Thursday, October 11, 2012

Cats, chickens and Germans....but mostly cats

September mainly involved cats and Germans. But no German cats.

 Mid-month, the twins and I took our two most presentable felines to a big show in Bourg-en-Bresse.
 The inhabitants of that town are referred to as "Burgiens", even though "Bourg-en Bressiens" would be way more fun to say. Burgiens are inordinately proud of their chickens, which are very tasty and expensive and famous throughout France. In 1814, the city was entirely ransacked by Austrian troops.
 IMHO, the incident was probably poultry-related. I'm just sayin....

So anyway, once again we entered our cats in the "chat de maison" category and took home all the prizes. This time, though, there was COMPETITION! However, Dexter was much admired by the judges and mercilessly ground the competion into the dirt.
The fact that said competion was a teeny tiny little black kitten was quite beside the point.
We didn't feel bad.
 At all.
Mostly.
Above you can see the twins posing in front of our cats' cage displaying their many fabulous trophies and ribbons, some of which were wrested from the tiny paws of a pathetically weeping baby kitty  - but I digress.....

Below we have a picture of Bill.  In the catshow world, Bill is called an "Exotic", which is much nicer than calling him a "Big Fat Bastard".
 Actually Bill is a real sweetie.  And his name is really "Neo".  But we all thought he looked more like a "Bill"
Neo Bill won second place in the overall category "Best in Show"  and is no doubt destined for a life of fame and glory. 
Below you will find a helpful guide to some of  the many cat breeds.
(You're welcome).

Germans showed up at the end of the month in the form of two 14 year old exchange students from the Lake Constance  region.    Apparently people in that lovely area of Germany have lots of spare time to fuss over their food requirements.  Or maybe they just eat fish out of the damn lake three times a day.  At any rate, I had quite a time feeding these two, as they were both not only vegetarian, but one wouldn't eat eggs, either!  The other liked eggs ok, but wouldn't eat any cheese.  We had veggie burgers twice and I counted the days until they left....
Next week, Alexa heads to Germany to make a visit in return.  I'm tempted to send her with instructions to pose as a macrobiotic vegan or possibly a fruitarian.....