How Long, Oh, God, Till the Thanksgiving Break?
What we need over at my place of employment is a fall semester break. The months drag by in between the end of August, when classes start, and American Thanksgiving -- we get a week off then, which is wonderful (and those of us who live at Bear's Retreat are staying home this year! yay! Messing around in the house and not catching planes!) -- but then we go back into classes for maybe a week and a half at the most, before finals. So the semester is, at that point, essentially over. Hard to get students to pay attention. Hell. Hard to get ME to pay attention.
So we're all slogging through right now. The child has measures of excitement doled out; he's got half days once a month, and he's got non-uniform days every now and then for no good reason, and he's got some damn thing called "Pioneer Week" coming up, which involves reading Laura Ingalls Wilder (he's already read the entire series and the later additions, so this is for him not actually an educational opportunity; much better if they'd made him read My Antonia) and coming to school dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt. This will be the only time, ever in the years he spends at St. Elizabeth's, that he is allowed to wear jeans. They are normally verboten even on non-uniform days.
Still, there is the buying a cat business. (Thanks, by the way, oh myriad commentors, for refraining from pointing out that kittens can be found much more cheaply down at the humane society and that nobody in his or her right mind would shell out good money for one, especially if such a person had just bought Bear's Retreat; our friends are taking care of that line of discourse very nicely, so it's covered.) After much research via Google, and sitting around the family computer looking at cat pictures and reading descriptions of breeds, we have decided that what we want is an applehead, or traditional, Balinese or Siamese cat. Maybe a Burmese, but probably not, cause we want to drive and pick the little darling up, and there seem to be no catteries with Burmese kittens anywhere around Pittsburgh, at least with kittens available.
Anyway, it's Sam who adores the Burmese; the child and I are enamored of the Bombay, more rare sidekick of the Burmese. We're all united on the Balinese and Siamese front, however.
But the fact that we want the traditional version of the breed makes it harder to find.
Now I will explain, for those of you who understand not the difference between the Traditional and the Modern Siamese.
But don't think I knew this stuff before two nights ago, cause I didn't. I'm passing on newly acquired knowledge.
Here's a link to a picture of the modern, wedge-headed Siamese. Think the cats in Lady and the Tramp.
Here's a link to a picture of the traditional, apple-headed Siamese. Think That Darn Cat.
Well, we like the old ones. But they are now rare, on account of some of the breeders got the wedge heads declared standard some decades ago, and now the traditional are hard to find. And if you want a show cat, you have to get the modern style.
But the appleheads are cuter! I'm sorry, but they are! Get real! (Fanciers of the wedge heads may now leave vitriolic comments.)
One of the things I enjoy is the level of commitment and fervor on Applehead Siamese sites around the country. They are DEDICATED to bringing back the traditional Siamese!
Yeah! Us, too!
Our goal is to keep this exquisite and highly intelligent breed alive, and to share them with other Traditional Siamese cat lovers, one site says.
And pretty much the Balinese breeders say the same sort of thing: Our goal in raising the Traditional Balinese is to keep this noble and highly intelligent breed alive and to share them with other Traditional Balinese lovers. (Luckily for all concerned it's not my job to track down the plagiarist here. My skills are needed elsewhere at the moment. Though, now that I come to think of it, maybe there's some Applehead Alliance League, and this statement is part of the official literature. Yeah. That must be it.)
I'm chuffed, here, by the opportunity to turn a clearly bourgeois dilettante activity (let's drive to Gibsonia and buy an expensive pure bred cat) into a political action (save the traditional cats from the wedgeheaded oppressors).
Heh heh.
And besides. The cats we desire show up in a Tibetan manuscript dating from 1350. Like that doesn't matter to the medievalists and paleographers.
So we're all slogging through right now. The child has measures of excitement doled out; he's got half days once a month, and he's got non-uniform days every now and then for no good reason, and he's got some damn thing called "Pioneer Week" coming up, which involves reading Laura Ingalls Wilder (he's already read the entire series and the later additions, so this is for him not actually an educational opportunity; much better if they'd made him read My Antonia) and coming to school dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt. This will be the only time, ever in the years he spends at St. Elizabeth's, that he is allowed to wear jeans. They are normally verboten even on non-uniform days.
Still, there is the buying a cat business. (Thanks, by the way, oh myriad commentors, for refraining from pointing out that kittens can be found much more cheaply down at the humane society and that nobody in his or her right mind would shell out good money for one, especially if such a person had just bought Bear's Retreat; our friends are taking care of that line of discourse very nicely, so it's covered.) After much research via Google, and sitting around the family computer looking at cat pictures and reading descriptions of breeds, we have decided that what we want is an applehead, or traditional, Balinese or Siamese cat. Maybe a Burmese, but probably not, cause we want to drive and pick the little darling up, and there seem to be no catteries with Burmese kittens anywhere around Pittsburgh, at least with kittens available.
Anyway, it's Sam who adores the Burmese; the child and I are enamored of the Bombay, more rare sidekick of the Burmese. We're all united on the Balinese and Siamese front, however.
But the fact that we want the traditional version of the breed makes it harder to find.
Now I will explain, for those of you who understand not the difference between the Traditional and the Modern Siamese.
But don't think I knew this stuff before two nights ago, cause I didn't. I'm passing on newly acquired knowledge.
Here's a link to a picture of the modern, wedge-headed Siamese. Think the cats in Lady and the Tramp.
Here's a link to a picture of the traditional, apple-headed Siamese. Think That Darn Cat.
Well, we like the old ones. But they are now rare, on account of some of the breeders got the wedge heads declared standard some decades ago, and now the traditional are hard to find. And if you want a show cat, you have to get the modern style.
But the appleheads are cuter! I'm sorry, but they are! Get real! (Fanciers of the wedge heads may now leave vitriolic comments.)
One of the things I enjoy is the level of commitment and fervor on Applehead Siamese sites around the country. They are DEDICATED to bringing back the traditional Siamese!
Yeah! Us, too!
Our goal is to keep this exquisite and highly intelligent breed alive, and to share them with other Traditional Siamese cat lovers, one site says.
And pretty much the Balinese breeders say the same sort of thing: Our goal in raising the Traditional Balinese is to keep this noble and highly intelligent breed alive and to share them with other Traditional Balinese lovers. (Luckily for all concerned it's not my job to track down the plagiarist here. My skills are needed elsewhere at the moment. Though, now that I come to think of it, maybe there's some Applehead Alliance League, and this statement is part of the official literature. Yeah. That must be it.)
I'm chuffed, here, by the opportunity to turn a clearly bourgeois dilettante activity (let's drive to Gibsonia and buy an expensive pure bred cat) into a political action (save the traditional cats from the wedgeheaded oppressors).
Heh heh.
And besides. The cats we desire show up in a Tibetan manuscript dating from 1350. Like that doesn't matter to the medievalists and paleographers.
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