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Quirky Folk - November 2007

The Day Robert the Cat Tried to Attack our Budgies

November 29th 2007 21:08
After we lost our ducks, my sister decided to get some budgerigars. We got a green and yellow one and a blue one.

One hot summer day my sister got bored and decided to take the cage containing the budgies outside. She thought it would be nice to give them some sunshine.

It didn’t take long for Robert, the cat who liked to hang around our garden, to appear. We never knew where Robert came from. She (yes, she was a queen) obviously had a home to go to as she was always in good condition – she never looked hungry or thirsty. Her long grey Persian fur was never matted or tangled.


Until we had Robert, my sister and I had never come into much contact with cats. We knew they were hunters as they liked to kill mice. Sure, we had heard stories about cats attacking birds but we thought they were fallacies.

Given all this, we watched as Robert came closer and closer to the budgie cage. We honestly thought nothing would happen. After all, the birds were inside the cage and we didn’t think they would hold much interest for Robert. But we were wrong. As soon as Robert came close enough to the cage, she lifted her paw and took a swipe at the cage. The budgies started cheeping. My sister shooed Robert away and spent the rest of the day keeping a very close watch on her feathered friends.
Kemra3
Photo by Gourdo 1. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
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Robert the Persian Cat

November 28th 2007 21:01
When I was in my late teens, a blue Persian cat started hanging around our backyard. My sister, Susan, and I called her Robert after a DJ even though the cat was female. Robert liked to play in the garden and, as my parents discovered after doing some gardening, pee and poo in our garden. We never saw her going to the toilet but we did see her kicking the garden soil around, presumably, to hide her little presents.

My sister liked to wear sneakers and when she took them off, the room would be filled with foot odour. This led to the joke about Susan’s feet: One day my father said, “Susan’s feet smell of cat p*ss.” I thought this was hilarious as it was so apt, though I remember my sister being mortified at the time.


My sister now sees the humour in it and if she has foot odour, I will mimic my father’s deep voice and say, “Susan’s feet smell of cat p*ss.”
Kemra3
Photo by Gourdo 1. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
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The Dog Bite I got on the Way to Work

November 27th 2007 21:05
It was the middle of winter so I had thick trousers on. I was taking my usual route to work, which involves cutting through a small park near my place.

I was crossing the park when I noticed a man with two miniature schnauzers. At first I thought they were Scotty dogs; I had never seen schnauzers that tiny. Apart from that, I didn’t pay too much attention to them as many people walk their dogs in that park early in the morning.

So I kept walking when all of a sudden one of the schnauzers ran up to me. From my numerous childhood encounters with scary dogs, I knew the best thing to do was to stand still and let it sniff me. Once its curiosity was satisfied, it would go its merry way and then I would be free to continue my walk to work.

Instead, the schnauzer got up on its hind legs, put its front paws on me and sunk its jaws into my leg. Because I had thick trousers on, I didn’t think much of it, although the owner was mortified. He came rushing over, telling the dog to go back to him. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “Is there anything I can do?”

“No,” I said. “I’m fine but if I were you I’d be careful with those dogs. I’m not hurt but if they bite a baby or a small child its mother will go ballistic.”

I then went my merry way to work but when I looked at my trousers, I noticed a small hole in them from where the schnauzer bit me. I then rolled my trousers up only to notice a red mark on my leg. I then had to suffer another bite in the form of a tetanus injection from my doctor.

My neighbour knows the owner of the schnauzers and apparently he gets embarrassed every time he sees me. I’ve noticed he now keeps his dogs on a leash so at least something good came out of my experience.
Miniature Schnauzer
Photo by Pharaoh Hound. Used in accordance with the terms of Wikimedia Commons’ GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts.
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Cat bath photo link part 2

November 26th 2007 21:07

Ok, photo is at:

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Cat Bath photo link

November 26th 2007 21:05
phynx_taking_a_bath.jpg" target="_blank">cat bath photo link

Here it is again. Hopefully it'll work this time...
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Higgins and Miggins Take a Bath

November 26th 2007 21:03
My neighbour seldom bathes her cats as there’s no need to and also she is afraid the constant miaowing might disturb the neighbours. But it had been several months since Higgins and Miggins had had a bath and my neighbour thought it was about time they got one. With me as the observer and assistant, she filled her kitchen sink with several inches of water and grabbed Miggins, the smaller of her two Bombay cats. Using a firm grip, she put him into the sink. With one hand on the scruff of his neck, she used the other to gently pour water from a jug over his back. Almost immediately, Miggins started miaowing loudly, over and over again. He tried several times to escape, scratching my neighbour in the process.

