I really ought to be working, writing or replying to comments, perhaps reading for my literature class. Instead I find myself lured outside into the bitter cold. My cat, however well his white fur blends with the snow-covered ground, must be freezing on such a night. Yet there he is, perched on the fresh-cut pine of our back fence. So, there I am, following, trying to see what he sees. Aha... it must be the moon:
But here the camera lies, for what a beautiful moon it is. Mars is nearby, but the lens won't pick it up. If the clouds were much thicker, the eye probably couldn't either. Mars isn't what takes my breath away, or makes me glad that I've ventured into the cold. No, it is the moon, or the clouds, or perhaps the moonlight shining through the clouds. The light is scattered into a broad palette of bright, colorful, fuzzy moonbeams. This the camera almost manages to catch:
But I can't help wonder what Otto sees, with his keen kitty eyes, staring up into the sky. Is the spectrum less fuzzy? It doesn't matter. I hear a rustle in the bushes, beyond the fence but under that same painted moon. Another cat. That was why Otto came outside, not to gaze at the moon, but to guard his territory against a rival. Otto casts a suspicious glare across the yard and back at me with his haunting yellow eyes. I startle, nudging the camera just as the shutter closes.
Ok, Otto, the fence is yours; I'll stop interrupting your nightly watch. For it is still bitterly cold and I am going back inside.
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Thanks for the PICS Karmen! I am a huge cat lover. By the way, Otto looks like he has x-ray vision! LOL!
Dave Briggs :~)
A belated Happy 10th Anniversary! Best wishes for the next decades.
I'm sure that if such an intelligent looking cat (yes I know, all cats look intelligent) was feeling too cold s/he would be indoors curled up by the fire (or heater vent).
Nice photograph.
I think that one of the most exquisite things to do is to venture out on a moon-less winter night. Under a roof of hard stars, holding their light constant against the pure black night. With a cutting wind blowing sub-zero air through my parka, my long handles and all my warm, tropical dreams. There is a clean purity, a singular expression of nature that is hard, sharp and unmindful of my desire for warmth and comfort. Sitting on pine boughs, wrapped tightly in my own tiny cell of self, it seems that the light from those stars burns away my pretense, replacing it with a conditional approval, challenging my very survival while offering the promise of a distant fire that might someday give me a new warmth. I always come home from such a night feeling as if some useless affectation had been burned away and replaced with a boldness to claim a deeper identity with a realm larger than one small planet.
Thanks for evoking such feelings tonight.
BTW, I'll bet Otto is a yokitty. That's the kind of cat that, when you first encounter him, does something so unexpected that you say, "Yo! Kitty!"
Love the picture I could feel the cold as I was looking at it but also the warmth of the moon.
S
Why is this blog on ScienceBlogs? Is it even a science blog in the first place?
skittle, you might be surprised if you looked just past the surface and saw the foundation, the underpinning, the math, and, OK, the passion. Then you might know that your question has already been answered, and is continuing to be answered. Good hunting!
I bit back a long and pithy reply to skittle. I could easily have answered those questions, with links or examples or explanations, but really it would just have turned into a bunch of angst dumped in his direction. I figured since I was more annoyed with things I couldn't yell at--illnesses, delays, writer's blocks and whatnot--that I would just end up using skittle as my metaphorical punching bag. And all because he showed up and was probably too lazy to click past the first couple of posts. Maybe he was having a crappy day, too. Why make it worse?
As it turns out, I didn't need to say anything. And on that note, thank you, Crudely Wrott, for answering him. Your reply brought me a much-needed smile. :)
Dear Lady, you are most entirely welcome. And thank you for the thank you.
Kan eye haz mor fractals plez now?
maybe that's why they call it "luna"tic
Wow, why all the hate? I was just being honest and asking an honest question.
Skittle, your questions suggest that you don't like seeing Chaotic Utopia as a part of ScienceBlogs, or at least have doubts. If you did not mean to imply dislike, I'm sorry, don't take it personally... you aren't the first to say something along those lines. In the past, it wasn't always friendly. If you'd like to see more science content here, I'd encourage you to dig a little deeper. (A recent piece on the validity of climate science was one of my better works. Other interesting bits can be found in the archives, which, I'll admit, aren't that intuitive and need to be revamped.) It's around, with more to come... I've just been busy, or distracted from science recently. It happens.
Otto!!!
Beautiful picture.