overheard word; did not have to react except at the most primitive, and immediately rewarding level.

At the water shows, I could enjoy the shrieks from those doused by whale or seal, and laugh and giggle with the crowd around me, all without needing to connect at a deeper level. When walking around this park or that, if I found myself next to a couple who were tired and quarrelsome, I could change my path until the discordant sounds were left behind.

When leaving the stunt show at Disney/MGM Studio and upon moving to the exits and finding myself in a crowd around a woman who had collapsed from the heat, I could join with other voices in the group telling the rest to ‘move along’ knowing that not only was this the selfish thing to do, it was the right thing to do.

I was surrounded by hundreds of people, thousands, and their voices became a soothing babble, and their faces, bright bits of animated confetti that swirled about me in a peaceful, colorful flow; slices of which I captured, from time to time, with my camera. In the nomenclature of frogs, it was all flies, all the time.

The last night before I was to return home, I felt tranquil, balanced, as if I had been on a retreat, and realized that, in a way, I had. All was packed, the camera stowed, the last photo captured on CD, and I had nothing more to do than sit outside on the patio sipping a beer until dark, and then go inside, to watch whatever movie I could find before going to bed.

Categories
Critters Photography

Prints

Some photos of animal paw prints, found on a recent outing to the Chain or Rocks Bridge, in St. Louis.

The sliding print is most likely a beaver, but I’m not sure what the other prints are. I would expect them to be beaver front paw prints, but the heelpad is more distinct than is normal for beavery. They aren’t dog–wrong heelpad–nor are they bear–wrong location and too many toes. They could be woodchuck, except that they’re quite large.

Since the mud is right along the Mississippi river, I’m assuming that all the prints are beaver, front and back paws.

Quite a lot of beaver, it would seem.

And I have no idea what caused the track of this odd creature. Something spooky and dangerous, I’m sure.

Categories
Critters

Cat’s worst enemy

Cats are by nature, brave and fearless creatures. Dignified, too, with a formidable composure. A dog, on the other hand, may be loyal and loving and can learn nifty tricks, but they whine. Hard to have composure when you’re whining.

A dog will whine when you leave and whine when you get home; they whine for a goodie, and whine to go out. If you’re eating something that smells good, or if you’re eating something that doesn’t smell good, or if you’re eating something that has no smell at all — you could be gnawing the draperies–they sit at your feed and whine for a taste.

Not a cat, though. If a cat wants food, they’ll sit at their dish and Look at you. Even if you’re in another room, they’ll sit at their dish and Look at you. You could be out of the bloody country, and right in the middle of a meeting in Japan, when you’ll get this crawly sensation in the back of your neck — that’s your cat, Looking at you.

They’re asleep when you leave the house, and asleep when you get home — except if coming home means food, and then they’ll twirl about your legs, making a nuisance of themselves until you give in and take care of what should be your number one priority: feed the cat.

If a cat wants attention, they’ll either jump up on your lap, or, preferably, your computer keyboard. If you’re cooking, they’ll jump up on the counter; if you’re sewing, they’ll walk in front of the machine. And if you happen to be in bed reading a hard cover book, well, whatever you do, don’t lay on your side, book open on the bed.

If you’re asleep and they want you up, they’ll jump on your stomach. No, i take that back. They take a running start and then leap on your stomach, all four paws landing in the exact same spot. I don’t know about other cat owners, but if I’m asleep and my Zoe wants something, she presses her cold nose against my mouth and then gives me a good lick, right on the lips. If you’ve ever seen what cats do with that tongue of theirs, this isn’t the most pleasant way to wake.

Dogs aim to please, and if you’re unhappy with them, a mild reprimand is enough to send them into dejection until they’re forgiven. When they are forgiven, or when doing their favorite thing (tug-away with your favorite shoe, ride in car with window down, go for walk in woods and roll in dead things), they shake their butt more than a hot disco dancer, and jump about more than a four year old having to pee.

Not a cat, though. No, a cat manages to convey most of their emotional responses through one simple form of communication: the purr. And let me tell you, a purr is a devastating weapon, capable of reducing even the coldest of us to smooshy faced indulgence. When a cat turns on all its formidable charm–wide eyed kitten playfulness, followed by cuddle-some eyes half-closed purring–you melt into a puddle of acquiescent goo.

No, there’s only one thing that will crack the composure of a cat: static electricity. Yup, nothing worse for a cat than a cold, dry climate and a house full of synthetics.

Categories
Critters Diversity

The lion walks tonight

Today I took Zoe to the vet for her six months checkup, both for her rare seizures and her slightly enlarged thyroid gland. The doctor and I talked about putting Zoe on Phenol Barbital, a small risk anti-seizure drug for cats. However, roommate and I are hesitant to start her on a lifetime medicine when her seizures are about one every two years.

We spent a fairly long time chatting, which unfortunately made the doctor late for her next appointment. In the office afterwards, paying the bill, a large, heavyset man stormed out of one of the waiting rooms into the reception area, complaining bitterly about having to wait 20 minutes for the doctor.

After he stormed away, I apologized to the receptionist and she said not to worry about it; that his behavior wasn’t uncommon with men, especially middle aged men, as the place is very female centric and this brings out the male need to assert their dominant status.

I hadn’t noticed before, but the cat clinic does have a strongly feminine environment. All the doctors and assistants and other office workers are women, and the décor has a very feminine, feline feel to it–not to mention that all the cats that wonder around the office are also female.

All except the newest addition to the office — an eight week old orange tabby kitten that jumped up on the receptionist’s keyboard when she was making out my bill (”Well, your bill is now 362.00 dollars”); and then jumped up on the counter and immediately planted it’s tiny paws on my chest, gazing at me with eyes gold and round and very intense.

Entranced, I stroked and coo’d, which he seemed to take as encouragement, for it launched itself down from the counter to the floor (me catching it halfway, because that was a heck of a jump), and he immediately went over to Zoe’s carrier and started batting at her with his paws through the wire.

Zoe was hunkered down in the corner in misery, as she always is when at the vet’s and ignored him at first. But he was having none of this and after about a minute, she was nose to nose with him, each softly batting at each her, she as charmed by this wonderful little character, as I was.

I asked the receptionist who the new kitten was, and she said he was another abandoned kitten, dropped off at the office. The clinic won’t turn any cat away, and after making sure they’re healthy and nicely social, the workers manage to always find a home for the orphans. It took every ounce of self-control — every ounce! — not to pop up with, “I’ll take him!”

The receptionist turned back to the bill, dropping the eight blood tests that the kitten had added with his dance on the keyboard, while I watched the kitten gambol about the room. Suddenly, we hear a door slam, and heavy footsteps stomping down the corridor.

It’s the Big Man again, and he enters the room, drawing his breath to start huffing and puffing about his importance and how his time is valuable. However, the kitten spots him from across the room, makes a mad dash straight for him, and then with a flying leap, plants his tiny little kitten claws into the mans polyester pants, and starts climbing his leg, for all its little worth.

The man was startled, and sputtered out in surprise, looking down at this little kitten hanging off his leg, looking up at him. After just a moment of man and kitten staring at each other, the kitten jumps down from his leg, and glaring equally at me and the receptionist, the man storms off without saying a word. The kitten watches after him a moment, and then starts its mad dash around the room again.

The receptionist and I look at each other, both trying not to laugh; a resolve I couldn’t maintain when she turned back to the bill, casually tossing out about, “…knowing who’s the dominant male in the place is now, don’t we?”