Thursday: Hili dialogue (and squirrel lagniappe)

January 7, 2016 • 5:30 am

It’s cold here, but colder in Poland, where the Vistula is freezing over near Dobrzyn. Hili can’t tolerate being out in the cold very long, even when she’s allowed to go out, which is rare. There are, I hear, constant battles between Malgorzata and Hili for the cat’s “right” to go out, and when the cat wins she’s back again within an hour. You can see her frustration in both her words and her eyes:

Hili: Not only hard frost but snow as well.
A: It’s winter.
Hili: Winter is not cat-friendly.

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In Polish:
Hili: Nie tylko mróz, ale i śnieg.
Ja: To jest zima.
Hili: Zima nie jest przyjazna dla kotów.
And in Montreal, reader Ann-Marie Cournoyer found a secular squirrel:
Oh no! I lost it!
It’s a fact: I lost my faith!
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13 thoughts on “Thursday: Hili dialogue (and squirrel lagniappe)”

  1. The cold is infectious, it here in Sweden as well. :-/

    – 20 degC where I am, though the prognosis warns it can go down to -26 degC. Sound familiar?

    Color lagniappe:

    I’m not sure squirrels can lose anything, they are great collectors. Though maybe they can have problems getting pigmentation, here is a new theory for piebald cats (and other animals):

    “How the Cat Got Its Coat (and Other Furry Tails)

    …

    It has long been thought that pigment cells migrate directly from the back to the front and that the lack of pigmentation at the front is due to pigment cells not moving fast enough.

    However, our findings, published in Nature Communications, paint a different picture. We found that, if anything, cells in piebald animals migrate faster than in normal animals, but that they don’t divide as often. This means that there simply aren’t enough cells to pigment all the areas of the developing embryo.”

    [ http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-the-cat-got-its-coat-and-other-furry-tails/ ]

      1. PS It was so hot in London last night I was able to fall asleep with windows open & cover off… 8c now but December was so mild we need some cold!

        1. You are welcome!

          Yes, before New Year we remarked that the winter was so short, it was dark but mild. The cold hit recently first a 10 degC drop to around – 5.

          Then this happened this morning – my first day to work after convalescence + vacation + holidays. I got back in track fast!

  2. Hili could use a cat door. When I was a kid, my father built a little cat-sized hole through the kitchen door to the entry way where a narrow board walkway was installed across the basement ceiling to the basement window. The basement window had a swinging flap door so the cats could get in and out by themselves.

    2. These days they can be programmed to allow entry for cats with a microchip, excluding other cats so they do not bully your cat out of its food.

      1. It’s handy to have a dog as well to keep the riff-raff out. Probably much more expensive than a chip though.

    3. Our cat door is from the garage (Bumper’s hang out) to the outdoors. We lock him in at night, which he does not like and he goes out during the day. Currently he is at the vets because he got into a fight with another cat, I think.

  3. Cold (but not that cold!) and very wet here in Arizona. Baihu’s been very playful this morning, chasing imaginary sprites, eviscerating socks, and running around the house making “vroom vroom” sounds as Misa and I had breakfast. And just now he’s back on my shoulders….

    b&

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