Anzac Day 2009: Sacrifice

Photograph of a sprig of rosemary, for remembrance

The cat vomited this morning. Again. Artemis has this habit of gorging her food and then, five minutes later, throwing up wherever she’s standing.

Today it was a projectile effort from the heights of the TV stand, a reddish-brown spatter right across the living room floor.

Remember that last time you threw up? How the acrid stomach acids burnt your throat and mouth? How it felt like it was surging up into the back of your nose? It’s just like that. Freshly warm and mixed with the reek of cheap fish.

You can’t help but get it on your hands as you wipe it up.

I’ll bet just the thought of that smell is causing tightness in your sinuses, clenching in your throat.

Wiping up cat vomit first thing in the morning is rather unpleasant, no?

If wiping up cat vomit is the worst you have to think about today, then you’re one of the luckiest bastards on this planet. It’s not a particularly demanding sacrifice to make in return for some furry companionship.

Today is, of course, Anzac Day, our national memorial for those who’ve made the ultimate sacrifice for our country, and that other country.

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Cats work in mysterious ways…

… like sitting in high vantage points around ’Pong’s desk while he’s working.

Photograph of Trinn Suwannapha with cats Artemis (left) and Apollo (right) waiting for... something

That’s Artemis on the left and Apollo on the right. Artemis had spent all afternoon asleep on my jacket, near where I was working. Apollo had been sleeping on my other jacket on the office floor. I think they now expect to be fed or something.

Damaged tail

Since the Weekly Poll was clearly in favour of publishing the “disturbing image”, here’s a photograph of Artemis’ tail injury. Yes, you have to follow the link since some people thought that “appropriate”.

The basic deal is that our beautiful cat was probably hit by a car. She ran, but the car’s tyre caught the hair on her tail and scalped a 20cm section. The photo shows what it looked like after the vet had shaved it back for inspection.

Since then, Artemis “failed to re-gain tail functionality”. The tail has been amputated. So, as I explain to friends, we now have 1.95 cats. Apparently this is quite a common injury for urban cats.

Artemis is coping remarkably well, and it was a neat piece of surgery (thanks Katherine!). The main trauma was that it all happened while ’Pong and I were in Bangkok. Thanks to the Snarky Platypus and my office manager Virginia Bridger for helping out while we were away.

Weekly Poll: How disturbing is a “disturbing image”?

Ah, I love the smell of democracy in the morning! But since we’ll be overloaded with election news today, I’ll avoid politics in today’s Weekly Poll. Instead, the scalping of a cat’s tail.

The other day Artemis, one of our cats, was run over by a car. Or at least the fur on her tail was, and a 20cm section was effectively scalped, exposing the flesh beneath the skin. Yummy.

I have a photo. It’s fairly gross. A TV newsreader might preface it with “Some viewers may find this image disturbing.”

Now I have no qualms about publishing good Anglo-Saxon swear words. We can hear them any day on a bus, so I reckon being coy and writing “f*ck” and “c*nt” is stupid. I mean, we all know what these words are, so adding an asterisk doesn’t change the received meaning. But I did hesitate before posting this photo.

So, should I publish it? Go to the website to vote!

[poll id=”14″]

Last week’s results: After a year of phoney campaigning and a long, 6-week election campaign, it looks like most voters are indeed very glad today’s election day and we can all move on.

After the hunt

Photograph of the remains of a noisy miner (bird) after being eaten by Artemis the cat

I decided not to publish a high-resolution version of this photograph. This morning one of our cats, Artemis, proudly brought us a Noisy Miner chick which she’d just hunted. After she’d played with it a while I decided to grab my phone to photograph her victory. But by the time I’d done that, this is all that remained.

Good heavens, I’m blogging about the pets!

I think I’d better migrate to Cincinnati immediately.

That said, it’s interesting that she left the claws. I don’t like eating chicken’s feet either.