Thursday, November 27, 2008

Thanksgiving Day Standoff

We have apparently adopted a stray kitten which showed up on our doorstep the other day. It arrived with some company which I accused of bringing the kitten; which also they adamantly deny. Getting our dog and kitten to cohabitate peacefully is our chief concern right now. The dog is impressively obedient as evidenced by the fact the cat is still alive. But for the most part we have to keep them separated.

The 2lb kitten shows no fear of the 90lb., African Lion Hound. Yesterday, due to the kids inattention to keeping doors shut, the two critters had their first face to face encounter on the ground. The kitten sat in the doorway like a Spartan holding Thermopolyae. She just sat there and stared at him as he edged closer and closer but never got near enough for her to swipe his nose with her claws... again. They both stood there, frozen, for nearly five minutes. It reminded me of this image:


I guess the analogy would be closer if the man was holding an RPG instead of a bag of groceries (Seriously- that's a 36 ton tank and he's got... groceries???) But kitty (possible name is 'Claire de lune', French for moonlight. The kids named her: not me.) stood firm and I finally ended the standoff because I didn't want to clean up fur and blood and have to console crying little girls that evening.

9 comments:

Percussivity said...

Been there times two. It takes a while but it is worth the effort when you no longer need fear walking into the house after church one day to find blood streaked walls and a strangely happy dog.

The Unabashed Blogger said...

I wonder if Red would ever leave well enough alone? If he can chase down rabbits and squirrels, I am not sure a kitten would have much of a life expectancy. We would need a full grown bobcat to break him in. I'd go with something bigger, but I don't want him to be eaten.

SQLFunkateer said...

That tank is a Chinese variant of the T-54, which would be susceptible to Molotov cocktail attack as seen in the various uprisings in Eastern Europe in the Cold War.

So if the man's groceries included glass bottles of high-proof alcohol such as 100 proof vodka or 190 proof grain alcohol, as well as simple rags and matches, theoretically that bag of groceries could be an effective weapon against the tank.

Word Verification of the Day: calock

Unknown said...

I don't know Unabashed. Max goes crazy when he sees a cat or any animal passing by and has killed a few animals including a possum. Yet he knows that he's not supposed to eat the cat because we have brought her into our home. Red would probably do fine after slowly introducing him and giving it some time.

Percussivity said...

Don't be so sure... unless you saw blood and bone fragments it is more likely that Tarl killed the opposum by sticking it inside a black trash bag. My dogs were playing catch with an oppossum last night and I decided to leave it in the yard over night to see if it was just playing dead, and it was gone in the morning.

Brandon Briscoe said...

Irascible,

If the bag was a molotov cocktail the only one who would have remembered this moment would have been the guy in the tank - if he would have lived.

In the end, the groceries and the standing proved to probably be the most effective.

Peace:)

The Angry Coder said...

We left the dead possum out overnight as well. When I came back to it in the morning, it was still dead. And also pretty well inflated. A dead possum filled with molotov cocktail is a highly effective weapon against tanks ;)

Percussivity said...

I note that in spite of my subtle correction you still insist on calling it a possum which is extremely unlikely as possums do live in North America unless within an Australian exhibit at some zoo. An opossum is what you found a bloated carcass of but true enough with or without the O it would make a very dangerous molotov cocktail if prepared correctly.

SQLFunkateer said...

If they had sunflowers in China, he could have reproduced a scaled up version of the 1960s putting-flowers-in-rifle-barrels photos. I suppose they probably have other flowers in China big enough to stick down a 100mm tank gun.

I suppose if he used a bloated dead opossum carcass against the tank, he would be reproducing the biological warfare strategies of the Mongols, but I'd wager this would particularly annoy the Chinese, since they don't have much love for their northern neighbors. I mean, they did build that wall and all.