Dear Log,
The other night,
the sky above my port was the color of a dead television tuned to any
station. Namely, ghostly blue and flickery, from auroras. I rarely and barely see
them this far south, and I'm too close to bright lights to see any
color in them. But that makes them interestingly near-subliminal. If
they weren't moving, I'd barely be able to see them. I'm amazed the cats outside didn't stare up at them, given their vast interest in anything that flickers and shimmers.
Apparently they can't see that far ahead...
cog on 2005-09-17T10:56:08
I'm amazed the cats outside didn't stare up at themRecently, somebody who owns
two cats and has now moved from a 6th floor to a 3rd one told me cats can't really see that far (don't ask me why).
She said in her previous flat the cats would never look outside, given that they just couldn't see anything. In the place she's living now they're always at the window, staring. She says they're not able to see everything way down, but at least they can see some shades moving when people walk by.
Anyway, that's what she said...
Ketchikan and cats
wickline on 2005-09-17T19:46:09
You're in Ketchikan, right?
My wife and I just (last weekend) finished a SEA-based Alaskan inside passage cruise which included Ketchikan as a port. We were part of the nasty horde of tourists in Ketchikan on (I think) Sept 7th. Cruising seems to be a great way to travel, but a horrible way to visit someplace.
If I had unlimited funds, I'd like to cruise for a week with no ports of call, end up in some new location, stay at the new location (in a hotel or somewhere off ship) for a few weeks (without a horde of tourists... so everyone else would have to stay on the boat) and then catch a cruise ship to my next destination.
We did our whale-watching and what-not at other ports, so Ketchikan was mostly wandering about enjoying the overcast and rainy weather (which we really do enjoy... we're odd that way) and watching other tourists shop. Good lord... you guys must have to import stupendous amounts of jewelery to satisfy the voracious consumer habits of a summer's worth of cruise passengers.
It was interesting to see that cruise staff tended to buy things large stereo systems and DVD players. I guess these items are harder to come by (and therefor more expensive) in many of their home countries.
We also saw the lumberjack show (one of the three daily performances) that day. It was well-scripted and more entertaining than television. One of the guys had an unexpected slip on the wet wood and cut his palm, but after a ten minute absence was back out with a bandage on and performing in other events so I'm hoping the cut was no big deal.
Like most port cities, I expect it would be more interesting to visit when the tourists are at home.
My wife was curious about the aurora b. I told her I thought we'd be far enough north (and we were since Ketchikan was our south-most port of call) but we just didn't happen to be out on a day when we could have seen any. Ah well.
On the cat subject, we have two and a half (one is a new kitten). The grown up boy cat doesn't seem to care about moving things unless they can pet him, feed him, or act like prey. The former-boy kitten likes anything that moves, including the cursor and characters on my monitor when I'm typing (which can be a problem). The former-girl cat will watch wiggling strings and birds but isn't nearly as interested in them as she is my G-Force mp3 visualizer. She'll sit at the chair in front of my monitor for hours watching that thing. She also likes to stick her paw behind glasses of water (repeatedly) seeing how it gets magnified. She enjoys watching streams of water from the faucet too.
Enjoy your reprive from the tourist mob
:)
-matt
Re:Ketchikan and cats
TorgoX on 2005-09-18T07:15:03
Yup, I'm in Ketchikan. I tell ya, if you like bleary overcast weather, Ketchikan is the place to be. It rains almost every day or night. But the benefit of it, is that all that cloud cover holds the heat in at night -- even if it hides the few faint auroras.
