Animals in War and other memorials

 Cats, History, Personal  No Responses »
May 072013
 

With four cats in our house, it’s easy to guess that my wife and I are both animal lovers. To be sure, we are partial to felines, but we love most other animals (with obvious exceptions such as flies or mosquitoes) and we are especially troubled when we see animal suffering.

And animals suffer a lot. Especially in wars. Which is why I find the Animals in War Memorial especially poignant.

I happened upon this memorial when I made an unplanned detour on my way to Leicester Square, where I was to meet with Richard Bartle, who was kind enough to come to London to see me. We were supposed to meet under the Shakespeare statue at Leicester Square. When I arrived, there was no Shakespeare statue. Fortunately, I eventually realized that the cordoned off area in the center of the square does, in fact, hide the statue which is currently being renovated. Shortly thereafter, I spotted Richard.

 Posted by at 2:26 pm

Kifli the cat

 Cats, Computers, Personal  No Responses »
Mar 242013
 

Here is one of our four cats, Kifli. (Literally, his name means croissant in Hungarian. How did he get this name, you ask? Well, when we got him back in 2001, he was only a few weeks old and he and his brother Szürke actually fit on the palm of my hand, both of them together. Szürke is a gray tabby and perhaps somewhat unimaginatively, that’s exactly what his name means in Hungarian; gray, that is. Kifli has the color of a freshly baked bun, but when he was little, Kifli was very thin and did not look like a bun at all. In Hungarian bakeries, the two most common small bakery products are buns and croissants; not the puffy French type made from leavened dough, but croissants baked from the same dough that is used to make white bread and, well, buns. These croissants are long and thin, just like Kifli. Hence, his name.)

Anyhow, I was testing out an Android photo editing app (PicsArt, in case you’re wondering; seems like an excellent app, by the way) tonight when I snapped this picture of Kifli and applied one of the app’s effects. I think it’s real nice. And while it’s not so nice that Kifli jumped onto a table that he’s not supposed to be on, I certainly approve of his reading choices.

 Posted by at 8:39 pm

Loaner cat

 Cats, Personal  No Responses »
Feb 012012
 

Once again, we have a feline visitor in our house: Poppy, the cat of a friend of ours, has been spending the past two weeks here while her owner is out of town. Poppy is a 20th century cat, but she is in good health and as playful as ever. I am looking forward to many more of her visits in the years to come.

 Posted by at 6:46 pm

Happy 2012!

 Cats, History, Politics, Society  No Responses »
Dec 312011
 

For me, 2011 was not a particularly good year. In fact, business-wise it has been the worst in, literally, decades. We also lost our oldest cat, and indeed, cats all around us did not fare well: two strays, taken to the shelter on two separate occasions (once by us, once by neighbors of us) were killed by the Humane Society, another cat that belonged to a neighbor, one that we knew since 1997, succumbed to old age, as did the oldest cat of an American friend of mine just a few days ago. Yes, we’ve had happier years than 2011. But then again, we remain healthy, safe and secure, so we do count our blessings still.

What will 2012 bring? The collapse of the Euro? A major war in the Middle East, perhaps over the issue of the Strait of Hormuz? A Chinese economic meltdown, precipitating a worldwide crisis? More wars and suffering?

Or a strengthening of the Eurozone, with new institutions that will prevent similar crises in the future? Peaceful resolution of the issue with Iran, perhaps an end to the ayatollahs’ regime? Finally, full recovery from the economic woes of the past few years?

I remain cautiously hopeful.

 Posted by at 3:37 pm

Another ‘humane’ society

 Cats, Society  No Responses »
Dec 302011
 

Looks like our experience with the Ottawa Humane Society is indeed not an outlier. There appears to be some outrage over the Arizona Humane Society’s decision to euthanize a recovering addict’s 9-month old injured cat, after he was unable to come up with $400 on the spot. (Ironically, the same Humane Society had no trouble finding the money to hire a professional publicist to deal specifically with this case.)

