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How I Became An Ailurophile Without Really Trying (Ch. 1)
This may or may not turn out to be a book eventually. If it does, the subject line "How I Became An Ailurophile Without Really Trying" is currently the working title, with the following tentatively serving as Chapter One. My first interaction with a cat happened when I was five years old. We lived in a house on a corner facing the street we lived on while my Godmother, who had been my mother's best friend since before I was even born, lived in the first house on the other side of the street which intersected ours at this corner. She had grown up there, and my mother had grown up in the house across the street from ours. At some point, one of my Godmother's relatives passed away and my Godmother asked my mother to go with her to the deceased woman's house to do a little bit of cleaning up and retrieve some personal belongings from there. This they did during the afternoon one day, since I was going to kindergarten in the morning, and my mother brought me along and let me bring some toys to play with while they did what they needed to do in the house. When we got to the house, I was playing on the living room floor - I had several diecast metal cars with me and was I amusing myself by "driving" one of these around the entire living room. When I got to the doorway of one of the bedrooms, out stepped a brown and black adult cat who then stood there near the doorway, looking curiously at this miniature human who was encroaching on its territory. I regret that I must refer to this cat as "it" - I'd prefer not to, but I never discovered the cat's gender. We had a dog then. This was the first time I can remember seeing a cat other than on television. Color televisions hadn't been invented yet at the time (this was in 1963) so this was my first look at a cat "live and in living color", and when it ventured close enough to sniff my hand, I reached out and tried petting it the same way I'd learned to pet a dog after it sniffed you. The cat accepted the gesture. In retrospect, it had been alone in that house for some time after it's owner's death and was probably starving for attention, even from a child, and I wasn't being rough with the cat or anything. just being nice to it the same way I'd learned to be nice to dogs, by gently petting them. After a moment my mother saw what was going on and told me to leave the kitty alone. Taking my diecast car, I went back to the other side of the living room and my mom went back into the room where she and my Godmother were working. The cat followed me...and the next time my mom came out and saw me petting the cat again, I was made to go stand in the corner for disobeying her instructions to leave the animal alone. In 1963 one didn't argue when told to go stand in the corner - not if you knew what was good for you, anyway - and so five minutes later (I suppose) when my mom came out again to tell me I could leave the corner she exclaimed, "Son of a..." and called for Godmother to come out and look, because there I was standing in the corner - with the cat lying across my feet, purring contentedly. Now understanding that it was the cat who was interested in interacting with me and not the other way around, my mother actually apologized for making me stand in the corner - the first time I remember her ever apologizing for accusing me of something I didn't do, which didn't happen again until I was in my late teens. Then, still concerned that the cat might have a change of mood and scratch me, they put the kitty back in the bedroom from where it had first come and closed the door, and I never saw it again. I never found out what became of it after that, either, but I do hope it somehow found its way to a good home. I do remember asking if we could take the cat home, and my Godmother laughing as she replied, "I don't think the dog would like that very much, do you?" That made sense to me, and I did love our dog too...but the experience left me with what subsequently became a lifelong curiosity about cats. It wouldn't be until almost twenty years later that I would somewhat reluctantly accept one of the kittens born to a friend of mine's cat to become my first feline companion, in part as a result of having been denied that opportunity as a child - but you will have to wait for me to write the next chapter to read about that. John D. Kasupski Niagara Falls, NY |
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How I Became An Ailurophile Without Really Trying (Ch. 1)
On 3/17/2017 1:28 PM, John Kasupski wrote:
This may or may not turn out to be a book eventually. If it does, the subject line "How I Became An Ailurophile Without Really Trying" is currently the working title, with the following tentatively serving as Chapter One. My first interaction with a cat happened when I was five years old. We lived in a house on a corner facing the street we lived on while my Godmother, who had been my mother's best friend since before I was even born, lived in the first house on the other side of the street which intersected ours at this corner. She had grown up there, and my mother had grown up in the house across the street from ours. At some point, one of my Godmother's relatives passed away and my Godmother asked my mother to go with her to the deceased woman's house to do a little bit of cleaning up and retrieve some personal belongings from there. This they did during the afternoon one day, since I was going to kindergarten in the morning, and my mother brought me along and let me bring some toys to play with while they did what they needed to do in the house. When we got to the house, I was playing on the living room floor - I had several diecast metal cars with me and was I amusing myself by "driving" one of these around the entire living room. When I got to the doorway of one of the bedrooms, out stepped a brown and black adult cat who then stood there near the doorway, looking curiously at this miniature human who was encroaching on its territory. I regret that I must refer to this cat as "it" - I'd prefer not to, but I never discovered the cat's gender. We had a dog then. This was the first time I can remember seeing a cat other than on television. Color televisions hadn't been invented yet at the time (this was in 1963) so this