Quote for the day

I hate newspapermen. They come into camp and pick up their camp rumors and print them as facts. I regard them as spies, which, in truth, they are. If I killed them all there would be news from Hell before breakfast.

   General William Tecumseh Sherman

Alika

Alika is one of our cats — our newest cat, as a matter of fact. You can read all about him, and be subjected to more cat pictures than any human should have to endure.

As usual, click on the picture for a larger view.

Pampas Grass

We have a couple of pampas grass plants in our front yard that are blooming right now. The picture at right shows the flowerhead of one against our beautiful blue southern California sky. I took a few photos of them this morning, and did a little research to find out about these beautiful plants; there were some surprises there! You can read about it at my pampas blogging page.

As usual, click on the photo for a larger view.

Mopey

You can count my wife and I amongst those with very strong attachments (some say unreasonably so) to their four-footed friends. In our case, that's two dogs (soon to be three, we hope) and eight cats. As their life span is so much less than ours, of course over the years we have lost some of those friends. More than is comfortable to remember. This has just happened to Dr. Bob and his family over at The Doctor Is In; they have just lost Smokey, their friend and companion of 14 years. Dr. Bob has posted an eloquent and touching ode to their friend and family member, displaying a talent for such things that I wish I could muster at such at time. Reading his post, you get a real sense of Smokey — and of just how much he meant to the family. One sample:

Mopey — as we always called him — was a special cat in so many ways. Possessed of the laid-back disposition so common to Persian cats, he spent the better part of his life sleeping on his back, and virtually all of the remaining hours looking for food. His culinary tastes were eclectic, to say the least — he loved vegetables, especially green beans, chickpeas, and broccoli. His few athletic moments were in such pursuit, stretched to full length to get at the butter dish on the top cabinet shelf, or trying to open the cabinet latch to get at his cat food, just out of reach. Unlike many cats who self-regulate their eating, Mopey was positively Bacchanalian in his dining habits — watching him eat was like witnessing a Roman orgy. Thus engorged, he would stagger over the to furnace intake vent, where he would loudly meow, the echo amplifying his voice as he envisioned himself the great hunter on the plains of Serengeti, roaring his satisfaction at the kill to impress the pride. Then he would stagger off to sleep in some bizarre configuration, spine twisted, legs in the air.

Dr. Bob's parting words put me in mind of my own thoughts and emotions on those occasions when we've lost one of our own animals, though Dr. Bob expresses it much better than I've ever been able to:

But we will hear it no more, and the loss brings tears to the eyes and a tightness to the throat. He was a friend, a companion, a member of the family, a source of many laughs and the particular aggravations which domestic animals seem uniquely able to inflict on their keepers. Our animals are our friends, God-given gifts to entertain us and foster our most affectionate and protective impulses. They are a blessing — but a blessing which departs all too quickly, their candles extinguished to remind us of our own mortality and the power of love and loss.

We love you, Mopey, and will miss you greatly. May your feline heaven bring you endless meals and long naps in the sun.

Amen to that, and our heartfelt sympathy to Dr. Bob and his family...