In the last year, we have had to write two sad stories about the passing of two wonderful Corgis. This is a happy story about the their pal Tsula, a Corgi who is still keeping her daddy company. Our friend Abra Crabcakeya misses his two Corgis fiercely, but Tsula provides comfort and companionship. She adores him and the feeling is mutual.
Tsula the happy Corgi
Tsula was born on August 15, 2005. She went to live with Abra when she was ten weeks old. She learned quickly to sit up on her rear with her paws up so that she could be seen when she wanted something. I wish I could see that. I had a dog that would do that. It was cute as heck.
Tsula's yard with daffodils
Tsula has a great yard and has plenty of opportunity to engage in her favorite sport. She loves to chase chipmunks, rabbits and squirrels. She always takes time for a nap right after breakfast. She has to keep her energy up for the chase. Her number one favorite thing is being daddy’s girl and spending her time with him.
Tsula watching for squirrels
This was Tsula’s time to shine a bit. She’s such a lovely and happy little dog, that she deserved a bit of the spotlight. May she have many more days of varmint chasing ahead of her.
Timing and weather finally permitted us to head back North to Marin County to visit Cataract Falls again. We wrote about our first trip back in October of 2010. They are located on the West end of Alpine Lake on the Northwest slope of Mt. Tamalpais. We weren’t sure if the falls would be flowing or not as we are way behind on our rain for the season. However, we had two good rainfalls just before we went, so we were in luck.
I’ll be honest. I’m a Madison Avenue nightmare. Not only do I ignore most advertising, when I do pay attention I don’t bother to remember WHAT company was being advertised. Once in a while I surprise myself. I don’t jump to buy the product, but I pay attention. This advert from The Guardian, got my attention. It’s well done and smart. It stars the Big Bad Wolf and The Three Little Pigs.
Friday Night Cats Blogging is now Caturday. It’s a schedule that should work better for us. This way, we can escape the city on a weekday and enjoy the trails without a crowd and we don’t have to worry about missing a post.
Tito was his normal polite self.
Tito being watchful
The other two were something else. Kitsy woke me at 3:30 am begging for noms. Miss Jenny was egging him on. He doesn’t just yell. I sleep on my side and I wake up to find him standing on my arm and ribcage. He’s a bloody velvet wrapped mace. Miss Jenny helps by standing on my hip. She’s a lot lighter than Kitsy. They did NOT get their noms until 6am. I didn’t get any sleep, but I didn’t give in either.
Miss Nightshade Jenny practicing the art of camouflage againMr. Kitsy Wrinklepuss trying to look innocent
Over the years, the city of San Francisco has starred in quite a few books, movies and tv shows. Steve McQueen and Clint Eastwood have driven its streets. Dashiell Hammett also made San Francisco the stage of The Maltese Falcon. One can even take a 4 hour Dashiell Hammett walking tour. Contagion was one of the more recent movies that was filmed here. It is also the host of the headquarters and council chambers of the United Federation of Planets and Starfleet.
Not long ago we watched a movie starring our wonderful city. Watching it, I realized that I had photos of almost every place that was important to the story and I decided to play a little game. I’m going to post the photos and maybe you can figure out which movie we watched. I don’t think it will be difficult for the movie buffs out there.
The Pillars of the Past is the first landmark mentioned in the movie, though not shown900 Lombard was the home of the leading male characterThe Brocklebank building at 1000 Mason on Nob Hill was where the leading female character lived
The characters visited other places in and out of The City. I present them in no particular order.
Mission Dolores, the site of a mysterious graveThe California Palace of the Legion of Honor was home to a mysterious paintingThe two lead characters paid a visit to Muir Woods, North of San FranciscoThe movie couple took a stroll around the Palace of Fine ArtsFort Point, the site of major drama. The chain link fence was erected after 9/11 and was not present in the movie
If you have figured it out already, good for you. For those still struggling, I have placed several photos below the fold that should provide the answer.
“We are what we are” is largely about what it takes to keep a family together and that thing here isn’t love. “We are what we are” is a Mexican film written and directed by Jorge Michel Grau whose career so far shows promise, mostly documentaries centered on culture, the arts and education.
It helps to know this as this work of fiction has strong sociological themes, rather specific to Hispanic culture, Mexican in particular.
Our last post was about the 3am terrors that I suffer at the paws of Maz Whang. When he wants his noms, he can be pushy (understatement). Well, here are some kitties who really want their noms. Cats have figured out how to manipulate their humans and they are perfecting the art.
Example 1: Turning on the cuteness
If that doesn’t work, try sign language
Then, if all else fails, they act like they are evil and possessed
It’s not that Maz Whang is selfish, exactly… Or even that Tito is an enabler, but… Let’s again face the fact that Maz, a bit like Bad Santa, is an eating, drinking, sh*tting machine, who zeroes in on food with purpose and violence.
He does burn through calories like a three alarm fire and prefers 80 degrees weather.
