With all the recent talk—and even some photos—of the northern mockingbird parents in the tree outside my patio, I wanted to share something far less depressing than has been the story of their offspring.  Too many losses, I say, and too many tears.

So let us then turn our attention to the more entertaining side of mockingbirds.

You know Larenti visits often.  She now spends a great deal of time on my patio.

Surprisingly, I’ve discovered al-Zill also finds the veranda a great place to rest and relax, not to mention to grab a bite to eat.

A few days ago when I stepped outside, I found this most recent feline discovery enjoying a midday meal as Larenti lounged in the intermittent sunshine that dappled the concrete floor each time the clouds broke.

I snapped a few photos of the pair (to be shown later).  As I stood there, however, someone else came into the picture.

It was one of the mockingbird parents.

Don’t get me wrong.  It’s not surprising to have one or both birds launch an assault on any feline visitor.  For that matter, they yell at me and threaten me with their aerial acrobatics, so a cat certainly should expect a challenge.

The moment the bird instigated the encounter with al-Zill, the cat stepped away from the food, walked to a position near the fence, and lay down in such an uncaring manner as to insult the winged parent with complete disregard.

That’s when I switched the camera to video mode, aimed, and began shooting.

Keep in mind I was on the opposite side of the patio and didn’t have enough time to really zoom in.  I didn’t want to miss any of the verbal abuse being heralded at the felines—especially al-Zill.

Nevertheless, you can see how brave the mockingbirds are.  Remember they hit me in the head several times while making runs at Vazra before I rescued him, and he was sitting on the fence when that happened.  A cat on the ground is a safer bet when you keep your distance and throw nothing more damaging than avian insults.

Oh, and the cats weren’t one bit impressed.

[video is 0:21]

This is another video I accidentally shot with the camera on its side (sometimes I do that thinking of it like a picture that can easily be rotated, and only later do I kick myself for having done so).  That means I had to rotate it and add the black blocks on either side in order to maintain the original aspect ratio.  So it’s a bit smaller than usual, but I think you can see it clearly enough.

Words aren’t always necessary to communicate what we want.  Perhaps it’s a gesture or a glance, but we humans pride ourselves in being able to say without our voices precisely what’s on our minds.

Yet it’s another aspect of our unjustified hubris to think such abilities are solely the purview of clumsy upright apes with the ability to speak (but not to think, which should be obvious).

With my fanny firmly planted on the floor one day as I snapped photos and captured videos of The Kids, eventually Grendel had enough and made it abundantly obvious camera time was over.  You can see he kept trying to push it out of the way so we could focus our attention on some quality time.

And when that didn’t work?  Try a little affectionate rubbing for good measure.

Only at the end, and only if you listen very closely, you can hear him purring.  That’s the only sound he made during the entire exchange.  Everything else—volumes of information—came across just fine in touches, glances, and all manner of words unspoken.  And I heard every one of them.

[video is 0:14]

Kako loves “The Refrigerator Game.”  That is, she leaps atop the frig and asks for—mostly demands—attention.  The game usually—mostly—winds up with her jumping on my back and continuing the demanding/getting attention from there.

I’ve discussed this before.  In fact, you can see photos of it here, here, here, and here (the last one showing her taking the game to new heights when she could get on top of the cabinets over the refrigerator), and you can read about it here and here.

To prove I’m not insane . . .

Ha!  Who am I kidding?  Of course I’m insane.  But that’s not the point.

To prove I’m not lying about this aspect of her personality (a trait only she has), here’s a video of her on the refrigerator doing her thing: asking—demanding—attention.

Note that she did wind up on my back.  I have photos to prove it, but I’ll share those at a later date and time.

For now, enjoy Miss Thing playing The Refrigerator Game.  And take special note that there’s an undercurrent of purring in her meows.  She might be a bitch and she might order others around and brutalize them to get her way, but she definitely loves me and can show it.  Besides, she knows what buttons to press.

[video is 0:50]

Unlike his normal approach whereby he takes what he wants and uses whatever force is necessary in order to get it, I captured a brief video showing the softer side of Loki.  It’s like watching something alien.

I had already taken a long walk and returned home refreshed, yet I still needed something.

Time with the cats!  Yes, that was it.  I needed to give and get some lovin’.

So I sat on the bedroom floor.  From there, I encouraged them to come visit me before I was forced to pester each one of them in turn.

Loki had been sitting atop the cat tree beside the bed and immediately hopped down.  He sat behind me, though, so I turned on the camera and just watched him.

That’s when he began asking for some attention.

Although I normally expect him to brutally appropriate whatever he wants, this time he respectfully asked.  When I didn’t respond, he came to me while continuing to ask—in a hushed, gentle voice.

After I stopped the camera, I sat and petted him for some time, but then he became excited and started beating up on me.  Typical.

But I do love that last little sweet request he gives at the end.  There is a softer side to Loki—rarely.

