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Friday, November 4, 2011

What type of person would do that?

Kinderdijk
Over the last couple of days I spent a lot of time downloading and installing OSX Lion which is the new operating system for the iMac and Mac Air and - when you also upgrade your iPhone and iPad to their new operating system - you can use iCloud which stores all your stuff in one place and every time you change anything on anything it gets changed everywhere by something. How cool is that.

It is supposed to be simple and for a normal person using their native language it would be, but as the only store I can use is the Austrian one it always turns out to be one of those goat things and it took me almost two days to get everything working because nothing is ever as it seems and it would almost be worthwhile me paying Mr. esbboston to come over here because I am sure he could do it in a jiffy if I made him one of my special toasted chicken sandwiches with my special Australian bush spices.

In the process I finally realised that I would have to do something about my photo library which is growing like topsy and has many problems – not the least of which is that when I upgraded from iPhoto to Aperture I did not do it effectively and for some time was running two photo libraries concurrently.

This is a problem that will only get worse – we took more than 1,000 photos on our last trip – mainly of windmills – so I have to get rid of the iPhoto library.

At various times I have added photos to both libraries so the only way to make sure that I do not lose any photos is to merge the two libraries and then delete the iPhoto library – after backing it up to an external hard drive – and I can tell you that at the thought of all this taking place the goats are having a barn dance.

So this has occupied me for days because I have about 35,000 photos in each library and first I had to merge them and then I have to run a software program to identify the duplicates and then I have to delete them manually. Yes manually. This will take a month. 

In the meantime Sissi is going through a sleepless stage and is leaping and bounding about the bedroom and house at various times throughout the night.

Muffin – before she departed – did not teach her much – but she did teach her to leap – in the dead of the night – from the ledge behind the bed – onto on our almost lifeless forms – so as to wake us with a with a startled shriek. Us not her. 

And Monika – who rarely does anything at all – has started dragging around the apartment a piece of cord that came from a cosmetics bag that Cate had – and which the cats now use for a toy. Their only toy. 

Of all the things which we have bought them – this is the only one they treasure. We have wasted money on any manner of things – balls, furry mice, scratching poles, lined baskets, rugs, trinkets, knick knacks –whatever. The only thing in which they have evinced a sliver of interest is this scruffy piece of cord – approximately one metre long. They play with it constantly.

So each morning at about 4:00 AM Monika drags this into the bedroom squeaking like a demented bat. She does not meow – she squeaks. For some reason she has never learned to meow.

What can we do. It is her only toy. A piece of frayed cord. What type of person would take a piece of frayed cord from a cat that cannot meow. Her only toy. 

14 comments:

  1. I have to get a few things done this morning (bills), and then I can be on a plane, submarine, row boat, or train. I only have one Apple product, an iPad, tethered to a PC, so my upgrade eXperience is simpler than yours, no OSX Kittens and Cats involved. Also in English. ....now, back to paragraph two of your blog note, oh, I did learn a little more about Vienna since I last sent a comment, I read about those gas tanks turned into buildings, I believe it was in the 11th district....checking....yes, in Simmering, the Gasometer.

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  2. Through out my life, mainly my childhood, I have heard and used the term "fraid-y cat", from the words 'afraid' plus 'cat', something we would call each other in jest and derision, but now you have redefined it as frayed-y cat, a whole other perspective, a cat at play.

    I will check to see if your picasa albums work yet again for me as well, can't wait to see some more of your Netherdirt, Netherwater and other Netherthings.

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  3. Sadly, your photos from your picasa link are no el worko. Hmmm, makes me think the hyper link is on the blink, for it just gives a quick wink, then error HTML 404 stink. Perhaps we'll have to resort to paper with ink?

    Today's Captcha: artas - A Really Troubling Art Situation

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  4. I finally had some success by googling your name plus the word picasa, then Google was able to take me to your publically accessible photo albums, so it doesn't appear to be a Picasa access problem per se.

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  5. you gotta let her have her cord but put a lock on the door.

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  6. I'll pray that you remember which shopping bag that frayed cord came with! ;-)
    My friend here has a small black cat, Zoey. She is very young, but also very well behaved. Sleeps all night in her master's bed, no jumping around. Maybe you could rent her, to teach your cats?

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  7. P.S.: The master really is a mistress (not that Zoey cares).

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  8. esbboston: You will be able to give guided tours when you get here. Yes Gasometer City is fascinating. When Picasa is working again I will post some pics. They did indeed turn old gasometers into apartments and quite fancy ones I believe. Hmm...Picasa seems to be back - but - I suspect only temporarily.

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  9. Glen: Well we have tried locking them out but Sissi is like a furry wrecking ball if we leave her outside - so we are thinking about options.

    Merisi: Sissi knows what she is supposed to do - it is just that she is BAD.

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  10. oh that poor cat (Monika). Me and my husband were laughing so hard on that one. we think your cat may need speech therapy.

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  11. I wonder what tour guide pay is like in Wien ( ? )

    I found the official site in English for the Gasometers, lotza pictures.

    Today's Captcha: bootion - quite obviously a Halloween potion to get people to sound scary. It also works as a medicative lotion on your boo-boo's (that is infant slang for non-life threatening injuries)

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  12. heh! my cat has done something similar - she has mice & toys, but previously would prefer to play w/ hair ties. now she has moved on from the hair ties & her favorite toy is a long piece of ribbon that came from i don't even know what. she drags it around the house & plays fetch w/ it & it's like her blankie!

    also - WOW that's a lot of photos! awesome!!

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  13. li'l Muppet-lhead: She certainly has a problem. We are going to show her some DVDs of cats meowing so she can see what she is supposed to do.

    esbboston: I suspect not much. And they would not do your favourite sandwiches here.

    carmar76: Sissi likes rubber bands and hairbands. And the photos - on the way through I am really trying to get rid of some of them. I am one of those people who will take 10 shots of a tree for no particular reason.

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  14. ha! i do the same thing, but then i delete 8 of them once i've uploaded & can see them side by side. usually. : )

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