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Quirky Folk - February 2008

I Feed Brown-o and White-o Coca Cola

February 28th 2008 21:00
Feeling bored one day, my sister and I came up with the bright idea of feeding our quackers human foods. They gobbled up the bread we offered them as if they were starving. Then we offered them some cabbage. They also gobbled that up. Then we poured some Coke on a spoon and offered it to them. Both quackers had a sip but then shook their heads so that the Coke would fly out of their mouths. Ok, so maybe that wasn’t such a good idea after all…My old woman would also feed them lettuce and rice. The rice they didn’t like, but the lettuce they loved. They would go through the bowl and pick out the bits of lettuce.


Sometimes, when they were hungry, my sister and I would walk around with some lettuce or cabbage in our hands and make our darling ducks follow us around the backyard. We would then stop and dangle the vegetable bits in front of them and watch them jump up to grab them out of our hands. They really were clever birds.
Azuchi mallard
Photo by 663highland. 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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Ugly Cat Website

February 27th 2008 21:00
For those who like to look at pictures of “beauty challenged felines” (their words, not mine), this web site is just for you. There is even an ugly cat contest. I find it pretty damn funny.

Would you submit pictures of your cat to this web site? As a cat lover, I hate to say this but some of the pictures on this site are pretty ugly. One good example is <Oct 2007>. Others are quite cute, for example, <July 2007>. I would call this cat cute rather than ugly. One of my friends has a cat that is not very photogenic. In the flesh, he is very gentle looking but photos I’ve taken have failed to capture this quality. Instead, he looks grouchy, imperious and “ugly” (other people’s word, not mine). People also say how large he appears in photos. In reality, he is average-sized.


I was hoping to find a doggy equivalent of this web site but unfortunately there seems to be none.

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Stephen’s Silk Worm Experiment and other Horrible School Experiments

February 26th 2008 21:00
Seidenspinner drawing
photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
I was asking my friend Stephen if he was afraid of caterpillars. “Caterpillars?” he asked. “They’re harmless.” Here was another person who did not share my phobia. He then mentioned that at school he and his classmates had to breed silkworms for a science experiment. He didn’t seem traumatised by the experience. Had it been me, however, I think I would have freaked out, having been scared of caterpillars and such like ever since I first saw one in the garden when I was about four years old.

Thinking about Stephen’s silkworm experiment helped jog my memory of three gross experiments I refused to participate in at school. I was in seventh grade and we were studying biology. Even though I harboured dreams of becoming a doctor, I was bored with learning about the functions of the various organs and what blood was composed of and what plasma was. My interest in medicine lay in bodily deformities. But I digress. Our science teacher was particularly fond of asking us to perform gross experiments. First she brought some tripe in and we each had to touch it. I wouldn’t. Then we had to dissect a rat. Well, the animal lover in me couldn’t bring myself to cut it open. I could only watch in a mixture of horror and fascination as my classmates cut the poor thing open autopsy style. Finally, and grossest of all, our teacher brought in some cow lungs and made us stick a tube in them and blow in it to watch the lungs inflate and deflate. Again, the animal lover in me could only watch and not do. Luckily enough there were so many students who were keen to perform these experiments that the teacher never noticed I was the only kid who wasn’t participating. Else I would have failed science and my old man would have hit the roof.
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Maggot Therapy: my Biggest Nightmare

February 25th 2008 21:00
I was playing around Wikipedia, trying to find out whether or not maggots have legs (I’ve never been close enough to one to know) when I found a web page about maggot therapy. Ugh! Now I’ve heard of the many benefits of using maggots and leeches in medicine but you would have to knock me out for several days with general anaesthetic before I would consent to having my body parts fed on by maggots, no matter how rotten the flesh on the area concerned is. The thought of literally being eaten alive by tiny, white squirmy things, feeling their little mouths chomping away on my flesh, even if it’s supposed be dead…just thinking about it brings shivers up my spine.

