Holidays, anniversaries and special events

May 8, 2011July 5, 2011

Tito and Kitsune Reflect on Mother’s Day

Today is Mother’s Day, and we think that mothers should certainly be honored. However, there are a LOT of mums out there who haven’t given birth or adopted, or raised human children. These women who nurture animals or the children of others deserve just as much honor on this day. With that in mind, we would like to honor a friend of this blog.

Her username is flumptytail and she’s mum to a human and LOTS of kitties. She rescues ferals, and has them spayed and neutered. She also takes them for regular checkups, teeth cleaning and various things. Once healthy, they have the run of her home, indoors and out. They are free to come and go as they wish. She has made many of our brothers and sisters very happy kitties.

How many kitties call her mum? Well, according to flumpty:

I have 32, 34 if you count the 2 that belong to someone else. I had said 28 before , but that was just a quickie list and I had left off some that I hardly ever see. They just come in once a day for a few minutes to eat and disappear again. Although by now there’s only one who never stays in all night.

Here are some of her kitties.

This first picture, according to flumpty:

I keep a big cage in the dining room for when I have to keep a cat in it overnight if they’re getting neutered or spayed or their teeth cleaned, etc. in the morning. I leave the door open other times and the cats like to sleep in in. Here is a picture of a pile of kittehs.

flumptytails cats — Lots of kitties. Photo by flumptytail

……………………………………………………………………………..
Not to worry. We love our mum too. We gave her head bonks and left our toys in her shoes for her to find.

March 14, 2011October 28, 2013

Happy Pi Day

Today, March 14, is Pi Day.

Pi, according to Wikipedia:

… is a mathematical constant whose value is the ratio of any Euclidean plane circle’s circumference to its diameter; this is the same value as the ratio of a circle’s area to the square of its radius. It is approximately equal to 3.14159265 in the usual decimal notation. Many formulae from mathematics, science, and engineering, involve π, which makes it one of the most important mathematical constants.

π is an irrational number and cannot be expressed in a fraction.

Now we’re done with the geek bit. And we’re on to the fun stuff.

Pi Day was created by Larry Shaw in 1989. According to Wikipedia:

The holiday was celebrated at the San Francisco Exploratorium, where Shaw worked as physicist, with staff and public marching around one of its circular spaces, then consuming fruit pies. The Exploratorium continues to hold Pi Day celebrations.

In celebration, here is a bit of Pi for your enjoyment.

Pi_monumentum — Pi sculpture Sculpture at Harbor Steps in Seattle, Washington

A little music…

No, we didn’t forget the kitties.

February 14, 2011October 26, 2013

Happy Valentine’s Day

Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone!. Rather than go into the history of this day, I’m going to talk about my love: I met Lastech back in November of 2001. He cracked a joke about cats and that was all she wrote. LOL! We’ve been together since. I had to wait until middle age to find him, but you won’t hear me complain.

Soooooooo I’m going to post a vid or two. They best express how I feel.

The first is by Barry Louis Polisar, who writes children’s songs and this one was used in the movie “Juno”. My hope for today is that our readers have as much happiness as we do.

Note: In spite of what you see on the video, Rod McKuen did NOT write this song. He translated it from the French. The song was written by Jaques Brel. I couldn’t find an embed of it that was good enough. Dame Shirley Bassey did an excellent cover of the song.

February 3, 2011October 22, 2013

Gung Hay Fat Choy: It’s the Year of the Hare or Rabbit

Gung Hay Fat Choy loosely translates as “congratulations and be prosperous”.

Lunar New Year, also known as Chinese New Year. The festivities begin with the new moon on the first day of the first month of the Chinese calendar. It ends fifteen days later on the full moon and is celebrated by the Lantern Festival.

Follow me below the fold for the pictures and traditions.

Continue reading “Gung Hay Fat Choy: It’s the Year of the Hare or Rabbit”

November 25, 2010October 26, 2013

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone

We just wanted to take the time to wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving day. We don’t really celebrate holidays like a lot of others, but we’re not stick-in-the-muds either. Lastech didn’t grow up with a Thanksgiving day like me. Some of our readers celebrate different holidays than we do in the States.

So….we’ve made this day our own. We have many things to be thankful for. We have our health and Lastech is working again. In addition to having some pretty great friends and family, we also have the added blessing of having two wonderful kitties. We hope many of you can say the same.

We hope that all of you have a wonderful day.

Best wishes from Lastech and Rudha-an

September 11, 2010October 26, 2013

September 11, 2001. In Memoriam.

Looking out my kitchen window on Thursday evening, I thought I should revise this post, as massive clouds of smoke drifted eastward from the fire in San Bruno.
While there was little in common with the September 11 attacks of 9 years ago, either in scope or cause, for many people 10 miles to the South, the nightmare has only begun. I remember having a similar thought as I watched the second plane hit the World Trade Center on television.

Yesterday I heard questions were raised about complacency and incompetence, after it came out that residents had some weeks ago reported smelling gas in their now destroyed San Bruno neighborhood.

Since the dawning of this new millennium, we’ve seen much more of what happens around the world, but perhaps understand less of it. Tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, man-made disasters and wars.
Everything shown, discussed and interpreted not just on TV and radio, but on the internet as well, making the 1990s feel like a century ago.

In remembrance of the victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks, here is an image from another crime which took place 37 years prior at the Twin Towers, referred to as “the artistic crime of the century”. In retrospect a deeply moving endeavor.