Is This a RFOAC?

Is This a RFOAC?

Could this sculpture in a local park be a RFOAC (reasonable facsimile of a cat)?

Well, just in case it isn’t, here’s a real one:

The Friday Ark. The Carnival of the Cats.

The Lady in Red in Hunting Mode

The Lady in Red in Hunting Mode

On a recent visit, I played Hunt the Mousie with Lady and took some pictures. Here’s Lady hunting the mousie:

Gotcha!

Innocent here. Doesn’t she look like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth? “Oh, no, I was just hugging the mousie. I wasn’t going to rip it to pieces with my teeth—well, the ones I have left, anyway. Really!”

The Friday Ark. The Carnival of the Cats.

Photos from Around Town

Photos from Around Town

A clock from the Elite candy company, showing various product names, some of which are no longer available:

A rose blossom:

Seen on a bus recently. I have no idea what is being advertised here.

Remember mood rings? Now we have kabbalistic mood pendants!

Blissed Out

Blissed Out

As I was on my way to work one morning this week, I met Her Ladyship in the garden. She came over to say hello and asked to be petted. A few seconds later, she flopped onto her side with an audible “whoof” and put her head in my hand. Much skritching and purring ensued, with the following result:

Gorgeous, isn’t she? (For those who may be new to this blog, Her Ladyship is not my cat. She lives nearby.)

The Friday Ark. The Carnival of the Cats.

Let’s Do Lunch

Let’s Do Lunch

The Calico Pirate Kitty has lunch with a gray tabby:

The Friday Ark. The Carnival of the Cats.

Some Local Cats

Some Local Cats

The black bus-stop cat in shadow:

A kitten hiding in some brush:

Two cats having a quarrel:

In the end, they worked it out:

It’s almost Shavuot—hag sameah!

The Friday Ark. The Carnival of the Cats.

How I Spent Jerusalem Day

How I Spent Jerusalem Day

First I got a haircut from my hairdresser, Eric of Alaska, who gives me the best haircuts I’ve ever had. After having waited nearly all of the Omer period (the time between Passover and Shavuot when Jews do not cut their hair, at least until Lag ba-Omer), it felt great!

But I slowly realized that I wasn’t feeling that great. Once I got to work, I found I couldn’t concentrate, and the words on the screen were all running together. Oh, terrific, I thought. Fever.

It was, and how. I took my temperature the moment I got home and found that it was 101 degrees Fahrenheit. When I took it again a few hours ago, it was 101.8. (Great. I feel like a walking FM dial. Do I hear 102? Not!)

So that put paid to any ideas of attending Jerusalem Day festivities. The only things I did in honor of Jerusalem Day were to congratulate my friend, who is receiving the Distinguished Citizen of Jerusalem award as I write this, and go to bed.

I got up a few hours later, feeling a little better, to prepare some dinner. Then, about an hour before sunset, some loud music started outside my window. It was a mix of Ashkenazi and Mizrahi religious music, with an MC shouting into a crackly microphone. I looked outside the window and saw a truck topped with a neon-light crown in the middle of the street below. I’ve seen that truck, or others like it, before. They are used for a celebration known as hakhnsat sefer Torah—the installation and inauguration of a new Torah scroll.

That was all very nice, but still I couldn’t help feeling upset by the loudness of the music. This community wanted to celebrate their new Torah scroll—fine! Great! Mazal tov! But did they have to make the music so loud so that even with the windows closed, it sounded like it was coming from my own living room? And I felt so awful, too.

But then I had a different thought. Yes, the music was far too loud. Yes, if it had been up to me, I would have hired real, live musicians to perform acoustically, so that the music in the street would have been a pleasant invitation, not a club striking repeatedly on the head. Nevertheless... it was Jerusalem Day, and finally I stopped my internal grumbling long enough to be grateful that we can hold a celebration for a new Torah scroll here.

Yom Yerushalayim sameah!

(P.S. There are lots of posts I’d love to link to, but I’m just too tired to do it now. So I’ll say this: head over to Treppenwitz and Imshin, and just scroll down and read. Imshin has a lovely bonus, too: lots of YouTube videos of classic Israeli songs, including some of my favorites.)