I remember watching a TV show which had a woman having maggot therapy. She had a wound on her ankle which refused to heal so she went to her doctor and the doctor had these “specially-bred” maggots (the TV presenter’s words, not mine) in a jar. He opened up the jar and carefully tipped the maggots out of the jar and into the wound. He then sealed up the wound. The presenter then explained that in a few days time all the dead flesh on her ankle would have been removed and she can go back to her doctor again to have the maggots taken out as well.
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My Kitty Friend is Angry With me

February 24th 2008 21:00
My Kitty Friend
Walking home one Friday afternoon, I saw my kitty friend on the stairs. I went over to stroke him. He lay on his back and wriggled around. I stroked his belly and he miaowed at me. I kept stroking him and then he tried to bite me. I then decided to go but I was left wondering what had gone wrong. I consulted my cat library. It sounded like a case of the cat getting tired of being stroked so much.

The next time I saw him, he ran off. I then figured the friendship was over. I felt sad but tried to put the kitty out of my mind. In the meantime, I became friendly with the kitty’s friend, the cat I call the Grouchy Tuxedo Cat after he tried to bite me one day when I tried to stroke him. According to Cat Vs. Cat by Pam Johnson-Bennett, one should never approach a cat without letting it sniff one’s finger first. Maybe that was my mistake with the GTC. Anyway, I tried Johnson-Bennett’s method and I’ve had no problems since with the GTC.
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Millipede World

February 21st 2008 21:00
On a recent trip back to my parents’ home, I was amazed at the number of millipedes outside the house. I could not walk a metre without seeing another one on the steps or the ground or on the wall. It was quite creepy watching them crawl around. And when my mother tried to brush them away with a broom, instead of falling down the balcony or the stairs, they curled up into little balls. It reminded me of a long-forgotten phobia I have: millipede phobia. Because they look like caterpillars, which I have a huge phobia of, I am also afraid of millipedes. In fact, I am afraid of any thing that has more than four legs and no spine. With the exception of lobsters, I am also afraid of any thing that is made up of segments. Come to think of it, I am even afraid of things with no legs – slugs, snails and certain sea creatures give me the willies.

So how did I forget about my fear of millipedes? Easy. When I moved to Sydney, I’ve never come across any millipedes (touch wood) which made it easy to forget about this phobia. It was definitely a case of out of sight; out of mind. I’ve also noticed there are fewer caterpillars in Sydney.
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The Pig on the Tile

February 20th 2008 21:00
Here is a photo of one of the tiles on my parents’ bathroom wall. When I was little I used to stare at the tiles while taking a shower and make shapes out of the ambiguous figures. To this day, I still can see a sheep or a pig-like figure. I pointed this out to my sister on the weekend and she was like, what are you talking about? I then told her that if you imagine floating above a pig or a sheep and looking down on it, you will be able to see the same thing on the tile. My sister sort of got it then but I suppose it must be like doing a Rorschach inkblot test which, by the way, a psychiatrist I know reckons are crap and they don’t reveal anything about a person’s personality.

Either way, it’s one ambiguous print on the tile. It’s like looking at clouds; one can make whatever they like out of the shapes. Or perhaps it’s like looking at an optical illusion. There’s one picture that I often see in optical illusion books of a pile of spots. If you look closely and hard enough at it, soon the dots form that of a dalmation walking around a leafy area.
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The Possessed Cat

February 19th 2008 21:00
Here’s a picture of Butterscotch AKA the cat my workmates call the ugly cat. As my friend, Nim, would say, you meanies. But none of my photos of Butterscotch or any other animal have generated such mixed reactions.

When I showed this photo to my friend, Karina, she said the cat looked possessed. That was one apt description; immediately images of Linda Blair in the Exorcist appeared in my mind. In contrast to this, my mother says his eyes look cute as they remind her of two large marbles while Catherine, another workmate, says he looks like Nim! (I think she says that to rile up Nim, who hates cats.) Butterscotch’s owner says he looks imperious which is another apt description. Whenever Butterscotch perches on top of his scratching post, he takes on this regal gaze and looks around the room, taking the world in. Seldom does he look impressed by what he sees. He is also the leader. His brother, Gingersnap, often gets lost in all the action as Butterscotch likes to lead and perch on the highest object in whichever room he’s in while Gingersnap is content to keep a low profile and although he likes to perch on high objects, he lets Butterscotch hog the scratching post and the TV set.
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My Feline Friend Lies on my Lap

February 18th 2008 21:00
It’s funny how sharing simple moments with animals calm me down and bring me joy. Having a feline friend makes my day brighter when I come and go.

