Dog Meets Cat
Well, what I had hoped would not happen, happened. I was out with Shep a few evenings ago for his last trip outdoors for the night. He was doing his typical walk of the perimeter. The cat must have been hiding in the bushes at the far corner of the yard. When Shep got within about four feet of the bush he/she made a run for the opposite corner. A smarter cat would have just gone up and over the fence it was next to. But, noooooo, it decides to run the width of the yard. It was dark, but I didn’t need light to tell me it was the cat. The cat is snarling, the dog is snarling. I didn’t want to call attention to the situation anymore than the noise the two of them were making for fear the “babichka” (grandmother) upstairs would come down and make a scene. So I’m tearing across the yard in what could only be called a loud whisper and as firmly as one can, “Shep! No! Shep! Drop It!” The cat did get away. I don’t know if it was hurt in any way. Shep had a good scratch across the nose.
Two nights later I was again out with the dog and just happened to be looking at the opposite corner of the yard from the original incident, when a dark cat jumped over the fence. Of course, Shep saw it too and took off in that direction. The cat went right back over the fence long before Shep even close. I don’t know if it is the same cat or a different one. If it was the same one, you wouldn’t think it would come back into a yard with a dog, or at least check out the yard before it came over the fence. This cat has the intelligence of the two dogs upstairs.
Prague Post Article
We have been stopped once in the subway and three times on the tram for ticket inspections. The transit system is on the honor system as there is no checking that you have a valid ticket before getting onto a tram or subway. The first time was in the subway. I was reading signs and didn’t see him show his badge. I had to ask twice “Pardon?” Jack finally nudged me and said to show him my pass.
The second time was on the tram and this guy comes up and shows me a metal “pin”. It was 2”by may be 3”. It was yellow with some sort of coat of arms in red. It looked to be one of those pins that I have seen sold in tourist shops. I politely said “Ney, Dekuji” (No, thank you) assuming he was trying to sell it to me, and turned to look out the window. He repeated the gesture of showing the “pin” and very firmly said “Ticket”. I produced my pass apologizing. Jack just kept repeating “I can’t believe you did that, I can’t believe you did that”.
On that particular tram trip we were coming home from down town and had picked up the Prague Post paper. We got home and had to laugh when we saw the following article.
On my first visit to Prague, I was wandering around the touristy areas looking at souvenirs. Stand after stand sold cloth badges and metal pins with patriotic symbols. I went into the metro and two very poorly dressed men were aggressively trying to sell some souvenir pins. I saw one of them accept several 50Kc (about $1.50) bills from a young women and then fill out some kind of mail order form.
I didn’t want one of the costly pins, and I certainly wasn’t going to mail order for one. Still, I couldn’t get the salesman to stop following me around the station. Finally, somebody told me that the man was actually a transit ticket inspector, and the low quality “souvenir” was his badge. The “order form” was a receipt for a 200Kc fine.
Luckily, I had a valid ticket. The inspector was quite annoyed at having wasted so much time on someone with a ticket, and went to “hawk his wares” to another customer.
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The same gentle man has checked us two other times on the tram. We know him by sight now. I think he knows us too. He didn’t actually look at the pass to check the stamp, just nodded that we had it with us.
Skiing
Sounds like skiing is a little dangerous in the States. Racked up two in one month? We read about Bobby Kennedy’s son in the Tribune and heard about Sonny Bono on the morning news.
We have seen many reports from the ski areas not having much or any snow in the Czech Republic. One report was that they have even given up trying to make snow. We have had only the one snow so far this year. I guess this gave the resorts in the mountains a few weeks before it was gone and making snow proved to be futile.
Which reminds me, would someone in Grand Rapids let me know what the web site for the Grand Rapids Press is. The only thing I came up with is “gr.mlive.com.” That sounds more like Channel 8. Don’t they go by “Michigan Live”? Jack has been keeping up with sports using the ESPN site. Not sure how we’ll, if at all, see the Super Bowl. It starts at midnight for us. Mike had talked about taping it and then watching it Monday night. But somewhere along the line we’ll probably see or hear the score during the day. We’ll probably just end up reading about it on the Internet.
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