My neighbour gently shampooed him for a few minutes, all the time speaking softly to Miggins. “It’s okay,” she whispered over and over again to calm the panicking cat. He still tried to escape but after a few minutes, she rinsed the shampoo off his back, rubbed him dry vigorously with a towel and then released him. Miggins ran into the living room and shook all the water off his body like a dog does after a bath and sat outside in the sun to relax.
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Brown-o and White-o as Quackerlings

November 25th 2007 20:59
When my sister and I brought Brown-o and White-o home from the pet shop, they were only a few days old and could fit into the palm of your hand. They were our pet ducklings, but we soon nicknamed them “quackerlings” and, similarly, grown ducks “quackers”. (My sister, who is not the world’s best speller, once sent me an email about the “quakers” and I had to explain the difference between the two words to her.)

The first day we brought them home was a nightmare. The ducklings did nothing but cheep non-stop. My sister wanted to sleep with them in the bedroom that she shared with me, so all night we had to listen to ‘”cheep, cheep…cheep, cheep…” It was very annoying. But after a couple of days, they settled down and didn’t cheep as much.
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Brown-o and White-o

November 22nd 2007 21:12
Ducks poo a lot. By this I mean they will squirt out a jet of green duck poo every five minutes. For this very reason, our ducks, Brown-o and White-o weren’t allowed inside the house. They had to stay outside and poo in the backyard and garden (duck poo being excellent fertiliser) and at night, my sister and I locked them in the garage to sleep where they would poo all over the place again.

On the few occasions our ducks were allowed inside our house, my sister and I would attach plastic bags to their bottoms to collect their waste. My sister would put them on her lap and get them to watch TV with us. On such an occasion, we noticed Brown-o was crying. She didn’t seem to be upset, though. It was more like tears of joy. It was very moving to watch as our ducks usually communicated with us by quacking. A quack or two usually meant they were happy but a series of quacks with increasing intensity meant they were hungry.
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My Children

November 21st 2007 20:58
Unlike most women, I’m not a marriage and babies person. A few of the women are my workplace are currently engaged and they talk about weddings non-stop. I find it so boring to listen to, day in, day out. They also seem to not worry about what happens after the wedding. Maybe they assume they will live happily ever after but they seem to forget that marriage takes a lot of work, or so my married friends tell me. So I don’t crave marriage. One colleague said that’s because I’ve never been proposed to but that’s not so. I’m just not interested in all this girly stuff. And I certainly don’t crave babies.

But I do crave the company of animals, especially cats. I call my friends’ cats my children. While others will coo over other people’s babies, I go ga-ga over other people’s animals. I’m constantly stopping to pat other people’s dogs or stroke other people’s cats whenever I walk down the street. If it wasn’t for the fact I would also have to stop and chat with the owners, I would do this more often. But I find I’m uncomfortable around people and social situations. Small talk doesn’t come easily to me as I find it inane. But with animals, the communication is non-verbal and more real. Animals will let you know straight away how they feel about you instead of wasting time crapping about the weather and asking stupid questions such as “how are you?”. This honest and open communication style holds greater significance to me.
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Loving Sadie

November 20th 2007 21:00
As a child, I was surrounded by dogs. Both my neighbours had them: one had a cross bred dog while the other had a black and brown dachshund that I was terrified of as he used to stand on his hind legs and jump up on me.

When I was little I used to play with a little girl who lived nearby. She had a large black, slightly overweight dog called Sadie. This girl adored Sadie; she used to say that half her body was Sadie’s, including her privates! This shocked me as I was only about 6 or 7 at the time and my parents told me never to talk about the ‘dirty’ parts of my body. At the same time, I was gobsmacked by her imagination. The little girl used to ride on Sadie’s back. I felt sorry for the poor dog as I wondered if its back could be broken from carrying her around. Sadie died a few years later.
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Misty, the Cat my Best Friend's Son is Afraid of

November 19th 2007 22:55
My best friend’s young son is terrified of their tuxedo cat, Misty. When he sees her he feels fearful which is why Misty now lives outside of their house. At first, I thought it was a phase all children go through, just as I was terrified of dogs when I was little but my best friend told me he was allergic to Misty, which is why he gets upset if he is near her.

