Monday, May 12, 2008

Cat crib - UR DOING IT WRONG

Photobucket

Sam loves getting under mobile objects and slither around on his belly, at top speed, towards things (mostly people, Scarlett and table legs). This saturday he did it with their new cat tent, usually he does it with his beloved paper bag.

Scarlett and the tend. Whenever Sam's having a good time in the tent, she'l get in it and kick him out. She does that with his bowl, too, and with any toy he's playing with. His revenge - come gushi-food time he'll nudge her away from her plate to pig it out (often before he finished his share!)
Photobucket

The lovely fluffers
Photobucket

Sam and his bowl. As you can see, he grew into it a little, the little fluff and blubber lump that he is >.<
Photobucket

The glass gives a good view to smeared-curled paws!
Photobucket

Photobucket

Do any of you long-haired cat owners see these on your cats; curly areas in the middle of the smooth fur? Sam's got these in the fur on the sides of his belly and on the rear of his thighs and they reappear again after we comb him (we do this every day)
Photobucket

Snuggled up
Photobucket

Very pleased with his bowl and with existance in general
Photobucket

Finished reading Darwin's The Expression of the Emotion in Humans and Animals, here's the Goodreads review:

This book is more a historical document than a scientific paper, by today's requirements for scientific documents.
Darwing collects here his notes on the expressions of humans with a single chapter about animals and some referrences to monkeys, so the title is highly misleading (it annoyed me, anyways).

Despite that, this work is at the root of understanding both human and animal behavior and the three principles of expression are now evidently the base of every modern theory on animal and h...more This book is more a historical document than a scientific paper, by today's requirements for scientific documents.
Darwing collects here his notes on the expressions of humans with a single chapter about animals and some referrences to monkeys, so the title is highly misleading (it annoyed me, anyways).

Despite that, this work is at the root of understanding both human and animal behavior and the three principles of expression are now evidently the base of every modern theory on animal and human behavior and that, in itself, gives this book a historical value.

Darwing depicts his notes on his own children, on various and un-measured sightings of human and animal beahvior (like "I once saw a girl doing ___ " or "my neighbour's dog once ___ ") which nower days would be completely unfit for scientific research. Those were the days, though, and for anyone interested or amused by the development of scientific thinking and research this book is an enjoyable gem.

Another historical value this book has is in the fact that, in order to investigate human expression in human societies relatively unexposed and influenced by Eurpoean man, Darwin had a small army of informants at remote Biritsh colonies investigating and reporting of their experiences with the local natives. These informants were judges, policemen, missionaries and wives of various officials. With these times long gone (thankfully), it's a reminder and a documentation of the spirits of the time and the way these far-away cultures, still unchanged at the time, behaved.

This book is not an easy read as the english is that of Victorian times and often words that mean one thing to us mean another, when he author is concerned, and the unabridged version hold a lot of repeating and coarse writing that's not for readers who just want an easy book to stare at.

Still, it's a good book, and for historians with a love for human studies, it's a good book

Am now reading: Douglas Adams' The Salmon of Doubt

1 comment:

Michal Wright-Ward said...

holly crackers, they're huge!
and you, my darlings - are cat suckers. not only did you buy a bigger decorative bowl - for the cat, you got them a cat tent? tzk tzk... what will those people do next.
nope, that would not be a good idea in our houshold. we can't give them another thing to get territorial about. if you could see Emmet's panicked looks whenever someone else (Ant, Suki, whoever) sits in "his" chair you'd understand.