Rosamunda's Anniversary

Rosamunda is a year older.

We have no idea when our fine feline friend was born, but we do know that we adopted her on May 22nd, 2018, so we celebrate that as adoption day. That is her special day.

You would like to know how she spent it? Lounging in a chair in the sun, taking occasional tongue-baths, hunting for all things to play with, chasing her toys when we threw them, and in the evening there was a brief and exciting encounter with a fly which nonetheless eluded her. Perhaps it will furnish a protein snack on another day.

Her predecessor often got a ceremonial saucer of milk which he either drank or did not drink. If he drank it we had six more weeks of summer. Or maybe it was the other way around. His "birthday" was in July so it was a pretty safe bet either way.

In the year in which she has been with us Rosamunda (who started out as "Rosie" at the shelter, and then I started dishing out the fancy derivatives and one of them stuck) had undergone a dramatic change. She was four pounds under weight and missing half of her fur. Here is her before picture:

It took her about two weeks to stop hiding behind boxes in the basement and wander the house freely. But even in the early days she was a snugglepuss. The first day we met, I put my hand in the cage and when it touched her fur she began to pur loudly. Then they got her out and set her on my lap. She stayed on it, purring away. It was pretty clear this was our cat.

Now she's gotten pretty comfortable with the routine. It is true that she ate herself back to full weight and then some and we had to put her on a bit of diet. For some reason she doesn't bother knocking glasses off of counters or eating houseplants, two of her brother's obsessions. And she'll sleep with us whenever we let her (which is not on "school nights" because she wakes Kristen up jumping back on the bed after her snack break at 4 in the morning) and follows us from room to room to be with her people.

These pictures are from the other day.

I could of course bore you with many more (and certainly will) but you are no doubt gushing copious amounts of tears at how cute our feline is sleeping and I think it is only merciful to let you off the hook for now.

Rosie had some tough shoes to sniff but she is doing her best, which is really terrific. And her humans love her.

oh......Christmas tree!

Today's guest blogger is Rosamunda Erasmus Hammer, aka Rosie Cat.

Hello humans!

I get to make the blog today, and if my human would stop shifting around while I type this I could do a lot better job. Are you finished human? Good.

(I'm sitting on his lap.)

Some of you think I am a very cute feline, but I am also a fierce jungle lion. I don't look dangerous because I am small. If my last humans had fed me enough I would be really big and you would run away so I didn't eat you. But you would not be able to get away from me. Yum. I love to bite things. I bite all the things.

Christmas is my favorite time of the year. There are so many things to play with. I love the thought of the wrapping paper and the ribbons and the strings ooh and the boxes you humans put everything in. I shred the boxes with my sharp teeth. I can't wait until they put up the Nativity scene. I like to be King Herod and attack all the people. That's not in your version of the story but it is in mine. I'm fierce. I like to scratch things with my claws. I have great claws. They are better than Santa's claws. I've heard about them. They are not that great. He is big and moves slow. I could take him.

But the best part is having a tree in the house. Don't tell my humans. I will wait for them to sleep and then I will go to town on all the pretty little things hanging from the tree. I have to work out, you know? Keep up my fizeek.

I can't wait for Christmas this year. It will be so awesome. Just thinking about all the boxes makes me want to go attack something. Bye!
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now it is later and I just saw a vidaoh where the humans put the tree inside a cage so the cats couldn't get it. That is not funny. Don't do that, humans.

Rosie's not riveted

Our new feline, Rosamunda, has graced our domecile for nearly two-and-a-half months. She's very entertaining, friendly, quiet, and has a wonderful purr. The trouble is her musical taste is suspect.

You may find this a trifle, but since one of her humans is a musician this is at least bound to cause some friction. It could be worse, though.

A teacher of mine in college had two dogs that would howl whenever they heard the sound of a piano. I dog sat for him one week and if you wanted to practice you had to lock the dogs in an upstairs bedroom and turn the radio on loudly to a country music station (no pianos). When you returned a couple hours later the dogs were hanging out listening to country. It was surrealistically amusing.

Rosie doesn't whine when I play the piano. In fact, she seems to tolerate it rather well. But she's no fan of the organ. I can tell because, whenever I play a recording of the instrument she leaves the room immediately.  There are at least modifications that can be tried. For a start, I don't have an organ at home, so, being recordings, I could spare her suspect ears by using headphones. Also, the organ is a variable instrument, with a wide sound palette. As a result of experimentation I've determined that it is only the rich, full organ sound that she dislikes. That means it is likely the sharp, high-pitched mixture stops that are bothering her. Some humans have trouble with these stops also, particularly if they are older and losing their hearing. The year I was recovering from chemotherapy I was having trouble with them myself.

My former feline, Erasmus, used to find the organ fascinating. Whenever I played a recording he would press his ear to the speakers, and whenever I played a particular piece, he would mew whenever I got to a particular note. Only that one evoked a response. I'm not quite sure if he was saying "bravo!" or "turn that off!"

The only thing he didn't care for was repetition. If he came in to the room while I was practicing he might stay for a while, but the instant I got back around to something he'd heard before, namely the passage I was on when he walked in, he left immediately. He was not into encores. Otherwise, save the time he was under the piano and got caught off guard by a bass entrance during a fugue, he and instrument were at least functional acquaintances. It's the same way with Rosie and the piano.

Some of my human listeners must feel the same way, which is unfortunate for the organ. Usually when someone doesn't like something they don't stick around long enough to risk their mind being changed, either. Oh well. At least I'm diversified.

Since this week's headline recording at pianonoise.com features the organ (without those offensive mixtures) I thought I'd try it out on Rosie, who was sitting on my lap. She stuck around for the whole thing. Maybe you will too.

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this week on the homepage of pianonoise.com, we settle the superiority of the piano versus the organ once and for all. And achieve world peace.