Ozzy and the boys are re-forming Black Sabbath, putting out their first new album for 33 years AND going on a world tour next year.
I hope they stop off here in Kiwi land.
Norman the Newbie-ish Cat spent much of the winter perfecting her hunting techniques, honing her skills on wetas, snails, moths, leaves and socks.
She has found, through a process of trial and error, that leaving dead wetas in the shoes isn’t always appreciated by the owner of said shoes.
And that if you make excited chirpy noises while hiding in the back of the couch with your collection of 17 stolen socks, you are very likely to be caught.
And that if you insist of licking a snail it will disappear inside its shell. And, still on the snails, if you insist on flicking them around the kitchen floor they will invariably end up getting stuck under the dishwasher, which means a human/staff member will be required to retrieve the snail.
She also has daily wrestling/stalking sessions with her toy mouse, throwing it in the air and pouncing on it before it hits the ground, pulling up the edge of the mat and shoving it under there so she can act all surprised when spotting it and leaping on it later and doing powerslides in the en suite bathroom as she chases her now-bedraggled little green mouse.
We always know when it’s Norman playing because her mouse still has the bell on its tail. Well, it still has a tail, in fact. Seymour has removed the tail from each and every one of his toys. It’s the first thing our ginger ninja does when he gets a new toy: I can see his point of view … he doesn’t have a tail, and until the arrival of Norman, no one else in the house had one, either.
So very early the other morning, when I heard the sound of the cat leaping around with a bell-less toy, I assumed it was Seymour with his toy mouse.
That was until I got out of bed. There was a trail of feathers around the bed that continued into my walk-in wardrobe. Nervously, I inspected the wardrobe and was relieved to see no sign of a dead bird. I then followed the trail of feathers out of the bedroom door, down the hallway and into the lounge.
Yes indeed, there had been a dead bird. My son told me he had just found it and had disposed of the body (it was a starling, so not a native).
At this point we were thinking it was Seymour that had done the deed but weren’t entirely sure. That was until Norman suddenly bounced into the room, with an array of feathers stuck to her face.
So, our Norm has caught her first birdie. Let’s hope she doesn’t catch too many more.
I suppose it should have come as no surprise: she has put in plenty of hours watching bird videos on YouTube.
PS: She did look incredibly proud of herself for doing starling population control. I’m sure she was smiling.
Instructions for cleaning the toilet:
With best wishes,
The Dog
I suppose it makes you appreciate our heath-care system when you read stories like this: some poor bugger in the United States has scrotal elephantiasis, which means his crackers are ginormous.
Yes folks, he has a 45kg scrotum.
Anyway, he needs an operation to fix the problem but has no medical insurance so is trying to raise the funds himself: $1.25 million.
Our health-care system might not be perfect but I’d like to believe that if someone here had the same problem they’d not have to raise the money to pay for the surgery themselves.
Tangled Web blog Book Chooks blog
