Other People's Pets
I like most animals (not mice or rats, of course) and would love to have a pet of my own. I especially like cats and miss Monica, the best cat ever, who died two years before I moved to Japan. Unfortunately the apartments I have lived in here have not allowed pets. On top of that, pets are very expensive here and I probably couldn't afford to keep one anyway. I talk to the cute cats who live next door to me, but I think they must not understand my Japanese.
Some of my students have pets and I enjoy hearing about them. It was several weeks into classes before I figured out that when one student talked about doing things with his "family" he was talking about his wife and two dogs, not two children. It's funny how our pets become family. One student and his wife have a girl dog named Milk. Milk wears a dress and goes to the dog cafe, where her people eat lunch and she gets to see her dog friends. She eats breakfast and dinner, but not lunch, and she doesn't like fireworks. Another student took his dog to the dog pool. (I didn't even know there were pools just for dogs!) His dog was afraid of the water, and maybe the other dogs, so they didn't go again. One student has a pet turtle and has shown me video of the turtle on his phone. Before seeing the video, I didn't think turtles could be so cute. This turtle is about 20 years old and is big. She weighs about 3 kilograms. In the warm weather she lives in a pool with a sunning deck in the yard. When the weather turns cool, she lives in a smaller pool in the house with a heater. She doesn't make any sound, but she does come to the side of the pool when her person comes to the pool. If I could have a pet, I think I would have a cat rather than a dog or a turtle.
Monica, around 2008
10 comments:
We have a cat and he definitely has personality...
Your Monica is so beautiful, you must have good memories of her !We would have loved having a cat, but our youngest daughter was severely allergic to them, so we only admired those of our neighbours...
Our eldest daughter, however, had a beautiful cat when she married. It's a "Russian Chartreux". She's deep grey, with beautiful blue eyes, and she can stay for hours in the same position, sitting on the window sill, like a statue. She's very "aristocratic" looking, and also very snob :) But I also love alley cats, of course, they're so funny & clever...
Maybe you should think about making a cats quilt, why not ?
In stitches,
Nadine
Hi Pamela ,gee thats very interesting ,i am loving hearing how different it is to live in Japan ,thankyou for sharing .
Who should love only be directed towards human family members? A pet can be FAR more loving, loyal, cuddly, playful, 'understanding' and give much more comfort than a human. To elderly people it can be the reason to go on living, to get out, to talk to others... To an only, and lonely, child it becomes a sibling.
Keeping a pet in Japan can be expensive, especially if it is dressed up, pushed around in a stroller, taken to the beautician and cafe and pool, given dog birthday cakes and dog champagne, as well as having health check ups and insureance....
Monica is LOVELY.
Miss Monica was a beautiful cat! Such pretty colours! It is interesting hearing about life in Japan, so different from ours here, although I know people who have pets instead of children. We have a Chow Chow who rules the house!!
We pet lovers LOVE to talk about our pets. I had a pet rat once that was SO smart. He actually came to me when I called him and never messed when I took him out of the cage. I also had a turtle for years. My grandsons brought him home from the river and then didn't take care of him very well. I actually loved that turtle. After several years I returned him to his original home.
But DOGS...now they are my true loves. I often say that people should have dogs and forget the kids. Dogs never cause you heartbreak and they never talk back. My dogs are clowns and keep us so amazingly entertained. We had a few cats too, but I don't like dealing with a litter box.
Your cat was beautiful.
xx, Carol
Oh--- Monica was a lovely gal for sure...we have had both cats and dogs in our married lives together. We had a French poodle (named Jou-Jou) when I was growing up and an English Springer Spaniel (named Winnie)--my cat was Schumee (actually Clara Schumann, but called Schumee) a lovely Calico who lived to 13 years...pets are definitely part of one's family...hugs, Julierose
What a sweet pic of your lovely Monica... what a shame you can't have pets now... not even a fish? What are pets so expensive in Japan?
I'm very biased towards cats haha. Your Monica was lovely! It is a shame pets are so expensive in Japan but with all the tight spaces, maybe it is for the better that they aren't as common. Maybe your neighbor cats will study English. ;)
It's such a shame you can't have a cat! Miss Monica looks like she was a very sweet cat!
We have two cats, they are quite a laugh the things they do, so entertaining! One cat is very large (huge), and when he moves he really charges around, his paws make an amazing noise for a cat, and because he has such big paws it sounds like a dog running round the house! Most mornings when he hears us he gallops upstairs to find us, and he is so excited! Mostly he is a big softie but occasionally bullies our smaller pretty little cat, although there is never any real damage done, I think he is just warning her who the boss is! Little lady spends a lot of time in the garden, not totally "his" fault, she is a bit of a hunter, unfortunately, and brings in the occasional mouse or bird, very often live!
Barbara xx
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