She's No Angel...This Week...

Angel, my seal point Siamese...

It seems the elderly diva of cats has decided to play a new game with her favourite human, "Let's wake her up every hour and see what she'll do."

Of course, in her world, playing involves diving at my feet beneath the covers, emerging for air, and delivering a stern, very vocal lecture regarding everything and everyone about which there is the slightest disapproval...

This includes me at the moment. At almost fifteen, after seeing yours truly journal often, she has targeted any paper or collection of pages for destruction, including notebooks, pads of paper, post-it notes, letters or cards. All now bear tooth marks, rips or the shredding only well-aimed back claws can render.

Just as I am preparing to write out a list of priorities needed in a new locale if I am to move, and doing the necessary research to determine whether they exist there, comparing housing and related costs, looking at jobs and salaries and the number of hours I can work and still get needed PT, she stalks the desk with the fearless demeanor of a tigress, sending my pages flying to the floor.

Scolding has no effect except to increase my irritation with her as she brazenly ignores warnings, dodges the small squirts of water to her face, and then stares at me as if to say, "Do as you will, I am still winning..."

Thankfully, these efforts at warfare do not yet include potty presents in strange places such as the hallway, my freshly made bed, or the sofa. We once had a tiff over a new litter box that wasn't quite the right size and thick-headed human here only came around to this cats' way of thinking after receiving several "gifts," followed by a discussion with her rather amused veterinarian.

I am left once again to guess her uniquely Siamese motives. Is she annoyed or is this some new game she has invented? Perhaps I am the strange one in her eyes...

Until Next Time...

Under the Sea...

Photo of Seahorse Art taken in 2008.
Brain Coral, Courtesy Wikimedia Commons, 2010.

Having grown up on a land mass between the Atlantic and Pacific,near the equator, I have always loved and respected the ocean. Apart from the walks and love of waves that dominated childhood visits to several beaches, I adored the shades and hues of blues, greens and almost inky blacks found in varying depths.

While I was never a stellar snorkeler, I did swim, and on more than one occasion, crossed paths with schools of fish, sting rays and the beginning of a coral reef. Shell collecting from the shore was a hobby for my parents who created a fascinating framed mirror that was so heavy with layers of shells that it had to be mounted to the wall with especially heavy screws.

Looking at the various shells, all of differing shapes, sizes, contours and colours, I would try to imagine the creatures that had called them home...

Did the crab in the shiny pink and white shell get along with limpets and barnacles?
How was that giant brain coral retrieved? Did the lobster whose claw I was eying meet a catastrophic end? What happened to the sea urchin missing part of its lovely shell? Where did Dad find that star fish?

My favourite was the rather mythical sea horse I first saw in an aquarium. So taken was I with this delicate specimen of sea life that I spent an entire Saturday consulting the Encyclopedia Britannica in the library...

Did you know that the male seahorse is the one who gets pregnant and gives birth? For more fun facts, visit this link from a Nova episode that aired in 1997 at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/seahorse/ the link is still active.

You may also enjoy a rather unique piece of seahorse art in the photo above. Another favourite, Brain coral, is courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. Released for use in the public domain, each is intended for illustrative puposes only.

I was the perfect kid to have read and appreciated the funny sea characters once penned by Zoe at http://mindandlanguage.blogspot.com. If you've not seen her blog, take a look. It's enjoyable reading. It was Zoe's writing about these stories that sparked the idea for this post.

Until Next Time...