Misty herself is pretty harmless. She likes to hang around their backyard pool and lie on the tiled surface that surrounds the pool. The first time I saw her, I got to pat her a few times so she’s certainly no scaredy cat.
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Monty the Pooch

November 18th 2007 21:44
I was on my way to my sister’s place yesterday when I spotted the dog who often sits outside the neighbourhood hairdresser’s most weekends. I went over to pat him and he let out a mournful yelp. I looked at his collar so I could find out what his name was but there was no name tag.

The dog came closer to me and stuck his tongue out so I bent forward so he could lick my face. He lapped at my chin and neck for several moments before he presented his back to me. I wasn’t sure what he wanted so I gave him a back rub. That seemed to make him happy. A passer-by then called out, “Hello, Monty!” so I now knew what his name was.
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Monty the Pooch

November 18th 2007 21:40
I was on my way to my sister’s place yesterday when I spotted the dog who often sits outside the neighbourhood hairdresser’s most weekends. I went over to pat him and he let out a mournful yelp. I looked at his collar so I could find out what his name was but there was no name tag.

The dog came closer to me and stuck his tongue out so I bent forward so he could lick my face. He lapped at my chin and neck for several moments before he presented his back to me. I wasn’t sure what he wanted so I gave him a back rub. That seemed to make him happy. A passer-by then called out, “Hello, Monty!” so I now knew what his name was.
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My Best Friend’s Deaf Cat

November 15th 2007 21:10
When we were kids my best friend was telling me about how her cat had given birth to some white kittens.

"One of them is deaf," she said.
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The Vicious Tortie

November 14th 2007 21:24
My neighbour and I once knew a girl who had a tortoiseshell cat called Precious (name changed). She used to put her cat in a cage and carry it over to my neighbour’s place whenever she was visiting. My neighbour’s cats took one look at her and kept their distance. When my neighbour tried to pick the cat up, she got bitten and scratched all over. One time, I was sitting in front of her cat and said, “Hello, Precious.” The greeting I got back was a big swipe of her paw towards my face and if I had not backed off when I did, I would have ended up with a huge scratch across my face.

The cat’s owner seemed oblivious to her pet’s aggressive behaviour. “Isn’t she the prettiest girl on the block?” she’d coo. Pretty, yes. Friendly, no. “All torties are like her,” she’d say and my neighbour would simply say yes. Having never encountered any other torties in my life to make a comparison, I could only go on what those two said. But afterwards, when the girl had left with her cats and my neighbour’s cats came back into the living room, I asked my neighbour if what the girl said was true. “Of course not,” my neighbour said. I was glad to hear that.
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One Person’s Idea of ‘Fun’

November 13th 2007 21:05
Burmese Cat
Photo by Brian Trip. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
It never ceases to amaze me how cruel some people can be. My neighbour recently told how someone she met told her he used to think it was funny to find cats and throw them off the balcony of a tall building. When she asked him why he did that, he said he heard that cats can land on their feet. My neighbour said, “Yes, but not from great distances.” She then gave him a piece of her mind, so angered was she by his cruelty. She asked him if he bothered to go down to the base of the building to check if the cats were okay. He said no.

When she told me this, I was also horrified. I could not believe how someone could be so reckless and cruel. I feel for the poor cats. Actually, I would love to get my hands on him and throw him off a skyscraper if I could to see how funny he thinks it is.
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Will You Ever Leave This Cat?

November 12th 2007 20:56
I’ve been a big fan of Tonkinese cats ever since one of my friends introduced me to his cats. I found them so loving and friendly and sociable. I love their half Siamese/half Burmese appearance so I often Google pictures of them. Even my sister, who thinks Siamese cats look ‘evil’, doesn’t mind the Tonkinese.

I found this beautiful picture of a Tonkinese cat called Mymystic Chiffon on this web site that has adorable photos of cats. I’ve printed this picture out and I keep it on my desk at work. It lifts my heart whenever I look at it. I cherish her beauty. Even my cat-hating workmates say she’s a lovely cat. They call her the cat with the great big eyes.
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The Two Tuxedo Cats

November 11th 2007 21:13
I was feeling really down over the weekend and I was with my sister, walking to her place when we came across this lovely tuxedo cat lying on the ground in front of some steps. I bent down and patted it for a while before sitting down on the steps and continuing my patting. I felt a lot calmer while I was patting it, although the poor thing’s fur had bits of dead hair and dirt from lying on the ground all the time. I tried to photograph it but it kept pointing its face towards the ground so the photo below was the best I could do.

