My cat Nils is not very smart. (Although he wishes me to add that he is a mighty hunter and slayer of mice. Among the phrases he recognizes is: Nils! viscera!) In the past few days he has developed a new and charming addition to his repertoire of not-very-smartnesses. Namely:
My house has two doors: the front door, which leads onto a porch, and the side door, which leads onto steps. I use the side door most of the time, and so does Nils, which is why it’s the side door before which he can often be found, staring intently at the handle, trying to move it by sheer force of will. But when it’s snowy or rainy, I let him out the front door, so that he will have some shelter while he comes to the conclusion that it would, after all, be better to stay inside.
Until a few days ago, this was easy: Nils would be by the side door, I would open the front door and say ‘Nils!”, and he would run out. But for the past few days he has refused to go out the front door. It’s not that he doesn’t want to go out: he will stay beside the side door, staring at it and meowing. But when I open the front door, he will just look at it in a sort of hostile way and then return to wailing to be let out the side door. And the only sense I can make of this is: he won’t go out the front door because if he does, then it will be cold and rainy, whereas if he goes out the side door, it will be sunny and warm.
I love my cats.
When Nils does go outside in the snow, he runs out gleefully and then, on discovering the snow, stops short with an expression of horror and dismay, exactly like one of my favorite Beatrix Potter illustrations:
It’s amazing how expressive cats’ faces can be, given that they really have only their eyes to work with.
I think that cat is dismayed to discover it has opposable thumbs and will be asked to help out with the chores.
I own the largest cat in the world. I’ve had him on diet foods for many, many years and he never losses any weight. He’s 23.8 pounds of lovin’ at the moment. I present Dusty, aka Catzila. 😮
http://bsr.cofrfps.com/images/d2.jpg
This post reminds me very much of a similar passage in Heinlein’s The Door Into Summer.
Anyway, I’m stuck at work and the snow is coming down like poison arrows from the sky. Likely I’ll be sleeping here since the roads will be impassable by the time my shift is over, even for my game, little, Isuzu 4×4.
Rilkefan: I think that cat is dismayed to discover it has opposable thumbs and will be asked to help out with the chores.
I am shocked to discover you don’t know your Beatrix Potter. No, no: Miss Moppet does not have opposable thumbs. It’s not so clear in that picture as it is in others, but she’s a perfectly normal little kitten.
Jes, guilty as charged – to the extent I can recall I learned to read from this beautiful book and then went on to Lloyd Alexander and then Tolkien – maybe I’ll check out Potter when I have kids.
I present Dusty,
Nice sofa and interesting black and white love seat, BSR, but where’s your cat in that photo?
;p
he/she’s a beauty, actually.
Among the phrases he recognizes is: Nils! viscera!
Is that an exclamation or a command?
guilty as charged – to the extent I can recall I learned to read from this beautiful book and then went on to Lloyd Alexander and then Tolkien
Really? I don’t remember how I learned to read – my mother tells me I learned over her shoulder as she was teaching my brother, 14 months older than me, which means I probably learned from these books, though the earliest book I remember reading for pleasure was either Borka: The Adventures of a Goose With No Feathers or A Apple Pie and Traditional Nursery Rhymes… I didn’t discover Jonathan Swift or J.R.R. Tolkien till I was 7 or 8.
But Beatrix Potter is ace: her books have gruesome* realism interwoven with fantasy, they’re not just impressive because of the extraordinary craftmanship of the drawings.
*Well, okay, “gruesome” on a level appropriate to very small children. But Peter Rabbit may be wearing a little blue coat, but he’s a real rabbit, not a cartoon, who really is going to end up in a pie made by Mrs McGregor if he doesn’t escape…
This reminds me of our old family dog. He was a cocker spaniel who would not stop barking at any and all guests with as much meanace as his little hyper self could muster. The doorbell would send him barking, chasing his tail, and maybe even vomiting if he was worked up enough. Of course, all of our friends really appreciated this.
Then, by accident, we found a solution. Strangers and other bad people came in though the front door, and Casey would hate you as long as you stayed. But family and everyone good used the side door from the garage. Come in that door and Casey would love you with equal savagery. Not much of an improvement, but we took what we could get.
BSR: Wow. That is a huge cat.
Anarch: it’s an exclamation of dismay. (var.: “Nils, viscera: for me?”)
rilkefan: read Miss Moppet here, and you’ll see why she is dismayed. (It’s quick, a mere 15 or so pages, and very Beatrix Potter.)
Just shoveled some snow.. Here’s the view outside of my house. Took that photo maybe 15 mins ago.
BSR, that cat looks like a linebacker. Can he play for Pittsburgh tomorrow?
Stan, I suspect you don’t want to see what it looks like outside my house…
Why not.. I ‘ll take a look 🙂
Stan, I suspect you don’t want to see what it looks like outside my house…
Exactly what I was thinking, rilkefan. God I love the Bay Area…
Damn, sun went down.
Heh.. That’s today??
We’re about a week into a re-enactment of The Flood..My kittie cat never leaves the bedroom so I have no door stories about her, but the Walking Brainstem, the collie, thinks that there is a cause and effect relationship between coming in the backdoor and getting his dinner. So he spends his free time (all day, every day) in the kitchen, asking to be let out the back door so he can turn around and ask to be let back in again. This association with coming in and getting fed started when my boyfriend got fed up with Joey’s persistant begging during meal preparation time and established the routine of sending Joey outside while our dinner and Joey’s dinner was being prepared.
It doesn’t matter to Joey that he only gets fed when he comes in in the evening. I guess he associates dinner with the door, not the time of day.
It’s hard to tell one day from the next here. Taken a few minutes ago. Anyone need a lot of huge thick-skin lemons?
Here’s one taken just fifteen minutes ago Just outside my lab.
Oh, and rilkefan, to quote Bill Hicks, “Die you lizard scum”
“BSR: Wow. That is a huge cat.”
He’s not fat, he’s big boned.
Sorry Opus, he’s strickly a New England Patriots kitty. Go Pats!!!
Chuchundra, I went to Cornell undergrad, and UofChicago for grad school, so I know a little about snow. I did most of my thesis work in Geneva, so I know a little about months without sun…
“he’s strickly a New England Patriots kitty.”
I’m guessing he plays on the line.
rilkefan,
ack! Driving in Ithaca in the winter sucks.. There are some specially nasty hills over there.
Walking in Ithaca in the winter sucks too. I had a math class at 8:30 AM atop a hill with a path that tended to ice over. I got my worst grade in college that semester.
Ever since Ithaca I’ve felt compelled to walk very very fast.
BSR, not to put a jinx on it, but after the way Pitt played last week, I don’t think you have much to worry about.
It’s hard to tell one day from the next here.
Nah, last night it was colder. It must have gotten down below 50…
rilkefan,
8:30 AM??? Hill or not, that’s pretty early. I got a very poor grade on my 8 AM freshman (!!!) class.
Try teaching remedial algebra to a bunch of freshman at 7:45am. At the top of a notoriously arduous hill. In the middle of Wisconsin winter.
The one real perk of that class? Anyone who actually showed up was motivated as hell so we actually accomplished things. It was my 9:55am class that I dreaded; that was when all the people who weren’t morning people (and had usually stayed out drinking to boot, pun very much intended) staggered into class and slept. Joy.