I now keep an eye out for my feline friend, a tomcat who hangs around the stairs near my place, whenever I go out or come home. Coming home one Friday, hot and sweaty from a twenty minute walk from work, I saw my friend sitting at the top of the stairs. I quickly walked up to him and as usual, he let me stroke his head and rolled on his back for me to stroke his stomach. I sat down at the top of the stairs and my friend gently placed his front paws on my thigh. He watched people come and go and stepped off me, only to rub his body around mine as he circled me. Circle completed, he then stepped on my thigh again. He waited a few seconds and I got what I hoped for: he stepped over my lap until he was standing on top of me before lying on my lap. I stroked the back of his head and back while he miaowed. It was as wonderful as holding a newborn baby. And like a newborn baby, he was light at first but after several minutes, he became really heavy. Luckily, a passer-by jolted him and he stepped off me. I said goodbye and made my way home, feeling good and feeling loved.
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The First Time I saw a Rottweiler

February 17th 2008 21:00
My sister and I were sitting in the car. Our parents have just pulled up behind a ute that was waiting for the traffic lights to turn red. In the back of the ute was a large Rottweiler. Never being near a Rottweiler before, we had no idea how aggressive they could be. This one looked at us calmly. I was marvelling at its handsome build and about to say, “Check out that nice dog,” to my sister when all of a sudden, as if it finally dawned on it that strangers were looking at it, the dog started barking wildly. “Woof, woof, woof!” it barked over and over again until the lights turned green and the ute had driven off.

“That’s one bad dog,” my father said. “If it was loose it would tear you to bits.”
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A Cat’s Spine

February 14th 2008 21:00
Bobtail Tabby Cat
Photo by Klarissae. 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.
A cat’s agility never ceases to amaze me. Just think about it. Unlike humans, they can curl themselves up into a tight ball. If they fall they, their righting reflex kicks in straight away, ensuring they land on their feet. Imagine how much strain a cat’s spine would take so they can do this. Butterscotch, my friend’s Tonkinese cat, literally flies through the air so he can land on the highest object in the room to perch on. It is marvellous to watch him in action. As to how my neighbour’s heavy – but not overweight - Bombay cats, Higgins and Miggins, manage to leap onto her 6 foot high cupboard remains a mystery. I’ve never seen them in the act; I presume they climb up onto the adjacent lounge or table and, using their hind legs, propel themselves upwards.

According to Diane Morgan, author of Good Catkeeping, cats can flex their spine 180 degrees sideways and arch their backs to the point where their hind and front paws match. That's some amazing agility.
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Butterscotch and Gingersnap Snuggle up

February 13th 2008 21:00
Butterscotch Curled up into a Ball
Butterscotch Curled up into a Ball
The last time I saw Butterscotch and Gingersnap, they had fallen asleep on my friend’s bed. Sometimes they would curl themselves into tiny balls. At other times they would lie on their backs. Sometimes their whiskers would twitch (kitty dream, perhaps?). As an insomniac, I am amazed by how easily they fall sleep. If I stroke them, they might wake up only to close their eyes and go back to sleep right away. They seem so relaxed, so at peace with themselves. Awake they purr loudly and follow their owner around the house. To think the first time my friend saw them, they had been locked up in a cage at the local animal shelter…

“They literally worship the ground he walks on,” I told to my friend Fred.
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My Cattery-cum-Office Fantasy

February 12th 2008 21:00
Mya
Photo by Joaquim Alves Gaspar. 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.
I was having one difficult week at work. One of my workmates was on leave and had missed his flight back from Macau, which meant he would be coming into work the following Monday instead of this Wednesday. My manager wanted me to cover for him for another three days and boy, by Friday, was I frustrated and simply wanted to go home. That was when I looked up from my cubicle and went into a fantasy world. I looked at my photo of Butterscotch that I always keep with me and whispered to him, ‘You would be so easy to work with.’ I imagined instead of people, all my colleagues were cats. I could see cats of all shapes, sizes and colours in each cubicle, happily typing away on their computers. I thought about bitchiness and office politics I have encountered during my thirteen years of working in finance and thought if animals ran the world, the world would be a better fantasy. How Orwellian.

