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eftychia at 08:08am on 2003-09-02I was headed for bed around 1:00. That didn't work. At 5:15 I took my bedtime drugs and went to bed. That didn't work either, doggone it.
Here are some snippets that have been bubbling through my brain lately.
Perrine figured out the laser pointer, starting with the sound of the switch, apparently. It's a cheap little keychain unit, with a switch that makes a distinctive sound (and is audible to feline ears at a greater distance than to human ones). I noticed that if I picked it up to fidget with it, even if it was pointed in directions where Perrine couldn't possibly see anything, she'd come and start looking around to find the dot. She comes from another room to look for the dot. So I knew that she'd learned to associate the sound with the dot, but I didn't know whether she'd figured out exactly what the connection to the device was, until I caught her looking at my hand to figure out where to look for the dot when she lost track of it. She still enjoys chasing it, but sometimes she gets lazy and just wants to sit and watch it. Putting the spot on her paw usually gets her moving again though.
Perrine seems much more likely to actually pounce on the laser dot when it's on a wall than when it's on the floor. She seems to like to leap for it. I wonder, despite her mousing, whether she's one of the minority of cats who learned to successfully hunt birds before she came here. (Cats are pretty finely tuned for hunting four-footed prey that stays on the ground. Their visual systems and reflexes aren't as good for things that move vertically. Note that "not as good" is still pretty good -- they are, after all, God's adorable little killing machines. But birds are much more difficult prey for cats than small mammals are, and one book I read on the subject said that most cats who learn to hunt birds wind up specializing in birds.) Or maybe she was going after squirrels or something. Or maybe I'm way off and she just likes to jump. I have noticed that she's much better at seeing things that move than things that stay still. She sometimes appeared to be unable to find that last mouse she played with when it held still, but homed in immediately as soon as it moved. I think I read something about cat eyes and brains being tuned that way, but I was surprised at how pronounced the effect was. I should experiment to see how much difference the amount of light in the room makes.
When I tried to go to bed, there was a HUGE, not-quite-dead beetle on its back near the edge of the bed. I'm guessing that it was either a gift from Perrine, or that she simply got bored with it while playing there and forgot to kill it.
At Pennsic, I got some groans by pointing out that I've been seeing kosher food specifically marketed to Middle Eastern musicians. After all, it clearly says on the label, O-U-D. (For anyone who doesn't get it: one common heksher -- mark signifying that a rabbi has certified a product kosher -- is a 'U' inside a circle, which I hear read as "O-U". The "D" next to it designates that the item is dairy, as opposed to meat or "pareve" (neither). And an oud is an ancient and modern Middle-Eastern instrument, ancestor of the lute. And if you're reading this by following a link directly to it, yeah, this parenthetical explanation was behind a cut-tag.)
I also got a dirty look for observing that if the jumbo
raisins ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
anniemal brought were any larger, we'd
have to call them raisones. I don't know what the other
language involved in that pun is -- I think it's Italian
but I'm not sure. I just know that sometimes a larger
version of a musical instrument will have a name similar
to its smaller cousin but with "-one" tacked on. So I'm
really not quite sure what I said, but the folks present
knew what I meant.
griffen has been mirroring to his journal
an argument he's been having on a Yahoo discussion board
about the whole ten commandments flap with Judge Moore.
There've been a lot of the expected arguments on both
sides, but I learned a few things I hadn't known before
from responses to my comments in a post in that thread
yesterday. I don't recall having learned about
Haym Solomon in high school, and I found the quote
from Thomas Jefferson's autobiography pretty cool.
I've seen a bunch of insightful and/or creative entries in various folks' journals in the past few days, as well as discovering some real gems when reading back in journals of people I discovered because they left comments in friends' journals. I may have to do an extra "link sausage" entry consisting of nothing but other LiveJournal entries.
Henceforth, I shall be known as Exalted Transverse Gazebo Mock-Sequoia Oblong Thingy-Dingy-Flingy dglenn (the Ninth), since that's my "Ozy and Millie" formal title:
To get your Ozy and Millie title, enter your name here:
I'd write more, but I have to go beta-test the anterior microcode to frequently retrocalibrate the hyperpulse on the pseudotransmission:
To get your next technical task, enter your name here:
Cat's and Laser Pointers
I had another cat years ago, that you couldn't fool. The first time he saw the spot, he immediately turned and looked up at the person with the pointer and his experession said, "you can't fool me, I know it's coming from you" then he walked away. He had no interest in it. Cats who like to play with the spot, even when they know where it comes from, are much more fun!
What's hard-wired hunting
Even frogs have their own system that they come with to sense motion and its significance to their survival.
We don't know where Perrine has been, but nothing's managed to kill and eat either her or me yet, and neither has starved all the way to death. So her responses to the pointer are no surprise. Erica and Mel had no response to it. Eight years of indoors and regular feeding don't sharpen one's instincts. Roo ate a mole yesterday. Most of it. Brent and I still find occaisional feathers in the yard. He's not quite dead yet, and sometimes seems to feel fine. Still likes the morning wall ritual. He looks terrible, but he's been doing this for a year now. He reminds me of Grandma. Every possible malady, but 89 nonetheless. Survival is a potent evolutionary thing. But you know this. It's the ways we and ours behave because of it that are varied and fascinating.
Another moth, not the usual kind. Better check those blankets and my antique army coat. I've got cedar, citronella, pennyroyal, and a finely honed ability to swat or grab those little bastards out of the air. Perrine meow out to play? That thing is still here.
(no subject)
These are little stiff hairs that work much like whiskers, and really help a kitty grab stuff out of the air. Try counting Perrine's "catching hairs" (I know there must be a technical term out there somewhere) next time she's deeply asleep and flung out rather than curled up.
(no subject)
Snark tries to eat the dot. I love putting my finger over it strategically after she grabs for it on the floor. She gets so excited, and tenses a few times, then pulls her paws apart to look-- I put the dot back and she darts her head to the floor and tries to gulp it! LOL!!!