My kitten is learning how to climb the tree in the front yard. She’s a pavement cat, and I picked her up beginning of December, sopping wet and near death. A visit to the vet and a basket full of kitten bottles and formula later, I had to handrear her, and from bottlefeeding to solids it was like having a baby in the house again. She’s now only starting to gain in self confidence and tried to copy my older cat’s treeclimbing, but damn, she’s a clumsy little thing, she holds onto that tree for dear life (about a half meter up from the ground) and then starts howling for dear life until one of her humans come to rescue her. All the while the older cat sits with a cocked head staring at her in utter amazement. I can just read her mind… WTF???
Just watching my cats at play brings me peace and joy.
So what little things make you happy? What fills you with contentment?
i must concurr on the pets. my cats make me gray, but they are awesome. they are very loveable, and the eldest has a knack for sneaking onto your lap, and after she has settled in nicely, you notice suddenly that you have a very happy cat on your lap.
the youngest, a feral, sit on my chest in the morning, and purrs frantically. and demands to be kissed and cuddled whenever he has half a chance. the other rescue, will ignore you, and demand love when you are busy applying eyeliner, or blowdrying your hair.
my dogs greet me when i get home. and no matter how kak my day has been, seeing them run next to the car, like im a rockstar, totally makes my day.
even seeing my fish go bos and all cram into the closest corner to me, is way cute.
my rat, dita, knocks around her waterbowl, at 2am, just to make sure i know she wants new water.
other things that make my day, is an awesome african sunset. (im never up early enough for the sunrise)
watching my garden grow, and planting all sorts of cool veggies.
this is way geeky, but, learning a new application.
and cuddles from my SO.
It never goes away, I feel the same way still when I wake my boys up in the morning and this hairy leg sticks out from under the duvet, its like: “HUH, when did this happen?” and then you get this gruff, “morning Mom” from under the pillow…
Watching a human being that should be dead, but instead is alive, and the only reason they’re still walking around is Science.
I’ve actually thought about this in the last day or so, and my conclusion is almost none of us would’ve made it very far without science. If you start adding up the ways science keeps you breathing every day the tally climbs very quickly.
I would have died in labour with my eldest. 36 Hours of hell and the loss of one of the twins I was carrying later, an emergency ceasar saved the day. Put me back 50 years when home births were the norm, 3 deaths would have taken place.
Praise be to modern surgery! I myself have been carted to an emergency room flush with tubes and cables. But even small things, like in Mefi’s article, has been striking me: Disinfectant, seatbelts, wiper blades, rubber tyres, purified drinking water, …
Hell, if it weren’t for re-enforced concrete I could die any night in my sleep. Well, I’d be awake for a moment before death I guess. But that starts being a stretch, because without it the structure I sleep in wouldn’t exist. So I thought about it this way…
If there were a button I could push that would stop all science from working. Not necessarily suspend all the laws of nature, but just make it so everything man made that depends on science instantly stopped working… what would happen?
I came up with: People would immediately start raining down from the sky, millions would die in fatal building collapses, and the highways would turn into a bloodbath within seconds. Of course we’d be without food, but that would take a bit to start killing us.
The message and lesson would likely be lost on them. They’d come back with something asinine along the lines of, “But… but… but [insert favourite woo-woo notion] gave us science!”
True story, although I’m headed towards the irk-side here: Someone recently told me his family are Christian Scientists (American Christians who eschew modern medicine in lieu of prayer). But, he argued, the upside is he managed to convince them to go to a Chiropractor!
As for me, today I most unexpectedly got the opportunity to rile up an EFF supporter. It truly made my day, but everyone else’s results may vary, so I’m not sure I should post details here…
