Thursday, June 30, 2005
The Kittens
Should we name the kittens? They're half wild, it's not like they come when we call. And still it's so dreary to refer to them as "Black" and "Gray" and "Hairy."
The mother cat, when Todd began feeding her, was a mean long-haired gray with an ugly little pointy face and tufted ears. With a steady diet of good food, her fur has softened, her face has filled out, and although nature gave her her funny pointy little face, the fear and combativeness in her eyes is gone and she looks up at us with something resembling trust. And she's a good little mother, loving and attentive, constantly watching her two little boys. Todd calls her "Hairy." I prefer "Queenie." It doesn't matter, she doesn't answer anyway.
It's a pity we could not get her trust earlier, because while she trusts us, her boys do not. She tries to introduce us, but they do not come near. She likes to be petted lately, but the only time the boys can be petted is during feeding time and they're too hungry to notice what is going on to their backsides.
The upside to naming kittens that won't come when you call is that you can name them something fairly entertaining, and you can change them at will. I had been calling the gray one Sidious and the black one Maul. But how about Diswun and Datwun. Or Harris and Ford. Or Cute and Fuzzy. The possibilities are endless.
(In case you're keeping count, we're up to 7. Doc, Wyatt, Jessie, LBK inside, Queenie, Sidious and Maul outside. If you count cats that we are responsible for, then we're up to 9, as my parents have my beloved and exiled Odo, and started feeding their own outside stray cat. Sigh. )
The mother cat, when Todd began feeding her, was a mean long-haired gray with an ugly little pointy face and tufted ears. With a steady diet of good food, her fur has softened, her face has filled out, and although nature gave her her funny pointy little face, the fear and combativeness in her eyes is gone and she looks up at us with something resembling trust. And she's a good little mother, loving and attentive, constantly watching her two little boys. Todd calls her "Hairy." I prefer "Queenie." It doesn't matter, she doesn't answer anyway.
It's a pity we could not get her trust earlier, because while she trusts us, her boys do not. She tries to introduce us, but they do not come near. She likes to be petted lately, but the only time the boys can be petted is during feeding time and they're too hungry to notice what is going on to their backsides.
The upside to naming kittens that won't come when you call is that you can name them something fairly entertaining, and you can change them at will. I had been calling the gray one Sidious and the black one Maul. But how about Diswun and Datwun. Or Harris and Ford. Or Cute and Fuzzy. The possibilities are endless.
(In case you're keeping count, we're up to 7. Doc, Wyatt, Jessie, LBK inside, Queenie, Sidious and Maul outside. If you count cats that we are responsible for, then we're up to 9, as my parents have my beloved and exiled Odo, and started feeding their own outside stray cat. Sigh. )
Saturday, June 25, 2005
You Want To Go Home And Rethink Your Life
Todd has gotten to the point where he can go to the park and share his telescope with people on clear nights. He has joined a group of other 'scopers who call themselves Urban Guerilla Astronomers. Actually, I met Jane, Head UGA, when she was copying flyers at Kinkos, and she invited me to come by. Funny how Kinkos was like that.
Saturday night, there was this convergence of Venus, Mars and Saturn, right next to each other. It was remarkable. But it was right after sunset, and you had to be right there, before they sank under the horizon.
And so there we were. And Todd met this carful of gangbangers. I could tell they were packing heat. But they were friendly and funny, polite, curious, and moved that you could see the rings of Saturn right from the park corner. They were also slightly drunk. If it takes a little alcohol to make you see the wonders of the universe, so be it.
I sort of wonder how much influence a park corner meeting has on someone. But like a chance meeting with a Jedi in a bar, I like to think that maybe these guys might consider that there is something more to things than gang banging. Maybe.
Saturday night, there was this convergence of Venus, Mars and Saturn, right next to each other. It was remarkable. But it was right after sunset, and you had to be right there, before they sank under the horizon.
And so there we were. And Todd met this carful of gangbangers. I could tell they were packing heat. But they were friendly and funny, polite, curious, and moved that you could see the rings of Saturn right from the park corner. They were also slightly drunk. If it takes a little alcohol to make you see the wonders of the universe, so be it.
I sort of wonder how much influence a park corner meeting has on someone. But like a chance meeting with a Jedi in a bar, I like to think that maybe these guys might consider that there is something more to things than gang banging. Maybe.
Friday, June 10, 2005
You Protest Too Much
It's been a few weeks now. You've seen the movie, right?
The Republicans are editorializing an awful lot about Star Wars Episode 3, aren't they? And they don't even research it very well, referring clearly to episode 4 as episode 1, and stuff like that. They seem to very much resent the idea that there are parallels that can be drawn between the fall of Anakin Skywalker "If you are not with me, you are against me!" and the rhetoric of George Dubya Bush. "If you are not with us, you are against us!" And Padme's heartbreaking observation, "This is how liberty dies, with cheers and applause."
Gee, as dyed in the wool Star Wars fan as I am, it's still just a movie. A movie that was conceived during the Nixon administration, for heaven's sake. And really, not a very serious movie at that. And yes, even I'll admit the dialog was clunky. Lucas made the observations he did during the Vietnam era, and noticed the same behavior during other times of crisis, like the French Revolution and stuff like that.
But the Republicans put up such a stink about it; am I to infer that, perhaps, we hit too close to home? Perhaps, like Darth Vader and Darth Sidious, who staged a war between the Republic and the Separatists just to gain more and more power power and finally become a tyranny, am I to possibly infer that, perhaps, Bush II (and maybe Bush I, who knows, every apprentice needs a master) somehow allowed September 11 to occur and then were able to stage these wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and begin eating away at the liberties of the American people on purpose? Did you get that last sentence? Read it again.
Nah, that's way too scary, isn't it?
The Republicans are editorializing an awful lot about Star Wars Episode 3, aren't they? And they don't even research it very well, referring clearly to episode 4 as episode 1, and stuff like that. They seem to very much resent the idea that there are parallels that can be drawn between the fall of Anakin Skywalker "If you are not with me, you are against me!" and the rhetoric of George Dubya Bush. "If you are not with us, you are against us!" And Padme's heartbreaking observation, "This is how liberty dies, with cheers and applause."
Gee, as dyed in the wool Star Wars fan as I am, it's still just a movie. A movie that was conceived during the Nixon administration, for heaven's sake. And really, not a very serious movie at that. And yes, even I'll admit the dialog was clunky. Lucas made the observations he did during the Vietnam era, and noticed the same behavior during other times of crisis, like the French Revolution and stuff like that.
But the Republicans put up such a stink about it; am I to infer that, perhaps, we hit too close to home? Perhaps, like Darth Vader and Darth Sidious, who staged a war between the Republic and the Separatists just to gain more and more power power and finally become a tyranny, am I to possibly infer that, perhaps, Bush II (and maybe Bush I, who knows, every apprentice needs a master) somehow allowed September 11 to occur and then were able to stage these wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and begin eating away at the liberties of the American people on purpose? Did you get that last sentence? Read it again.
Nah, that's way too scary, isn't it?
