About a month ago I got a nasty cold-plus (somewhere between a head cold and something worse) which kept me in bed and away from work for a couple of days and took a good week to get better. Along the way, I got myself some herbal cough drops, the classic brand, and since I only needed a couple of them, I thought I'd put the rest in a nice dish in the living room so I could dip into that pretty bowl if I needed to, rather than leaving the cough drops in their bag, which looks messy and doesn't stand up. Not that the rest of the house isn't messy, but I was making an aesthetic effort.
Her Grace the feline bishop soon noticed that the cough drops had nice wrappers that made the cough drops attractive and within a day or two she had seized a cough drop by one of the twisty ends of the wrapper with her mouth, lifted it out of the beautiful painted Russian wooden bowl, and used it as a soccer ball. Enough, said I. I took the wrapped cough drop away from her. Again she grabbed it and played soccer. I gave up and said, "Okay, one's enough, the rest are for me." I also hid the bowl on the lower level of the coffee table, which seemed a shame since it is such a nice object, but I didn't want little yellow Swiss soccer balls all over the house. A day later everything seen fine. My cold healed and I forgot about the cough drops.
A day or two ago I was on the living room floor doing yoga and glanced toward the bottom shelf of the coffee table, and lo and behold, the bowl was empty. Completely empty. There had been at least ten wrapped cough drops in there. Only one was in sight on the living room floor. Heaven knows where the others went, but clearly +Maya Pavlova had been hard at play in my absence or during my sleeping hours. I found a second cough drop, put it with the first one back in the bowl, +Maya ignored the whole operation and had no interest, and I thought that was that.
A few minutes ago, before I decided to write this post, I heard a little noise in the living room (I usually write in my study, from which I can see just a sliver of living room) and there was +Maya, carefully lifting a party fav-- er, cough drop out of the bowl, dropping it on the floor, and swiftly kicking it and helping it skid across the floor.
I guess the Ricolas go in a closed jar or stay in their bag next time.
I wonder where all the other ones are.
Notes: 1. The now-empty bowl isn't quite this shape, it is more high and rounded, but it is a Russian khokhloma bowl like this one in the same colors. 2. The blog from which I snagged the cough drop photo above has a thorough comparison between Ricola and the CVS generic/copycat brand, if anyone is interested. 3. The photo of Herself is by yours truly with mitering by +Clumber of True Pittsburgh, canine bishop and PhotoShop artist.
Her Grace the feline bishop soon noticed that the cough drops had nice wrappers that made the cough drops attractive and within a day or two she had seized a cough drop by one of the twisty ends of the wrapper with her mouth, lifted it out of the beautiful painted Russian wooden bowl, and used it as a soccer ball. Enough, said I. I took the wrapped cough drop away from her. Again she grabbed it and played soccer. I gave up and said, "Okay, one's enough, the rest are for me." I also hid the bowl on the lower level of the coffee table, which seemed a shame since it is such a nice object, but I didn't want little yellow Swiss soccer balls all over the house. A day later everything seen fine. My cold healed and I forgot about the cough drops.A day or two ago I was on the living room floor doing yoga and glanced toward the bottom shelf of the coffee table, and lo and behold, the bowl was empty. Completely empty. There had been at least ten wrapped cough drops in there. Only one was in sight on the living room floor. Heaven knows where the others went, but clearly +Maya Pavlova had been hard at play in my absence or during my sleeping hours. I found a second cough drop, put it with the first one back in the bowl, +Maya ignored the whole operation and had no interest, and I thought that was that.
A few minutes ago, before I decided to write this post, I heard a little noise in the living room (I usually write in my study, from which I can see just a sliver of living room) and there was +Maya, carefully lifting a party fav-- er, cough drop out of the bowl, dropping it on the floor, and swiftly kicking it and helping it skid across the floor.
I guess the Ricolas go in a closed jar or stay in their bag next time.
I wonder where all the other ones are.
Notes: 1. The now-empty bowl isn't quite this shape, it is more high and rounded, but it is a Russian khokhloma bowl like this one in the same colors. 2. The blog from which I snagged the cough drop photo above has a thorough comparison between Ricola and the CVS generic/copycat brand, if anyone is interested. 3. The photo of Herself is by yours truly with mitering by +Clumber of True Pittsburgh, canine bishop and PhotoShop artist.
8 comments:
Well, you haven't heard her coughing, now, have you?
Well, under the fridge or the stove are my first two thoughts... I once found about a dozen of those plastic milk top sealer things under the stove... we used to give them to K-P to play with and they would similarly disappear. There's really no sense in spending money on cat toys when most of the time they will hate them and pick something that costs nothing (or next to nothing) to play with!
Blessings to her eminence...
Thanks for a good laugh, Jane. ^The cat world really is its own special place in the multi-dimensional universe.
Tell +Maya that she'd better act right or people might start to confuse her with a human bishop.
Dear Ms. Jane,
I want to thank you for making this real good post on your nice blog. You are a good human, and a fine canon to the feline bishop.
This post shows how the feline kind of bishop brings special gifts and abilities to the college of quadra-pedal bishops that we dogs alone don't have. I am real glad we started ordaining the cats too because they turned out to be very smart and interesting.
Just personally, I've been playing with my stuffed bunny, a green thing that squeaks, and my guardian. But, then, I am not a cat.
Please relay my fondest regards to the lovely +Maya and make sure she has some belly lovin'.
Love,
Your very good friend,
and a dog bishop,
+Rowan
REEEEE-coh-LAH!
Oh +Maya!
+Maya outsmarts her human canon (ball?), which is exactly how it should be with feline bishops and their canons. Canine bishops, too, of course.
Sorry, I couldn't resist the parenthetic, even though it makes no sense whatsoever. Who says we must make sense all the time?
Well, this gave me a big laugh. My beloved Pearl, who was definitely bishop material and would have been a great colleague for +Maya, +Rowan, +Clumber and +Airedale had she lived long enough, was a deft and devoted food hockey player with a preference for objects about that same size. The late lamented T.G. on the other hand was a proponent of refrigerator-magnet hockey. Long after his death I continued to find magnets under the fridge and behind the cabinets.
She shoots, she scores!
Thanks, all. +Maya Pavlova is having a zippy spring, she is. I did a little housecleaning this weekend and found about six Ricolas, in various corners of the living room. I wonder where else they will turn up. The fridge and stove are too close to the floor for them to be under there. We shall see - if we ever do!
Thanks for the great animal stories and letters. And Mimi, I liked the parenthetical nonsensical chuckle.
Paul, yes, Her Grace was wheezing occasionally a while back and now that I think of it, she hasn't wheezed a bit in recent days! Nor has she coughed. Not that she did before.
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