Me neither until last night when our kind, gentle cat, Olive, dragged home a live bunny (for the sake of our discussion, I’m defining a bunny as a baby or immature rabbit) and proceeded to kill it before our eyes (and ears). For those keeping score at home, you’re probably saying “Rob, this isn’t news… Olive has killed bunnies before. Remember your rabbit-face buddy icon?”, and I must agree with you there. This isn’t the first time she’s killed a bunny. It’s the first time we’ve caught her in the act of doing so. And it was the first time we ever heard it. The bunny-in-life-threatening-pain sound is quite unique. Katie thought it was a bat, but it was too loud to be a bat. A piercing screech, pretty high-pitched, clearly designed as both a call for help and a warning cry in much the same way as a volunteer fire alarm calls firefighters to action and warns others that there’s danger afoot (speeding cars, firetrucks, fires, etc.).
I must say though, there was really something heart-wrenching and disturbing about hearing that little bunny scream like that. When we first heard the scream, we didn’t take note of it. We just figured it was some animal screeching outside. But when it happened again (and sounded quite close to the house), we were intrigued so we looked outside. And lo, there’s Olive with the bunny stretched out in front of her. She turned it around and it screamed again (that was the heart-wrenching, disturbing one, as we could see some interaction between predator and prey) and then she began licking its belly. Perhaps she had already ripped it open? Not sure. Then she wrapped her mouth around its face for a moment, as though she wanted to pick it up again.
I managed to snap one photo (coming soon when I get around to downloading the photos from my camera), but Olive apparently didn’t like the Auto-Focus light shining on her during her meal and I couldn’t bare to watch any more. Needless to say, she didn’t come home last night. Probably hovering over her kill and enjoying that satisfied feeling of being full. All that was left when I left for work this morning was a foot, the head, and some intestines.
Written on July 24, 2006 Filed under Life
Well, maybe not brief, but in the context of hiati (is that the plural of hiatus?), 2-1/2 weeks is probably brief. Anyway, we are recently returned from our mammoth 2-1/2-week roadtrip to visit family of all sorts. And, herein lies the rub. I don’t like having to utilize all of my vacation time to see family. But alas, most people that I interact with on a daily basis already know this, so I won’t bore you (anybody there?) with those details.
Either way, we did 1200+ miles of driving, but we got a lot accomplished…
- We went to Seafood Sam’s twice
- We toured Barrington, RI as a possible place to live
- We got Nicholas to the beach at the Cape
- We drove to the Jersey Shore and toured East Greenwich, RI as another possible place to live
- We got Nicholas to the boardwalk in Point Pleasant, NJ
- I got to go boogie boarding (haven’t been in 15 years or so; photos forthcoming)
- We got Nicholas in the pool
- We went to Talia & Mark’s wedding in NYC
- I went to An Event Apart while Katie visited family around North Jersey
- I got to do more work :-(
- We drove back to the Cape and toured Portsmouth, RI on the way
- We took Nicholas to see a fish hatchery
- We ran a 4.12-mile road race (my first race since I ran track in middle school). You’ll have to scroll almost to the bottom of the results page ;-) and Katie has now successfully guilted me into claiming that she won, since she ran slow with me (her idea) the whole way until we could see the finish line and I asked her if she wanted to sprint to the finish at which point I beat her by five seconds (although we crossed at nearly the same time… maybe it takes five seconds for my belly to get the hell out of the way)
- We went to Jim & Brenda’s engagement party
- We drove home
- My classic Daring Fireball shirt was waiting in the mail for me upon return
As you can see, we did a lot and were on the road a lot. Nicholas is a champ in the car, although now I think he’s a little gunshy when we try to put him in his car seat. It wasn’t the most relaxing vacation ever (hence our ultra-long weekend at Lake George in August), but it was nice to see everyone we saw and do everything we did. As usual (you already know this if you followed most of the links above), photos are up on Flickr, now with more available for public consumption. The cute ones are still Friends & Family only though… Sorry, but you can blame the freaks that scour the Internet for pictures of kids for that one.
Written on July 21, 2006 Filed under Life