Happy Friday: How Cats Love Music ♪

This fall is a bit freezing in Italy. I somehow feel as if the calendar had been accelerating too much. The month I prefer to skip most is November because of its depressing mist and atmosphere. But when December starts, things are much different. Let's look forward to the month of December!!

At the moment, I don't have much to say. I just have a short nice clip to show you. It's about my teen son and his cat enjoying music in some ways :)

Happy Friday ❣

A creative gift from a friend!

It's been some time since the holidays were gone, Chinese New Year celebration is over too, so as Valentine's Day!! How time flies! Many things have kept me busy at the moment.

This post is dedicated to my spoiled princess. Some of you might have known her from some of my old posts. Just scroll down a little bit and look at the right sidebar...you should find her sitting elegantly.

Nanà will be 6 years old this May. One of my friends is so kind to draw her a portrait. She loves drawing and her works are inspired by her lovely black doggy. I love her works very much because they are simple but very cute and they tell emotions and stories in only few pictures. You can visit her page at Dots.Lines

Here it is...Nanà's first portrait  =^.^=

Credit to Dots.Lines

Our pianist

We're already near the end of the first month of the new year, how did you begin the year 2013? Well, my life is proceeding quite normally. A little bit of bad weather, humidity, snow...I really hope February won't be too cold. (The last year the temperature went down to -17 °c!)

My son began to take the piano lessons since last October. It seems that he found a new passion! The teacher is very satisfied with him, saying that he's very quick and has learned much in only few months. I and my hubby are glad to hear that. An electric piano was planned to be his Christmas gift but, seeing his enthusiasm, we had anticipated the gift, so he received it in November. Since then, we often have a little bit of sound and music in our home ;)

Our pianist!

I'm posting a video clip of his first song, recorded in December. I wanna entitle the video as "The Pianist and the Listener"

Enjoy the music!

Caught just in time: a lovely picture of Nanà

 

Hello readers!

After being absent for a while, I just wanted to keep my blog alive by posting a lovely picture: my sweetie cat with beautiful poinsettia in the background. It's not easy taking a good photo of my cat Nanà. She doesn't stay still in front of the camera. 

I've got a new tool in my kitchen. It's WAFFLE MAKER!!! Yes, I longed for it since a long time but never got one for the reason of fear to gain weight!! I just came across a big promotional sale, so I couldn't help grabbing it. I don't try it yet...how could I?? At the moment we're pampering ourselves with loads of pre-Christmas sweets. However, sooner or later it'll be done ;-)

Anyone has noticed another blog of mine? I decided to write "seriously" a Thai blog for Thai readers with the purpose of trying and practicing my writing skill, for one day my dream of publishing my own book might come true. This's only a kind of experiment, hoping to get more inspiration.

Have a great time, everyone!

When Nanà is "home alone"!

Who has read my older posts would know who is Nanà. She's our 4-year-old Birman cat. She has quite particular characters. Normally cats are independent. Ours instead needs someone to stay with. Actually it's said the Birman cats are very proper to who need a pet as companion.

I noticed her behavior when I was packing stuffs before going away in a weekend. I pulled out a big baggage, she turned around and around and sniffed. The next morning we went to my mom-in-law's house on mountain. My in-laws already arrived there the day before. We left Nanà at home because, from the previous experiences, she suffers a lot the trip, strangers and the new environment. Moreover, we were mostly obliged to close her in the loft in order that she couldn't stray in relatives' apartments or go down to the neighbour's garden. So we concluded that it'd much better leaving her home when we go away for only a weekend.

It happened that the next Monday, I was packing stuffs again to go for a short holiday at sea. When I pulled out the 2 baggages, she came close to me. Each time I put a piece of clothes there, she bited my hands, trying to impede me. We quarreled for a while but, becoming impatient, I stopped doing the baggage and went to another room. She followed me and was still biting my feet. I thought she's gone mad! That night, she slept on one of the baggages. Incredible! She understood we were leaving her home again.

This time yet, my in-laws took care of her. They told us on the phone that Nanà was angry with them. Anything they did for her never satisfied her; giving food, brushing her fur, etc. It seemed she did go mad. The day we arrived home, she finally stayed calm and returned normal. My in-laws said they almost couldn't stand aggressivity. How come! Nanà's used to stay with them. She might not want us to leave home.

The happiness of Nanà

After introducing our kitty Nanà in the previous post, I'd like to talk more about her. The title of this post, as my Thai friends must have recognised, is intended to immitate one famous Thai movie's name: The Happiness of Kati (ความสุขของกะทิ). However, there's nothing to do with the movie, I only would like to make it sound a little bit "fashionable" and this article is going to tell about the daily "happiness" and "unhappiness" of Nanà.