Tito would even sit on a kitchen chair, looking at us with eyes half-closed, a signal that he wants canned food, only to leave it to Maz once he showed up: in other words tricking us into feeding Maz even more.
I watch and see all
But that’s just Tito being the Big Brother, the Paraclete. Three in the morning, Maz digs at my wife, standing on her for effect. Claws are always out, by the way: he always has that sense of urgency about him, like Indiana Jones pressing his face in the wall as he is about to get crushed: “we-are-going-to-die!”
The rule is, though: no canned food until six a.m.
Which means that for Rudha-an, the window from 3 to 6 a.m. is a preview of purgatory, pummeled by this mace wrapped in leather while I (mostly) sleep soundly and justly. The way of the world is the way of the cat, perhaps especially one that looks like David Bowie in “the man who fell to Earth”.
Keeps food in the fleshy folds of his visage...
Okay, in truth, Maz is more Richard Widmark than Bowie, but he is a star.
Good thing, then, that Maz’ naked ambitions are checked by the crème brulee that is Miss Jenny. We used to joke that Maz was nuclear powered, watching him streak through the apartment, up and down the furniture and hanging from the cat tower like a monkey. But she matches him step by step and then some. And that’s no small feat.
She is so nommable
So while the Whang does his thang, the blue-eyed she-devil chases after him to steal… Well, kisses, actually.
I wuvs him
That’s right, she nuzzles both boys and grooms them to the point that we thankfully no longer need to use Q-tips on Maz’ flappers.
Maybe she can be enticed in tackling Maz when he starts his food dance at three in the morning…? No.
Nope, she’ll stand right next to him waiting for noms, maybe even egging him on. She dances to her own tune, that one: if noms aren’t forthcoming, she’ll just force Maz into a high-speed chase or chew on his leg while Tito watches from the shadows in the hallway, always waiting.
Looks like a Disney movie...
So… “Jules and Jim“, or might a “Pact of Steel” be in the works? All I know is even I often wake up from being hit by a high-speed feline cannonball, making me yell “F****G FASCIST!!!” like Jeff Lebowski…
The English do spy literature and film very well. This modern take on spookery (titled “spooks” over the pond) is probably one of their longest running television series ever and for good reason.
Killer cliff-hangers, excellent acting, absorbing stories inspired at times by headlines, and the occasional “offing” of one of the main protagonists. Did I meantion the excellent writing? An excerpt:
After everything written about the series, I decided to give it a shot thinking I’d burn feverishly through all the available episodes only to be left wanting more.
Well, I DIDN’T. If I’d been looking for a survival guide to the Z-Apocalypse this doesn’t look to be it. To the point: yes I’ve only watched the first four episodes. However, in this short span, we’re introduced to Deputy Sheriff Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln), who wakes up from a coma in a dilapidated Georgia hospital after having been shot. He finds the world turned upside down as hordes of cannibalistic living dead have overrun society.
But stop. How did he get shot? Well…
In flashback, we are introduced to Rick and his partner Shane Walsh (Jon Bernthal), making small talk in their squad car. Rick is the quiet, decent and sensitive guy while Shane’s the more mercurial single guy, a good ole’ boy and bit of a party animal.
Shane likes to pepper his girlfriend stories with the word “bitch” before asking Rick how things are with his wife. No, really: he did. The dialogue sounds like some nerdy teenager’s interpretation of what jocks talk like in locker rooms, and false notes pile up from there, like a horrid multiple car crash in the mist. Shane and Rick get a call to intercept a couple guys who stole a car and committed an assault with deadly weapon.
They peel rubber, hook up on a country road with other deputies from the neighboring county and set up a road block. Soon enough, the stolen car appears, chased by two more cop cars. Stolen car hits the nail strip and flips numerous times. This is where things go, once again, pear shaped. Bad guy number one gets out of the wreck and fires several shots at the (count them) EIGHT deputies before getting gunned down.
Bad guy number two even manages to fire some rounds, hitting Rick in his vest, knocking the wind out of him. After an inordinate amount of ammo puts him down, bad guy number three crawls out and nails Rick in the back where his vest wasn’t covering him. Why? Apparently because the Keystone deputies weren’t paying enough attention and can’t shoot accurately.
Rick wakes up in a hospital which by then is just a husk littered with broken glass and ripped out wiring. First thing anyone with any lick of sense would do in that situation is look for clothes, and shoes… So what does he do? He simply stumbles out barefoot across all of that, into sunlight, without looking like hamburger meat.
Eventually, Rick sets out on the road wearing his deputy’s uniform complete with hat. If a sense of practicality is what defines who would survive in a zombie apocalypse, Rick’s a goner. I got a sense that his character is given some room to evolve into a more hardened type as the series progresses, but there he goes by the grace of God, rather than skill, surviving all these encounters by sheer and unbelievable miracle.
I’ll just stop there… The list of fails is only longer and the column of wins only has a few “meh” items. I did want to like this, but damn…
