[Cats] anyone still out there?

[M. Anna Hanson]

We're still here - was just thinking earlier today how quiet the list  
has been. As we used to do in school, here's my report on what I did  
over the summer - well, I'll stretch it to since late May: went to  
Prague, then after 3 days at home went to Norway for a week; two weeks  
after returning from there, hosted my niece and nephew for a month,  
taking them down the Mosel river to the Black Forest, parts of France,  
and Paris - including Disneyland Paris.  Oh, yeah - in the middle of  
their visit we moved from one village to another about 7 km closer to  
work.  A week after that, my cousin came for a visit.  The rest of  
August was quiet, spent settling in to the house and learning the  
neighborhood, watching the sheep (we have sheep out the back yard!)  
and cuddling the cats, who find the sheep inelegant and not worth  
bothering about.  Currently we're preparing to host more company -  
friends from our youth group days and another nephew and his father  
will be here for a couple of weeks, during which time we'll visit  
Munich for Oktoberfest and make yet another sojourn to Paris (being  
only 4 hours away by car makes it somewhat reasonable, especially for  
first-time-in-Europe visitors).

So that this has some relevance to cats, I will say the girls are  
settling in well here.  We had to put up a bit of fence in one part of  
the yard - a space about 10 feet wide was open to the street, and  
Graysi found it too tempting to slip over to another house and sniff  
their plants.  Now there's a 6 ft. fence closing that off, and she  
seems content to respect that boundary.  If I find her breaching it,  
we'll add the netting to the top.  The sheep we have behind us are  
interesting - at first I thought they were a cow-sheep blend, cuz  
their bodies are so big and ungainly and they have a white blaze on  
their faces like some brown cows do - oh, and they're brown.  But a  
friend ID'd them for me as Balwen Welsh Mountain Sheep.  They're fun  
to watch - mostly they eat, and sometimes frisk about in a clumsy  
way.  It's free entertainment!

I've noticed the phenomenon you mention, Marie, with the traits being  
shared/taken up by the survivors.  Our girls both showed some of the  
same behaviors the others had, initially - but I think either I've  
gotten used to them doing those things or it has tapered off.  Arielle  
now can meow almost like Eli - sometimes she sounds just like he did.   
And Graysi has taken on Tsuni's bedtime monitor job, coming to remind  
us that it's time to sleep by boring holes in our heads with her eyes  
till we get the clue.

Anna and the 2 purrgirls, musing on life...


On Sep 10, 2008, at 7:51 PM, MJ wrote:

> Hi, all!
>
> Kids are back to school and all of the back-to-school issues are  
> coming
> to a close, so I have a bit more time to devote to my own interests
> again. <big sigh of relief>
>
> You're all so quiet!  The summer was eventful for all of us.