Tag Archives: animals

Thoughts

Meet Zuzu

Zuzu is a very adorable kitten of unknown age — my guess at this point is 8-9 months — that we first saw on Facebook. She was recuperating after major hip surgery, and was up for adoption. She’d been found on a street in Bucharest, with both of her hips broken, possibly by a car, or a trap, or some deranged person. We fell in love right away with the little black furball, got in touch with the good folks who’d been treating her (Irina Pricop and Magda Radu), and arranged to adopt her. That’s also how we got to adopt two of our other cats (Bubu and Tira), but that’s a story for another day.

This is how the poor thing looked when they found her. Notice the broken and dislocated hips, pushing inside the abdominal cavity and pressing onto her organs.

And this is after the operations, recuperating at the vet’s office.

She’s now been with us for about 6 months, and has recovered very nicely. Her gait has never gotten back to normal, and I don’t think it ever will. She walks a little funny, and she runs a little funny too, but that’s what makes her even more endearing. She’s even learned to climb (and get down from) trees better than any other of our cats. She’s a very resilient cat. She’d have to be, to still be alive after an accident like the one she had.

This is how she looked last autumn, a few weeks after we brought her home.

Can you resist a face like that? Can anyone resist it? Not likely.

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Thoughts

The kittens in the yard

It was one of the last few beautiful days of autumn, and our kittens were sure enjoying themselves, lazying and frolicking about, playing with each other, making googly eyes for the camera… We’ve got five of them these days — two tomcats (Mushu and Bubu) and three kittens (Sasha, Zuzu and Tira). Felix is gone — he disappeared more than two weeks ago, so if anyone’s seen him, please let us know. My guess is he’s gone off after females, and since he knows how to cozy up to people, he’s probably mooching off someone else’s food. He needs to come home. Enough is enough. We miss him.

I recorded the video with a new camera, a Fujifilm FinePix HS10. Sorry if the video’s a bit shaky at times, I should have used a tripod. I do love the quality of it though. It’s full HD (1080p), downsized to HD (720p) in iMovie.

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Thoughts

Cows and roads in Romania

A typical sight you might encounter as you drive through the Romanian countryside is cows returning home from pasture in the evening, or, if you’re an early morning traveler, going to pasture.

It’s interesting the first few times, particularly if you’ve never seen that sort of thing before. It’s “touristy”, cute, etc. But it gets old really fast, for multiple reasons:

  • Herds on the roads worked back when the pace of travel was as fast as a horse and buggy could take you. Nowadays cars go somewhat faster than that. Having to slam on your brakes and go in 1st gear or stand still for up to 30 minutes isn’t something the weary traveler looks forward to doing when trying to get home or find some lodging.
  • You won’t find it cute after an angry ox sticks his horns into your hood or tries to mount your car, frustrated because he couldn’t mount his favorite cow that day…
  • Your neck veins will possibly burst as you experience the indolence of the cow herders, who will drag themselves along at a snail’s pace, blissfully unaware of the cars that are waiting for them to move the animals off the road. Most won’t give a cow’s behind about you even if you ask them nicely or yell at them.
  • You’ll not think it such a quaint sight after you run through a few steaming cow pies and have to hose them off your car later.
  • If you have to brake suddenly, then begin to slide dangerously on the mud laid on the road by the cows, you’ll begin to appreciate the usefulness of clean asphalt, unsullied by manure or thick mud.

In this day and age, I’m surprised village mayors still allow the cows to use the main roads, instead of directing the animal traffic to use the side roads and the back roads. Sure, the cows have gotten used to using the same route every day, but they can be re-trained. It seems to me the will just isn’t there, and that’s a shame.

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Thoughts

Meet Mushu

Mushu is a tomcat born in late May to another of our cats, Mitzi. She gave birth to three kittens: two tomcats and a kitty. We found a good home in the countryside for two of them, but we kept Mushu. We liked his half-pink, half-black nose and his loving nature. He’s been shy from the get-go though. It took a while for him to stop running away from us, and he’s finally learned to stay calm when we move around him. (Let’s just say his mom also had a “cautious” nature, and it took a bit of time for her to trust us — she was half-feral when we adopted her.)

Here he is, as a kitten, playing and sleeping with his brother.

Mushu’s the one on the right.

He loved playing in the corrugated cardboard roll, along with his brother and sister, and his cousins (Trixie’s litter).

Here he is in the yard, at 4-5 months of age.

He loves to play, naturally.

After a lot of play comes a lot of rest, right? 🙂

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Thoughts

Found better photos of Felix

Remember Felix (I), the little deaf tomcat I wrote about earlier this year? In the course of winnowing my photo library, I found better photos of him, taken a few months before his untimely demise. This is how I want to think of him.

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