I understand that shelters, especially municipal shelters, must make unpleasant decisions every day about animals that cannot be rescued or are unadoptable. But these decisions should not be made callously and heartlessly. What is appalling is that in all these cases, there were people able and willing to care for the animal that was killed, but the humane society in question never gave them, or the cat, a chance.

 Posted by at 10:47 am

Humane(?) Society

 Cats, Local Ottawa  1 Response »
Nov 032011
 

The Ottawa Humane Society runs the municipal animal shelter, which is where responsible citizens are supposed to take animals that they find. As a municipal shelter, they sometimes have to accept animals that are in bad shape and, unless their owner claims them, must be euthanized. But, they assure us, they only do so as a last resort; their priority is to find the animals a new home, not to kill them.

This January, we took a lovely cat there. We believed he would be adopted quickly, as he was young, friendly, and beautiful. Instead, he supposedly caught a respiratory infection at the shelter, and he was euthanized.

So this autumn, when a friendly little calico cat showed up, we were in no rush to take her there. Indeed, one of our neighbors eventually decided to adopt the cat, but that same day, the cat disappeared. A few days later, we found that another neighbor took the cat to the Humane Society, who assured our neighbor that the cat will be well taken care of and if not claimed by her owner, she will soon be up for adoption.

Except that she wasn’t. Instead, the cat was killed due to a supposedly severe health problem: gingivitis.

I don’t think I’ll ever be wanting to hear the name “Humane Society” again.

 Posted by at 6:15 pm

Squeak

 Cats, Health, Personal  No Responses »
Jul 192011
 

I found out that I am less squeamish than I thought.

I went out for a walk this morning, and in the middle of a sidewalk, I suddenly spotted a mouse. First I thought it was a small furry mouse toy, as it looked like a perfect little mouse, completely motionless. But then I realized it was the real thing, probably dead… but no, wait, it was still kicking. When I touched it with the toe of my shoe, it squeaked loudly and tried to crawl away… but even though I was trying to steer it towards the grass with my shoe, it didn’t get very far. I think it was badly injured, probably a broken leg or something. Eventually, fears of hantavirus and whatnot notwithstanding, I just grabbed it by the tail (loud squeaks followed) and threw it in the grass.

I mean, what was I supposed to do, step on the poor thing? Yes, I know, too much empathy is bad for your health, but apart from their size, mice are not that different from other mammals… they have hearts, lungs, a sizable brain, and the ability to feel fear and pain. In all likelihood, this poor critter has since been found by a cat, but at least it’s not expiring in the middle of a sidewalk half crushed to death when someone steps on it.

Yes, I avoided touching my face afterwards and washed my hands as soon as I got back home.

 Posted by at 1:36 pm

Vigilant cats

 Cats, Personal  No Responses »
Jun 042011
 

I am an atheist. To the best of my knowledge, there is no such thing as heaven, not even kitty heaven. That means that when a cat dies, it is truly dead.

That does not stop me from imagining, though, that in a sense, our two cats Marzipan and Tarka are still with us, perhaps watching our house while we sleep, as these cats do in a wonderful New Yorker cartoon titled Vigil:

 Posted by at 5:18 pm

Four

 Cats, Personal  3 Responses »
May 232011
 

And then, there were only four. Cats, that is… our oldest cat, Tarka, our last 20th century cat and the last cat that actually knew our first cat, is no longer with us.

We adopted Tarka over 11 years ago, during the winter of 1999-2000. Shortly thereafter, she settled in a cardboard box that was already a few sizes too small for her. We still have that box.

Good bye.

 Posted by at 11:04 pm

Tarka

 Cats, Personal  2 Responses »
May 072011
 

Tarka is our oldest cat and she is not doing very well. Her kidneys are failing.