My sister asked me why I wasn’t patting the cat’s belly but I explained to her cats disliked having their bellies touched unless they knew the person well. I know this from personal experience. Even my neighbour’s cats will only let me touch them there
Tuxedo Cat Lying on the Ground
Tuxedo Cat Lying on the Ground
if they are lying on their backs


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Attack by a Green-Head Duck

November 8th 2007 21:16
“My boyfriend in high school and I were walking through the park. I was wearing converse low tops and the laces were a bit long... as we passed by a duck it came after my shoe laces and tried pulling at them. Then it just out right started to attack me and nip at me. That was the first time I was attacked by an animal so I was caught by surprise... so first I tried to gently move it away with my foot... like when you slide something over with your foot... but then it kept coming back and finally I just kicked it to leave me alone and we of course were already walking away. It was one of those ducks with the green head and brown body. Very common duck. There were no ducklings around either so I couldn't figure out why it was so mean.”

Neither can I for that matter. Whenever I see them in the park they seem very timid. As a child, I used to walk around the park trying to find their feathers. Some of their feathers have a brilliant iridescent green/blue colour. I used to love to hold their feathers up into the sun and slowly turn them from side to side, watching the colour change from green to cobalt and vice versa.
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Tonkinese and Tongans

November 7th 2007 21:16
My workmates absolutely hate cats and love to tease me about them. Not surprisingly, they are completely in the dark when it comes to cats so one day one of them was looking at the cat pictures I keep at my desk and asked, “What breed are these?”

“Tonkinese,” I said.
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Not all Ducks are Alike

November 6th 2007 21:29
When people think of ducks they usually think of the Pekin duck, which one author called it, the “duckiest” of ducks. This is the famous white-feathered, yellow-billed duck that quacks and is very gentle and timid.

But did you know that, like dogs, ducks come in all shapes and sizes? The antithesis of the Pekin is the Muscovy duck. It is by no means your stereotypical duck. With its large, solid body (the males are almost as large as a goose) and red skinned, featherless face, Muscovies do not quack and, unlike the Pekin, can be very aggressive.
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Melbourne Cup - I Feel Sorry for the Horses

November 5th 2007 20:58
Are my friend, Nim, and I the only people in the world who hate Melbourne Cup? I would really like to know if there are others out there who despise it as much as we do. For starters, I think it encourages gambling – a big no-no in my books. For another, I find the whole celebration thing banal; taking the afternoon off just to wear a stupid hat with a fascinator on top (which makes me look old fashioned and conservative instantly) and some hideous frumpy outfit just so I could watch a stupid horse race. I find what people wear to the races so stuffy and boring. Not only that, I think about the poor horses: Do they enjoy it? Or do they feel pain when the jockeys hit them which is why they run faster? Finally, I have too much to do at work to be able to take the time off, even if I wanted to.

People say it’s worth celebrating Melbourne Cup because it’s tradition. But to me, the word tradition is just a fancy way of saying something is worth doing only because it was done before. And just because something was done previously doesn’t necessarily mean it should be done again. That’s my take on it anyway.
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How I Learnt the Facts of Life From Benji

November 4th 2007 21:11
When I was little one of my neighbours had a cross-bred dog that looked liked a cross between a dingo and a Labrador called Benji. In fact, I swore he was a dingo until I asked Mr Harry, my neighbour, what breed he was. Benji was as gentle as a lamb around people he knew but would growl at strangers. As kids, my sister and I loved to play with Benji and since there was no fence between our and Mr Harry’s home, we used to move back and forth between both properties all the time. Mr Harry didn’t mind us roaming around as long as we didn’t hurt Benji.

One afternoon I went out to play with Benji as usual only to find him mounting another dog called Sao. I had never seen Benji do this with other dogs so I ran inside and told my grandma to come out to see what was going on.
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Scopsy the Sausage Dog

November 1st 2007 21:13
Spotted: two brown sausage dogs running in tandem down Woollomooloo. I tried to take some photos but by the time I pulled out my camera, they had already gone. How could dogs so small be able to run so fast?

“Those sausage dogs spin me out,” says my mate, Nim. They also spin me out. They have such funny bodies. When I was little I used to be terrified of them as my next door neighbour had a black one called Scopsy who used to stand on its hind legs and grab me with his front paws. As a child, I was terrified of any dog that did that as I thought it was showing aggression. Now I just think all poor Scopsy wanted to do was to say hello to someone who wanted him to just leave her alone. Ironically, whenever I see a sausage dog I have to resist the urge to pat it after the time I terrified one when I did reach out to pat it. It looked at me and ran off and its owner didn’t look too happy with me either.
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