Scratcher of heads, rubber of bellies
Perhaps the greatest tragedy of the catwalk is that it does not discriminate against the young or the old. This kitten, estimated at only 10 months old, has already given in and given up. I queried his owner (who refused to give his name) if he wasn’t ashamed to see his young charge in such desperate straits. He shrugged and said only in reply, “At least he’s not chewing on anyone’s feet.”
While I love living in Portland, it has a dark underside that most choose to ignore. Known as the catwalk – short for catnip sidewalk – once promising felines lie about nearly comatose, drugged out and destitute. Once a cat ends up here, they are unlikely to ever leave, unlikely to ever recover.
Emma’s black fur throws my camera’s autofocus for a loop — something I expected given how many mis-focused bear pictures I’ve taken in Wyoming. I certainly don’t expect the camera to be able to lock on dark fur, but I thought it would be able to pick up the line between her dark pupils and her green eyes. In strong light it seems to do okay, but in low light it does poorly, even with the focus assist light of the flash.
In this shot, I preset the focus on the chair and waited for her to pop up after the string. She caught the string and stayed for several seconds with the string hanging from her mouth, but the camera couldn’t find focus. Emma’s eyes are out of focus, which is the part of the image I really wanted in focus. In the image below, her eyes are in decent focus, but that’s because she moved and her eyes are near the plane of focus along the chair’s edge.
I’m going to end up with a lot of out-of-focus shots of Emma, on top of the number I’ve deleted already.
I suspect Canon’s pro line of cameras would do a better job here (not perfect, but better). I’ve long thought about upgrading, but to my dismay Canon has only put their pro autofocus in large, heavy bodies. I’ve been trying to lighten my load on long hikes, so perhaps I’ll end up with a heavy body for normal use and a lightweight camera like the new Rebel for hiking.
Nikon makes a body I like but switching would be expensive. Still, watching the bald eagles last week in low light and seeing how many pictures were not sharply focused, it makes me wonder just how much better the pro bodies would be.
While I sat in my chair and watched the NFL playoffs, Sam played on my legs, curled up in the blanket over my knees. He animatedly played with his beloved string and needed little encouragement from me, apart from the time he got so worked up that he rolled right off my legs onto the floor. It was this play session that convinced me that all world leaders should be required to have kittens in their laps while they negotiate — even generational hatred cannot stand in the face of a kitten’s charms.
Make love, not war. And bring plenty of string.
If you’re not a football fan, today’s title is a reference to Jim Mora’s classic postgame speech while coach of the Indianapolis Colts.
I have a Virginia Tech hoodie that I bought as a freshman and had for all the years Templeton was with us. Templeton loved that sweatshirt — specifically he loved chewing on the drawstring that tightens the hood. Every single time I wore the sweatshirt and picked him up, he’d start lunging for the string. A few years ago after a washing, the string fell out and was lost. Even so, every single time I picked up Templeton wearing that sweatshirt he’d start lunging after the string that wasn’t there.
My wife recently found the beloved maroon string, and since it was Sam’s first day out in the house, I wanted to see if he’d enjoy playing with it. It was an immediate favorite of both Sam and Emma, and somewhere up in heaven, I’m sure Templeton is looking down and smiling, and lunging for that string.
I know I said this blog wasn’t going all cats all the time, but …
My right eye specifically.
A picture of Sam playing yesterday. At first I was annoyed with myself for not doing a better job and getting everything in frame, but after a while the picture grew on me and I like the way the composition highlights the helter skelter style of his play.
A couple of action shots of Emma playing with her furry mice, in better focus than yesterday’s picture. She’s definitely feeling at home with us now, her first few days she didn’t play much and then pretty gently, but it’s controlled mayhem now. I’d describe Sam’s play as controlled mayhem but that would imply there was control involved. Some of my best shots of him today accidentally have him running out of the frame.
They are both playing quite a bit now and are very active, which I think is a combination of them feeling better as well as getting more comfortable with us and each other. They are also eating a lot, which may not be an issue given how much exercise they are getting, but it also means they are using the litter box a lot. Being in a closed room with them somehow becomes a little less appealing (what exactly do they put in that kitten food anyway?) — for the first few days it was raining so much I couldn’t open a window for relief, but the past couple of days I’ve been able to air out the room from time to time.
After giving praise to the Oregon Humane Society and our vets at Laurelhurst, I have a major bone to pick with both of them. The Humane Society told us that Sam might have an upper respiratory infection, had diarrhea, and had been treated for fleas and ear mites. All good, we wanted to know as much of the little guy’s medical history as possible. Sam got an exam at Laurelhurst as soon as possible and it was discovered that the mites were probably gone but he had a yeast infection in his ears, so we’ve been treating that.
But how is it that both of these fine organizations neglected to tell us that little Sam has Jedi powers? I was watching Sam and Emma play with their furry mice when suddenly Sam began to levitate the albino mouse. Fortunately I had my camera in hand to document the event, as people tend to not believe me about things like this.
Maybe we should have named him Yoda?
Boolie 