2018-04-04 23:12 Living with cats - Each day comes with surprises
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Do you have pets? I have two cats, one which I brought from Japan and the other which was adopted from the local animal shelter. Both cats are adults, but they are still playful and active.
Mittan is a female cat. She was a stray cat and I don't know her age. A vet estimated her age and it seems she is around 11 years old.
Midon is a male cat. I don't know when he was born. I think he was also a stray cat.
Mittan is very skillful at opening sliding doors. My house has several sliding doors and as a matter of course, I want to keep them closed. However, for cats, the back space of the doors are unknown and mysterious areas, so they want to go in. They are very curious and are always looking for an opportunity to get in. They seem to know that I don't like them to get inside of the sliding doors. So, what Mittan does is open the sliding doors at midnight.
One night, I got woken up by a strange noise. It sounded like something was being dragged. It started for two or three seconds and stopped, then it started again. My heart started beating because I thought it might be a thief. I opened my eyes a little and looked at the direction of that strange noise. It was midnight and dark, but I could see the sliding door was moving little by little along with a strange noise, but I couldn't see anything. The next moment, I heard something bumping into the door and the door shook a little. I got up slowly and looked at the door. What I saw was Mittan sitting inside of the sliding door!
Since then, she has been trying to open every sliding door in the house. She seemed to enjoy it. Midon cannot open the sliding doors but he learnt that Mittan can open them, so he follows her when he wants to get inside of the door.
I always close the sliding doors and as soon I close them, Mittan opens them at midnight. We repeat this every day. I once used a prop for locking the door, but she scratched the door, so I stopped using it.
It's not only Mittan that surprises me. Midon is very active early in the morning. The day before yesterday, I was woken up by my head and pillow shaking. I was surprised and got up and saw Midon was holding my pillow with his forefeet and kicking it by his rear feet. There are toys made for cats for kicking, and I knew they are sold at pet shops. But why did he use my pillow and why it had to be so early in the morning? I know it's a useless question for cats.
Living with cats comes with each day filled with surprises, fun and a bit of annoyance.
2018-03-11 10:25 Seven Years Ago
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Today seven years ago, a massive earthquake struck Fukushima, Japan. When it occurred, I was at home in Kanagawa near Tokyo, it was about 300 km away from Fukushima. Even it was about 300 km away, the power of the earthquake was unbelievably strong.
I still have a video that was recorded in the living room of my house when it happened. We had a web camera in the living room and the camera recorded I was holding an aquarium that was splashing water and my cats were in a flurry and running around the room. If that disaster hadn't happened, I think I would still live in Japan.
Now, there are still lots of people who cannot return to their home. I hope people who evacuated and lost their own home are able to find a place where they can live at ease.
2018-03-04 07:21 Sue Grafton
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I heard the news that an American author of detective novels, Sue Grafton, died in late December 2017. I have read some of her novels long ago. I saw one of my colleagues was reading her book and I felt like reading it. That was the opportunity to read her books.
I like mysteries and detective novels. Firstly, I thought it should have been difficult to read for me, but it wasn't so difficult as I thought. There were many words that I didn't know but I just wanted to know who was a criminal and that enthusiasm that I want to know the truth of the case led me to read to the end.
I remember when I went to one of the biggest bookshops in Tokyo to buy Sue Grafton's book. It was easy to find her books even from far because the titles of her books were like the alphabet; "A" Is for Alibi, "B" Is for Burglar and so on.
I don't remember which books I have read but I would like to read them again. I would like to say thank you to Sue Grafton.
Her books gave me an opportunity to read English novels.