was my first look at a cat "live and in living color", and when it ventured close enough to sniff my hand, I reached out and tried petting it the same way I'd learned to pet a dog after it sniffed you. The cat accepted the gesture. In retrospect, it had been alone in that house for some time after it's owner's death and was probably starving for attention, even from a child, and I wasn't being rough with the cat or anything. just being nice to it the same way I'd learned to be nice to dogs, by gently petting them. After a moment my mother saw what was going on and told me to leave the kitty alone. Taking my diecast car, I went back to the other side of the living room and my mom went back into the room where she and my Godmother were working. The cat followed me...and the next time my mom came out and saw me petting the cat again, I was made to go stand in the corner for disobeying her instructions to leave the animal alone. In 1963 one didn't argue when told to go stand in the corner - not if you knew what was good for you, anyway - and so five minutes later (I suppose) when my mom came out again to tell me I could leave the corner she exclaimed, "Son of a..." and called for Godmother to come out and look, because there I was standing in the corner - with the cat lying across my feet, purring contentedly. Now understanding that it was the cat who was interested in interacting with me and not the other way around, my mother actually apologized for making me stand in the corner - the first time I remember her ever apologizing for accusing me of something I didn't do, which didn't happen again until I was in my late teens. Then, still concerned that the cat might have a change of mood and scratch me, they put the kitty back in the bedroom from where it had first come and closed the door, and I never saw it again. I never found out what became of it after that, either, but I do hope it somehow found its way to a good home. I do remember asking if we could take the cat home, and my Godmother laughing as she replied, "I don't think the dog would like that very much, do you?" That made sense to me, and I did love our dog too...but the experience left me with what subsequently became a lifelong curiosity about cats. It wouldn't be until almost twenty years later that I would somewhat reluctantly accept one of the kittens born to a friend of mine's cat to become my first feline companion, in part as a result of having been denied that opportunity as a child - but you will have to wait for me to write the next chapter to read about that. John D. Kasupski Niagara Falls, NY Don't make us wait too long. Joy |
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How I Became An Ailurophile Without Really Trying (Ch. 1)
On 3/20/2017 2:19 AM, wrote:
On Sun, 19 Mar 2017 19:20:55 -0400, John Kasupski wrote: Of course color television was around in 1963. They were still pretty expensive and there was not a lot of color programming but the sets were available.. That's true...so if this does become a book, I will modify that statement to say that according to Wikipedia, as late as 1964 only 3.1% of TV households in the U.S. had a color set - and we were in the other 96.9%. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_...#United_States John D. Kasupski Niagara Falls, NY And I was right there with you... We got a color TV in 1968... just in time for Dad to be transferred to Thailand. It went into storage with everything but our bedroom furniture. We pretty much didn't watch television for two years. Sure, there was a black & white TV that came with the rental house. We pretty much didn't watch TV for almost two years. I, for one, wasn't interested in television with subtitles. LOL Jill |
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How I Became An Ailurophile Without Really Trying (Ch. 1)
jmcquown wrote:
We got a color TV in 1968... just in time for Dad to be transferred to Thailand. It went into storage with everything but our bedroom furniture. We pretty much didn't watch television for two years. Sure, there was a black & white TV that came with the rental house. We pretty much didn't watch TV for almost two years. I, for one, wasn't interested in television with subtitles. LOL Really? I can't even watch TV without subtitles, and I'm talking about English-language TV. I've always had some trouble making out speech, not enough to require medical intervention, but enough to sometimes make it hard for me to follow movies, for example. I'd miss key parts of some dialogue and then I wouldn't know what was going on. There was nothing wrong with my hearing, but my brain would sometimes choke when trying to interpret speech, frequently enough to make me a nuisance to anyone who was with me at the time. So watching foreign movies was kind of a relief, because I wasn't missing any dialogue. Now I'm actually losing some hearing. Nothing major, but I have lost a bit of the highest frequencies of sound. This just makes the other problem worse. So now, I have the closed captions on all the time. This helps me hear the dialogue better because I see the caption before the person speaks, so I already know what they're going to say. Only time that sucks is when watching comedy - it totally ruins the whole comic-timing thing. Joyce -- No one should try to hit another's bumper. But bumper bumpage is a part of life. Yawn and get on with it. -- Gene Weingarten |
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How I Became An Ailurophile Without Really Trying (Ch. 1)
On 3/20/2017 8:42 PM, Bastette wrote:
jmcquown wrote: We got a color TV in 1968... just in time for Dad to be transferred to Thailand. It went into storage with everything but our bedroom furniture. We pretty much didn't watch television for two years. Sure, there was a black & white TV that came with the rental house. We pretty much didn't watch TV for almost two years. I, for one, wasn't interested in television with subtitles. LOL Really? I can't even watch TV without subtitles, and I'm talking about English-language TV. I've always had some trouble making out speech, not enough to require medical intervention, but enough to sometimes make it hard for me to follow movies, for example. I'd miss key parts of some dialogue and then I wouldn't know what was going on. There was nothing wrong with my hearing, but my brain would sometimes choke when trying to interpret speech, frequently enough to make me a nuisance to anyone who was with me at the time. So watching foreign movies was kind of a relief, because I wasn't missing any dialogue. Now I'm actually losing some hearing. Nothing major, but I have lost a bit of the highest frequencies of sound. This just makes the other problem worse. So now, I have the closed captions on all the time. This helps me hear the dialogue better because I see the caption before the person speaks, so I already know what they're going to say. Only time that sucks is when watching comedy - it totally ruins the whole comic-timing thing. Joyce I'm glad the closed-caption option is there! I can see where it might throw off the timing on comedies. I was nine/ten years old at the time and didn't have the patience for the subtitles. Besides, it wasn't "American" television so I didn't know any of the shows... except for 'Dark Shadows'. I remember watching a few episodes because it was familiar. But at that age it was more fun to play outside. Jill |
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How I Became An Ailurophile Without Really Trying (Ch. 1)
jmcquown wrote:
On 3/20/2017 8:42 PM, Bastette wrote: Now I'm actually losing some hearing. Nothing major, but I have lost a bit of the highest frequencies of sound. This just makes the other problem worse. So now, I have the closed captions on all the time. This helps me hear the dialogue better because I see the caption before the person speaks, so I already know what they're going to say. Only time that sucks is when watching comedy - it totally ruins the whole comic-timing thing. I'm glad the closed-caption option is there! Yeah, no kidding! It seems to be the standard now, and even old tv shows have been "retrofitted" with captions. But once in a while I'll rent a DVD that doesn't have them. It's a bummer especially if I was planning to watch it while exercising. I have a treadmill (noisy) and a fan (noisy), and my own hearing issues - so there's no way I can watch a show without captions if I'm exercising. I was nine/ten years old at the time and didn't have the patience for the subtitles. Besides, it wasn't "American" television so I didn't know any of the shows... except for 'Dark Shadows'. I remember watching a few episodes because it was familiar. But at that age it was more fun to play outside. I understand that! That was true for me, too. I usually watched TV in the evening after supper. Joyce -- I want freedom, the right to self expression, everyone's right to beautiful radiant things. -- Emma Goldman |
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How I Became An Ailurophile Without Really Trying (Ch. 1)
On 3/22/2017 3:55 PM, Bastette wrote:
jmcquown wrote: I'm glad the closed-caption option is there! Yeah, no kidding! It seems to be the standard now, and even old tv shows have been "retrofitted" with captions. But once in a while I'll rent a DVD that doesn't have them. It's a bummer especially if I was planning to watch it while exercising. I have a treadmill (noisy) and a fan (noisy), and my own hearing issues - so there's no way I can watch a show without captions if I'm exercising. I was nine/ten years old at the time and didn't have the patience for the subtitles. Besides, it wasn't "American" television so I didn't know any of the shows... except for 'Dark Shadows'. I remember watching a few episodes because it was familiar. But at that age it was more fun to play outside. I understand that! That was true for me, too. I usually watched TV in the evening after supper. Joyce It's a good thing about the closed captioning. Yes, it's standard. I even had a couple of older TV's with that capability. You just have to know how to turn it on. Growing up, my brothers and I watched TV after school, before dinner. Then homework. Finished homework and went outside to play until the street lights came on. As a military brat I lived in a lot of places. But no matter where, there were always mothers calling for their kids to come inside at dusk. We (kids) didn't watch TV at night until we got much older. Of course, there was no cable then, either. Only three channels and the parents decided what to watch. On the ONE television in the house. LOL Different times... Jill |
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How I Became An Ailurophile Without Really Trying (Ch. 1)
Bastette wrote:
Really? I can't even watch TV without subtitles, and I'm talking about English-language TV. I've always had some trouble making out speech, not enough to require medical intervention, but enough to sometimes make it hard for me to follow movies, for example. I'd miss key parts of some dialogue and then I wouldn't know what was going on. There was nothing wrong with my hearing, but my brain would sometimes choke when trying to interpret speech, frequently enough to make me a nuisance to anyone who was with me at the time. So watching foreign movies was kind of a relief, because I wasn't missing any dialogue. Now I'm actually losing some hearing. Nothing major, but I have lost a bit of the highest frequencies of sound. This just makes the other problem worse. So now, I have the closed captions on all the time. This helps me hear the dialogue better because I see the caption before the person speaks, so I already know what they're going to say. Only time that sucks is when watching comedy - it totally ruins the whole comic-timing thing. Consider getting headphones. Hooking up to a pc is no problem, however, a tv will depend on your setup. Would probably need an extension cable also depending on where you are watching from. Be aware the cord will likely be cat bait |
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How I Became An Ailurophile Without Really Trying (Ch. 1)
On Wed, 29 Mar 2017 21:33:45 -0600, Tigger wrote:
Bastette wrote: Consider getting headphones. Hooking up to a pc is no problem, however, a tv will depend on your setup. Would probably need an extension cable also depending on where you are watching from. Be aware the cord will likely be cat bait An inexpensive set of wireless headphones allow listening to a TV or stereo without presenting any cord that might be mistakenly thought to be a cat toy. John D. Kasupski Niagara Falls, NY |
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