On 3/11/2017 4:44 AM, John Kasupski wrote:
On Mon, 6 Mar 2017 10:46:39 -0800, Joy wrote:

I haven't seen a post since March 3. Has everybody deserted this newsgroup?

I'm still here. I just haven't had much to say, I guess...plus I've been doing
other things, and of course as soon as I come over to the computer and set my
coffee cup down on the table, Minnie goes into "Play with me" mode, because it
makes me a stationary target for her attention. I'm lucky to get halfway through
my list of subscribed newsgroups before there's a cat standing directly between
the monitor screen and my face with a rawhide shoelace in her mouth, and often
with her paws on my hands, making it quite difficult to use the keyboard. She
will also start pushing things toward the edge of the table - with the obvious
message being that she's going to start stealing things unless I pay attention
to her. She never gets up here and knocks things off the table when I'm not
sitting here and she's got her tail wagging like a dog the whole time, so it's
entirely an attention-getting ploy, and very effective. When she runs out of
things to knock off the table she will go behind my radios and actually pretend
to be chewing on the power cords and antenna feedlines. She never messes with
that stuff when I'm not around either, but she starts deliberately doing naughty
things like that because she knows I won't call her bluff and let her go on when
she's threatening to separate a $1500 (when it was new) HF rig from its antenna
some 75 feet away in my back yard. The feedline's too expensive to have to keep
replacing in case she ever follows through on her threat.

Of course, by the time she resorts to that, she's already pushed several of my
pens onto the floor - along with my Bic lighter, and the spare AA batteries for
my camera, and anything else that's shiny - then yanked a sheet of facial tissue
out of the box and dropped that onto the floor as well. As soon as that sheet of
tissue goes overboard, we both know her next target will be the radios, and she
will actually stop and turn around to look at me while standing on top of one of
my HF rigs, as if to say, "Last chance, human - play with me now or the Kenwoods
will suffer the consequences!"

John D. Kasupski
Niagara Falls, NY


They do a good job of training us, don't they? When Koala wants me to
play with him, he usually waits until I'm walking from one room to
another. Then he gets in front of me and slows down or stops so I
nearly fall over him. Once he knows he has my attention, he will
usually lead me to the toy he wants to be used. Pickles is usually
above that sort of thing, although she will occasionally go for the
feather-on-a stick, if I'm playing with Koala, that is.