I've to describe her habits and attitudes towards us and strangers. She's usually sweet, cuddly and playful with our family members but she becomes timid, fearful and nervous when there's a presence of a non-family person. Acually she's easily frightened by any noises and she hides herself in a closed place such as under the bed or wardrobe. From my knowledge (by reading), this's normal. Cats don't stand loud sounds and they try to avoid them. Nevertheless, Nanà is frightened by only some little sounds, especially unexpected ones.

Moreover, Nanà doesn't like visitors. She's not one of those cats that love being caressed by people (naturally except us!). One rather funny thing is that; when she hears the doorbell, she suddenly runs to the house main wndow door, moves the curtain by her paw to find out who's there and if she sees a stranger (non-family member) she takes off as a plane and you won't be able to find her! We initially hoped that she would be able to get used to see strangers one day, but we already lost the hope! Sometimes when the guests stay for some hours, she comes out to see in a safe distance, people can see her in only these few minutes because she disappears again untill the guests are gone.

I and my husband sometimes asked ourselves why Nanà is afraid of people and so many things. We immagine that probably she might have suffered during her first months at her original house.We remember the day we went to take her home. The other 2 of her siblings were double-sized of her. We then thought she could be the weakest of all the kittens. Who knows if the farm owner gave her away for this reason! Perhaps we saved her life bringing her with us!

                                     A moment in summer when Dylan & Nanà enjoyed outdoors.
                               (Nanà seemed not to be that happy in the way her buddy held her!)

In summer, Nanà loves going out to lay on the lawn, to have some grass and to scratch herself on the rough pavement. She used to meet some other cats that came into our garden. We kept an eye on them to see the reactions. The one and another kept some distance and didn't move. They looked at each other and mostly another cat went away. Once I saw Nanà inflated (I don't know which term is suitable here) herself in order to threaten another cat, letting out a weird cry at the same time. She might not feel safe and tried to defend herself. I went out to see and the other cat escaped away. Since then, we watch her often when she stays outside the house. We'd be diappointed if the cats fight against each other. Well, now we even became cat-sitter/guard!

At the conclusion, I think I can say that Nanà is a lucky kitty. She has a spacious house to live in, she can sleep wherever, she has a fairly large space outdoors, and especially she has a warm family to depend on.

Why a cat?

Around lately July or early August (forgive my poor memory!) of 2007, we brought a new member home. It was a female cat, purebred Sacred Birman, born on 7th May, 2007. Sincerely I had never known nor heard about the existence of this breed before. I had even never immagined I could be able to love a cat either! In my childhood, my family owned a dog. As I remember, I didn't like cats because the look in their eyes scared me a little bit. There were several stray cats in my living zone (my parents' house at Bangkok). I refused to approach or touch any cats just because I felt they were not so friendly. Therefore cats were "scary" and "hostile" for me.

Well, the idea to get a pet comes to your mind sooner or later, especially when you've kids. Truly it was my husband, Francesco, who proposed one day the question: "Why don't we get a puppy?". He suggested it should be time to give Dylan, our only son, a pet to keep him company. It's said animals do good to children, perhaps he was right, I thought, although I wasn't that convinced.

At first, he thought of a dog. He was pretty interested in the golden retriever, well-known for its attractive characteristics. I would be great but I wasn't so certain of the idea. Well, who would bring it to pee in a freezing winter morning, perhaps at 6 a.m.? I was so sure the responsibility will become mine, thus I should prevent it before it cuold happen! (We share the same house, court and garden with my in-laws and they'd never accept a doggie's pee and poo in the house's gate.)

After this argument, Francesco looked at many websites to find something to convince me and he somehow came across a web page that told about a cat breed which is rare. He suddenly felt in love with those kittens after reading their story and looking at the pictures. He came to the conclusion that no one needed to bring it outside in a cold morning (of which I was afraid). A cat is less dependent than a dog, we immagined. From the pictures, they were just adorable, like little cotton flocks. The Sacred Birmans are not easily found in a pet shop. They're reservedly bred in farms, that are not available in many places. The nearest one we found in the websites was the Albafeles, in the province of Pavia. Francesco contacted the owner by phone and she invited us to see the cats at her place. We brought Dylan, 6 years old at that time, to visit the farm the soonest. It was the first time I saw cats as attractive and friendly creatures! The bigger ones came near us, they wanted us to hold them and they were very soft! That was my feeling. Dylan too was enthusiastic. Well, we just simply loved them. The owner kindly explained the Sacred Birmans' characteristics, their habits, how to take care and she assured us that these cats were very friendly and playful. Well, we had had the experience from the visit.

After one month of waiting, we got the call from the farm owner that the new kittens were born and we could go to see them. Only one of the three new-born kittens was to be given away. It was female, seal point coloured, and it was just too adorable. Yes, we decided to take her but the owner didn't want to seperate the kitten from its mother too soon as it was still eating from breast. We had to wait for almost 3 months and then it was done!

                                                         Nanà, the 1st time we visited her.

                                                        Dylan was glad to get near his kitten.

                                                          They were getting more confidence.

                                  Finally Nanà came to stay with us, she was inseparable from Dylan.