Which reminds me, when I was 16, my friend Sharon was a vegetarian and a huge fan of the Smiths, Oscar Wilde and George Orwell. She used to quote Morrissey’s lyrics and would scribble ‘MEAT IS MURDER’ all over her books. It was Sharon who introduced me to Animal Farm, Orwell’s famous novel about animals taking over a farm. Sharon, like me, was eccentric, had very strong views and was considered a subversive. It was a case of two misfits finding each other. Sadly, we lost touched when I went to university. I still wonder what ever happened to her.
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Butterscotch Punches a Hole in the Bin

February 11th 2008 21:00
Photo by Patrick. 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.
Butterscotch was one naughty kitten. At about six or seven months, he and his brother, Gingersnap, liked to raid the bin. His owner always kept the bin, a hefty 3 foot high device, securely shut so that his cats wouldn’t push it over and rummage through the bin. But these were determined cats, especially Butterscotch, who was the leader. One day my friend came home to find Butterscotch near the bin, which now had a hole the size of a human fist in it. To this day, my friend isn’t sure how Butterscotch managed to punch a hole in the bin. When he showed me the bin, I was amazed as it was made out of strong plastic, not the sort of bin where a cat could easily inflict much damage. My theory is that when Butterscotch knocked the bin over, the bin must have hit something sharp and the force of the blow was enough to knock a hole in the bin.

My friend went and bought a Butterscotch-proof bin. He has had no problems since and his cats are now one year old and have outgrown their mischievous kitten phase.
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Meeting Some Burmese Kittens

February 10th 2008 21:00
Platinumgirlkitten
Photo by Bjtripp 2. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
One Sunday, bored with nothing to do, I happened to walk past a pet shop. I naturally stopped to check out the animals for sale, even though I’ve heard that pet shops aren’t necessarily the best places to buy pets.

In the display box were two tan coloured Burmese kittens. At first I thought they were Tonkinese kittens, as they looked just liked my friend’s pet Tonks. They were so loving and playful. The sales assistant was happy to take them out and let me hold one of them. It was a squirming little bundle of joy. It kept wriggling and walking all over me and like all cats, it wanted to be right on the highest point of my body, where it could see everything. So it climbed over my shoulder and back. I kept holding it, trying to stop it from falling. The sales assistant said the kittens were six weeks old. According to the many cat books I’ve read, the best time for a kitten to be separated from its mother is twelve weeks, to allow time for kittens to be properly socialised and to develop immunity from certain diseases through their mother’s milk. So buying a kitten that is less than twelve weeks old could cause problems later on.
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Rottweilers for Sale

February 7th 2008 21:00
Photo by Pardo Y. 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.
My sister and I were walking around Chinatown when we came across a ute that was parked there with an entire Rottweiler family in the back. We hesitated before approaching the ute, remembering a childhood encounter with a Rottweiler who barked angrily at us. But these Rottweilers looked happy and not at all aggressive. Their owners seemed to sense our hesitation so they smiled at us. We took that as our cue to come over.

