Leon sends birthday greetings to Andrzej

March 26, 2015 • 1:00 pm

As I mentioned in this morning’s Hili dialogue (which you might have missed), my dear friend Andrzej, who constitutes half of Hili’s staff, turns 75 today—exactly one year older than Richard Dawkins (happy birthday, too, Richard!).  And Leon the Hiking Cat (via his staff Elzbieta) has deposited good wishes and a monologue on Andrzej’s Facebook page:

Leon: Is it your birthday today? There will be a cake, there will be good wishes.

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I hope there will be a cake! Happy birthday, Andrzej!

Andrzej hears His Master’s Voice:

A&H

43 thoughts on “Leon sends birthday greetings to Andrzej”

    1. They met once when Leon was still a kitten. Hili didn’t like the idea of another cat on her teritory and we had to rescue poor Leon. Hili was immediately dispatched for a walk all by herself. We never dared to repeat the experience.

      1. Sorry to hear…and I’m not exactly surprised.

        Baihu’s yet to meet another cat on any of our adventures, and I’m somewhat nervous about how that might go down.

        Every dog we’ve seen on the trail has ignored him, and he almost always ignores them though every now and again one (especially a large one) makes him obviously nervous. He’s met an horse and seemed basically unfazed.

        But I have no clue how he’d react to another cat.

        b&

      2. I find it embarrassing when a pet doesn’t like someone else’s pet. We are so used to behaving ourselves and being polite, that we forget our pets really don’t give a crap about politeness.

        1. Politeness? Hmmm…not sure. But they certainly do care an awful lot about protocol, which many consider an essential element of politeness.

          Human society functions in large part because we’re ready to feign familial friendliness even in situations where it would ostensibly be unwarranted. It lets us smooth over relatively minor conflicts in order to cooperate on more significant goals. And, of course, that tendency can be and often is abused.

          Non-human societies…don’t tend to have that degree of complexity to them and so there’s less point in pretending to please a pal when you really and truly don’t give a flying fuck.

          b&

          1. I dunno…if you’re in a wolf pack or a hyena clan, it’s pretty important to suck up to the alpha male or alpha female respectively.

          2. Yes — good catch. Primate clans, too, especially our closer relatives.

            I don’t know how common it is for other species to offer the presumption of hospitality to strangers. Can’t think of any examples offhand — and that’s a big component of the type of politeness I think Diana is referring to.

            b&

          3. Not sure about hospitality. But bonobos have found a far more enjoyable way to resolve conflicts than the other species of chimpanzees, for instance. 😉

            I take your point…but I think some animals are pretty far along on the social-niceties road.

            And we probably all do it for the same reason; defusing a situation immediately is generally less costly for social species than confrontation.

            And another way to look at it is, we’re polite within our own species, but not necessarily when we relate to other spp. In parallel, dogs have distinct behaviors they go through when they encounter other dogs, but not so much with other animals.

          4. Even within our own species, presumed politeness generally only applies to one’s tribe…we’ve just got flexible and expansive definitions of, “tribe.”

            Who here would be comfortable granting the full presumptions of civil society to somebody waving the ISIS black flag?

            b&

          7. Aww. So true.

            I’d been thinking that an alternate scenario (from Diana’s) of dog/people interactions would be that of humans averting their eyes when they pass the residents of Skid Row, while dogs treat them quite democratically.

          8. Quite true.

            The homeless are a conundrum for one-on-one interactions. You’ve gotta feel for them…but what can you do to end their plight? The most effective remedies are all going to come from the government (“we the people”), especially including job training, extended unemployment assistance, proper mental health care facilities, public works projects, universal education and childcare…you know? All those things that Republicans have slashed and burned in order to provide tax “relief” for the Koch Brothers.

            And it’s also hard to know who amongst the beggars are actually down on their luck. Even if their percentages are small, there’re enough people who figure that getting $5 or $10 with every few light signal changes can add up to a lot more money than they can make at an entry-level job and thereby make not-shabby incomes…well, again, I’m sure many if not most really are desperate, but something’s really fucked up when you can legitimately wonder if they’re there out of desperation or because it beats waiting tables and bagging groceries and hammering nails.

            So…I don’t make any more or less eye contact with anybody on the street based on their perceived circumstances. I don’t tend to make eye contact with people in business suits yammering on cell phones; neither do I make eye contact with unkempt people pushing derelict shopping carts yammering to themselves. If eyes cross in whatever setting, I’ll smile and nod. If somebody approaches me to beg for something, I’ll be wistfully apologetic about being unable to help.

            It can be disconcerting…but, then again, it’s also disconcerting that children are dying en masse of malaria in the tropics, ISIS is raping and pillaging in the cradle of civilization, and the local parish priest may well still be buggering the boys. I can’t solve all the world’s problems, so I try to not beat myself up even when personally confronted with them.

            b&

          9. Re your graf on government–Sing it, Brother! Are the true liberals ever going to resurface?

            And I share your attitudes toward the homeless. Another seemingly intractable tragedy (at this point, anyway) is that so many of them are mentally ill, having run out of places/programs to go to for help.

            It’s hard to know how to fight forces like the Koch brothers, international corporations, offshore banking, & all the rest. Ah, & then there’s climate change. Strange species, Homo sapiens.

          10. I’m reasonably confident that, if we don’t manage to off ourselves in the mean time, society will eventually swing back towards true liberalism and continue Pinker’s grand arc towards civilization.

            What I’m increasingly less sanguine about is the possibility that that will happen in this geographic location with a government contiguous with the current one…and that, in turn, raises the real specter that I might not live to see it. Those types of changes can take more than a lifetime to recover from, and can be brutal on those trying to live through them.

            b&

          13. That’s what I mean. People smooth stuff over and behave politely. Cats and dogs don’t care. If they don’t like another animal, they let that animal know.

          14. That can actually be rather refreshing at times…and also burdensome if circumstances bring two incompatible animals together under the same roof. Remember how long it took Hili and Cyrus to come to terms with each other?

            But it can also be advantageous. Imagine if your dog acted hostile towards somebody you didn’t know so well. Wouldn’t her suspicions raise your own?

            b&

          15. Yeah my dog is a pretty good judge of character. She especially knows which of my friends is more intimidated by her and will pester them for food or pats where she wouldn’t anyone else.

            I once had another dog who hated most dogs. While walking her in a park, she got off her lead to chase some other dogs on a leash and knocked a jogger on his ass. I was som embarrassed. Fortunately, the jogger was good about it and understood.

          17. I don’t think that always holds within a species, Diana. Social animals usually have specific behaviors regarding interrelations.

  6. Happy birthday Andrzej! Thanks so much for all the Hili dialogues – they’re a highlight of my day! 🙂

  7. Happy Birthday, Andrzej! You are very much admired and loved. And my congratulations to Malgorzata for choosing such a sweetheart!

  11. Happy Birthday, Andrzej!

    I said that in the other thread, too, but this time I’m spelling your name right! 😀

    1. The only way I’d ever manage to spell it right is with copy-and-paste.

      I won’t even pretend to be able to figure out how to pronounce it…

      …which is why I’d refer to him as Hili’s primary male slave.

      b&

        2. Thanks, Hili’s primary male slave Anzhey!

          …that actually helps a lot. Makes the whole language a bit less mysterious, in fact….

          b&

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