The day before yesterday, her appetite suddenly vanished, and she became lethargic, urinating outside the litter box. I became rather worried, so yesterday I took her to the vet, who determined that in addition to the ailing kidneys, she may also be suffering from hyperthyroidism. They took a blood sample (we’re still waiting for the results), gave her some fluids, and some new medication, and sent her home.

What can you do? In an ailing organism, as one subsystem after another begins to fail, they struggle to keep up and compensate for the failures of one another. It’s like the ever narrowing flight envelope of a high altitude airplane; if you’re a little faster, the airplane breaks apart, if you’re a little slower, it falls out of the sky, and the difference between the two velocities becomes more marginal the higher the airplane flies. (This, combined with a faulty airspeed indicator, may have been one of the causes of the Air France tragedy two years ago.) So how do we keep Tarka flying true for at least a while longer?

I don’t know… yesterday, after I got her back home, she was doing better, eating more than the day before. But today, she hasn’t eaten anything yet and she’s even more lethargic. Is it time to get seriously worried yet? Another visit to the vet may accomplish little beyond exposing her to yet more stress.

 Posted by at 2:23 pm

Blue eyes no more

 Cats, Personal  1 Response »
Feb 012011
 

Two weeks ago, I took a stray cat to the Humane Society. I thought it was the right thing to do; we already have five of them, no friend of ours wanted a cat, and this stray was obviously not going to do well outdoors (when we first saw him, he was eating some scraps off the pavement in the middle of a street frequented by city buses.) He was also young, healthy, and friendly, so we had every hope that he would be adopted.

Our hopes were in vain. Today, I found out that he was put down after contracting a viral respiratory infection and some secondary bacterial infection that did not respond to antibiotics.

All we have now is this last picture, courtesy of the Humane Society:

Well, that’s the end of one little life. Wasn’t worth much, I guess.

Not sure what to do next time. Would he have had a better chance outside in -30 Centigrade weather?

Damn.

 Posted by at 2:33 am

Uptime

 Cats, Computers, Personal  No Responses »
Jan 252011
 

I just ran this on my main server:

$ uptime
 08:13:32 up 365 days, 19:56,  4 users,  load average: 0.07, 0.05, 0.06

Yes, this means I last rebooted this server one year and 20 hours ago. (What was I doing, rebooting at 4 in the morning?)

Mind you, it won’t run uninterrupted much longer. An updated server is waiting to take its place, so that I can then take this guy down, thoroughly clean it (removing one year’s worth of accumulated dust and cat hair) and upgrade it as well.

 Posted by at 1:17 pm

Blue eyes

 Cats, Personal  1 Response »
Jan 152011
 

This morning, I took this little guy to the Humane Society:

This young, unneutered tomcat showed up at our doorstep during the holidays, obviously homeless and hungry, but otherwise in good shape and friendly. We took care of him but the weather is getting colder, and spending much of his day in our tiny entry hall isn’t exactly a solution. We already have five cats, so adopting him was not a good idea.

On the way to the Humane Society, as the sun shone into the car, I noticed that he had blue-ish eyes. He was obviously part Siamese, but the blue eyes were news to me.

I hope he finds a good owner soon and lives a long and happy life.

 Posted by at 1:07 am

Worried kitties

 Cats, Personal  No Responses »
Oct 142010
 

Caught on a Web cam, two very worried kitties in my wife’s room, listening intently as workmen were demolishing an old furnace in the basement:

The other three cats were in hiding.

 Posted by at 8:59 pm

Socks

 Cats  No Responses »
Feb 212009
 

The White House cat during the Clinton years, Socks, died yesterday.

Socks in the White House

Socks in the White House

 Posted by at 8:24 pm

Katzenbande

 Cats  No Responses »
Dec 212008
 

No, it’s not the name of a heavy metal group or a German curse word, just an appropriate way to describe the cats in our house, now six in number, given that we have a guest cat again. Poppy is back with us for a month.

Poppy in August

Poppy in August

 Posted by at 4:16 pm
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