About two-thirds of the way through the video you see a brief glimpse of Kako lying in the background.  It’s that steely gaze of hers that really stands out.  Other than watching disdainfully, however, she never moves.

And pardon the gloomy atmosphere.  We hadn’t seen the sun in ages and I took the video using what little light filtered through the clouds and in the windows.

[video is 0:21]

I’ll say it again: MUCHO thanks to mArniAc for bringing virtualdub to my attention.  It’s such a great tool, albeit limited in the formats it can save (right now: only AVI2).  Despite that limitation, I can still use it to produce an edited yet acceptable movie even if the output is too large and has to run through QuickTime or Movie Mangler Maker to produce a final version for upload.

Here’s the deal: I have several dozen videos that are in moderately poor condition.  There are several reasons for that.  The two major ones, though, are that (a) I had the camera on the wrong settings, and (b) I didn’t have enough light.  Sometimes both problems hit at once, yet it only takes one of them to ruin a good film.

I’ve complained before about how QuickTime has its limitations when it comes to editing, although let me sing its praises when compared to Movie Maker, which has extremely limited functionality.  Of course, Windows made that product for the masses, not for those who might be a bit more serious and a bit more technical.  Nevertheless, both tie my hands when it comes to editing videos.

Then in walks virtualdub.  What a great tool.  It’s not for the timid as it’s more like a *nix product than a windows product (that means it’s not push-button easy but instead requires some technical expertise).  And I love it.

Take this video for instance.  The original was extremely dark.  I have others that are even darker.  What worried me about them is that Apple and Microsoft both provide tools that use brute force when it comes to lightening a video.  QuickTime is a bit more versatile with some color filters that can also be applied, much unlike Movie Maker.  Yet both tools often spit out an almost unwatchable mess no matter how hard I tried to make it presentable.

With virtualdub, on the other hand, lightening a video is just the first step.  I can afterward apply additional filters to correct the colors and contrast and hues and a plethora of other variables that ultimately help make the resulting output at least more like reality and less like a kindergarten project.

Now keep in mind my skills with editing videos are even less impressive than my skills editing photographs.  That’s pretty bad.  I still find I can edit with virtualdub and create a viewable file without hating it altogether.

All of that said, this is a short video of Kazon playing in the kitchen.  Yes, it’s been lightened.  Yes, I tinkered with the contrast.  And yes, I also tinkered with the colors and hues and saturation.  After trying to edit it in both QuickTime and Movie Maker, and getting a final video that was practically indistinguishable from regurgitated sand, I was able to run it through virtualdub while tinkering with the settings until it finally came out with enough clarity and color and light to be worth posting.

So, since I can’t post photos at the moment, here’s a video instead.  I figure at least we can watch Kazon having fun.

[video is 0:20; yes, it's still not the best quality, but at least it's showable]

Vazra begged and begged for me to take him to get his nails done.  Every refined feline needs a manicure and pedicure now and again, right?

But I told him money was tight and he’d have to tend to it himself.

So he did.

And he was not happy when he found out it was on video, and he was even less happy when he found out I intended to post it.

Now I have to go sit in the corner because I’m being punished.  As usual.

[video is 0:11]

Oh, the answer is yes if you really must know.  I’m always fascinated by the simplest of things just as I’m fascinated by the most complex of things.  Whether it’s one of The Kids sleeping or grooming, a grain of sand on the beach or a pebble on the shore, a bird in the tree, an insect on the ground, two galaxies colliding hundreds of light years away, a black hole gobbling up planets in a solar system we’ll never reach, or a wisp of cloud in the sky—not to mention a trillion other things both ordinary and exotic—the cosmos fascinates me no matter what form it takes, no matter how banal or bizarre its display, no matter how mundane or magnificent its form.  So sue me.

Let me start by saying a hearty “Thank you!” to mArniAc.  After mentioning I had inadvertently recorded this video with the camera held sideways, and after venting my frustration at the lack of readily available tools that could rotate it without mangling it, I had not yet found the time to search for alternate solutions.  I already have Microsoft’s Movie Maker available but couldn’t use it because its rotate function doesn’t preserve the original aspect ratio, so the resulting output is a mashed video that looks like it’s spent way too much time under heavy weight.  Quicktime offers no rotate function.  So I was stuck until I could hunt down something else.

Then mArniAc came to the rescue.  She sent me an e-mail today with this link that included information on virtualdub, a GNU licensed video editing package.  I downloaded and installed it, and the next thing I knew the video had been rotated successfully without losing its original aspect ratio.  From there it was simple.  I added letterbox bars on the sides to return the video to its original 320×240 size (although the actual video content has been reduced to 160×240 so it fits within the standard resolutions), ran it through Movie Maker to compress the AVI stream (since Quicktime kept mangling it for some reason), uploaded it to YouTube, and finally embedded the player.