So there was Mum and Dad Rottweiler and two of their pups in the back of the ute. The adults’ heads were the size of steering wheels. My sister and I were amazed at their size. We asked the owners what the story was and they explained to us the puppies were for sale. The owners let us pat the dogs but unfortunately we had to turn down the chance to buy the pups. My flatmates would have killed me. And anyway, I didn’t have the space in the flat which I shared with three other people for a grown Rotty to run in. It would have been cruel to put a dog in such an environment.
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Dinner at my Neighbour’s Place with Higgins and Miggins

February 6th 2008 21:00
Higgins Moving Towards my Stuff
Higgins on the Table
Eating at my neighbour’s place is impossible without Higgins and Miggins joining in. They love human food, especially chicken. So if my neighbour is sitting down eating one of her chicken roasts, Higgins will hop onto the table, sniffing around before slowly moving his face towards my neighbour’s plate and trying to lick some sauce or grab a piece of chicken before being shooed away. Miggins will also join in.

Coming home to my neighbour’s to cat sit one night, I had a brown paper bag containing a chicken burger, fries and a can of soft drink. I had just sat down on the lounge and was making myself comfortable and turned around only to find Higgins sticking his head into the paper bag. I shooed him away and ate my burger while he watched with hungry eyes.
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Man Tries to Kick my Kitty Friend

February 5th 2008 21:00
I was walking to work and there was my kitty friend, hanging around the top of the stairs. I bent down to stroke him. He miaowed at me and together we sat on the stairs, me stroking him and him miaowing. Someone then walked past us, startling the kitty. So I started to go down the stairs when a man walking a dog went by. The cat stood there and watched the dog while the dog, distracted by the cat, refused to move and stared back at the kitty. The owner tried to shoo my friend away but he wouldn’t move so the man then tried to kick him down the stairs. I shouted something at him but he had already gone. Disgusted, I arrived at work feeling grumpy and, as usual, contemptuous of human beings. One phrase and one adjective kept going through my mind: If only they could speak and Voiceless. I couldn’t believe I had been outraged enough to shout at the man; I normally avoid any interaction with people like the plague. But I was angry – goddamnit! – at the man’s cruelty. I’d hate to think how he treats his dog.

When I was coming home, my kitty friend was again waiting at the top of the stairs. When he saw me, he miaowed a hello at me. I walked up to him and again, we sat down on the stairs. I got to stroke him all along his back. He stuck his bum up at me (which I’ve been told is kitty body language for joy) and then lay on his back and miaowed at me to stroke his belly.
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Butterscotch and Gingersnap Fall Over on the Street

February 4th 2008 21:00
Tonk
Butterscotch the Tonk
One of my friends relayed this funny cat story to me. He told me he tried to get his Tonkinese cats, Butterscotch and Gingersnap (names changed at his request) to walk with a cat harness on. Now how hard is that? you might think. I certainly did. I know cats take some time to get used to being on a harness but apparently the two Tonks were fine until he tried to take them on a walk. That was when they started falling over on the street. Naturally, I took what he said literally. To my disappointment, when I asked him for more details, he said they actually collapsed - not fell - on the street, which doesn't sound as dramatic. The cats didn't like the harness so they were unwilling to co-operate. He tried again but with no success. In the end, he had to give up.

I told my friend that cats aren't like dogs; you can't put them on a harness and expect them to immediately adjust to it. It has to happen gradually. From the many cat books I've read, you have to leave the harness lying around at first so they get used to seeing it. Later you can put it on them and let them walk around with it lying loosely on their bodies. Then finally, once they are comfortable with that, you can attach the harness on them properly and walk them down the street like little dogs.
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My Cat Friend and I Hang Out at the Kerb

February 3rd 2008 21:00
Tabby Friend
My Tabby Friend
Now that I have gotten friendly with the brown tabby cat who hangs around the stairs near my place, I keep an eye out for it whenever I am passing by. Coming home from work one day, I was in luck. There it was lying on one of the steps. I went over and patted it and it miaowed at me. It kept miaowing as I stroked it and then it was startled by a passer-by and headed towards the kerb. The cat then lay down on the road, miaowing at me to keep stroking it. I’ve never come across a more vocal cat. It then rolled over on its side and showed me its belly. I wasn’t sure whether it wanted me to stroke its belly but soon it let out another miaow so I took that as my cue as being okay to do so. So I sat at the kerb and continued stroking it until I couldn’t take any more of the blazing hot sun.
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