So again, thank you ever so much, mArniAc!  You saved me time and allowed me to show this cute little video of Kazon.  Sure, it won’t win an award and doesn’t show him reading Shakespeare or solving the meaning of the universe, but I thought it was worth sharing and you enabled that.  You go, girl!

Now on to the video…

As with all The Kids, Kazon and I have our little games, our personal interactions that no one else can share, and our innate understanding.  This brief film shows one such piece of our relationship.

When Kazon wants attention, he asks for it.  They all do, each in their own way, and each according to how I respond to them.  For Kazon, it’s a question in his voice and the need to reach out and touch me to get my attention.  What he says carries an undertone of purring that is quite evident.  If I don’t respond verbally, however, he gets needier and closer and needer and closer until he just can’t stand it anymore—at which point he gets as close as possible, gives me a kiss and head butt, and paws at me incessantly, talking the entire time.

That’s what you’ll see below.  All I kept doing was moving my head back and forth to let him know I was looking at him but not really listening (although I was).  At the end…  Well, at the end he takes matters into his own paws since I wasn’t giving him what he needed.

[video is 0:34; the quality is less than stellar due to all the manipulating and converting, but I think it still turned out quite well]

You know how much Kazon likes to open doors—any door.  Cabinets aren’t a problem for him, an ability he’s taught to the rest of The Kids.  But more intriguing is that regular doors aren’t a problem for him either.  Remember the laundry room door he so expertly opened so he and his sister could go inside and play?

What makes this talent so fascinating is this: Kazon’s just not a smart guy.  He’s sort of a dumb jock.  There are times he doesn’t remember his own ass when he jumps on something, and that usually leaves him dangling precariously with his front end on the target and his back end swinging in the wind.

His lack of intellectual prowess makes his skills with doors all the more mesmerizing—and unusual.  Yet he is in every sense of the word an expert when it comes to opening them.

As I explained in the original post about this, “If there’s a doorknob, he understands what it’s for and will try to use it.  If there’s a handle, he’ll try to grab it and pull it down.  If it’s a cupboard door, he knows to use his front paws to pull it open far enough to get his head inside — followed by the rest of him.”  I have been repeatedly amazed by him in this matter.  I know he’s learned from watching people that doorknobs open doors and that handles pull down and open doors, and he’s put these observations to use in his own endeavors.

But he’s not always successful.  And that brings me to this video.

I was doing laundry one day and he had been in the laundry room with me, but I made him leave when I was ready to close the doors and go about my other chores.  What I didn’t realize was that he wasn’t done in there, at least not yet.

The moment I walked away, he proceeded to try his magic.  You’ll see him reach for the doorknobs, try to snag the tiny space between the doors, try to reach under them for leverage (which is how he normally opened those particular doors anyway), and basically search for an easy way in.  However, he wasn’t particularly serious about getting in there and gave it only half the effort he normally would.  Eventually—and let’s be honest: probably because he forgot what he was doing or why he wanted in—he decided it was too much work and gave up.

[video is 1:06 in length; although it's a tad dark, I didn't lighten it because that usually degrades the quality; besides, it's not so dark that you can't appreciate it]

This is just a brief moment of Grendel at play.  I love simple pleasures . . .

[video is 0:11 in length; I had to lighten it, so pardon the grainy and washed out appearance]

Remember when I said Vazra was insane?  I said that because, among many other reasons, he plays in the bathtub with gleeful abandon—but he’s playing with the bathtub and not in it with something else.  Well, now I can show you the proof.

Both of these videos were captured yesterday morning.  Keep in mind I had to lighten them since the shower area gets indirect incandescent light and doesn’t make for a good video environment.  The color is also a bit off due to lighting and the surrounding surfaces.  Nevertheless, both show Vazra doing what he loves to do when he goes in the bathroom: jump in the bathtub and excitedly chase invisible rodents.

Odd cat, that one.

The first video is thirty-six seconds long.  You can hear Loki talking as he enters near the end of the clip, and then you see his tail cut through the bottom of the screen.  He didn’t want to be left out of whatever fun was to be had.

The second video is thirty-one seconds long.  Since by this time everyone was in the bathroom and because I was paying attention to the camera instead of who was doing what around me, I don’t know which fur person’s tail swings through the frame near the end of this one.

Vazra’s habit of entertaining himself with the bathtub is quite a sight when he really gets going.  There are times when I laugh until I cry because he turns into a wild animal—and all while chasing insubstantial vapors sneaking about the shower, ghouls and goblins only he can see.

[Update] I’ve uploaded new versions of the videos and changed the embedded players above to point to the latest versions.  The original MOV files I uploaded created an out-of-sync state with the YouTube audio and visual components, so hopefully uploading AVI versions of the videos has resolved that.  I’ll have to remember this in the future.  And another thing: the conversion from AVI to MOV (to lighten it) and back to AVI (to upload a working copy) has degraded the quality a bit.  That’s something else for me to watch out for.