The haftarah learning has been moving in fits and starts since last week. I finally found a tutor. Elisson has been helping me with my haftarah these last few days, and boy, have I found a gem of a teacher. He knows his subject, he’s good at it, and he’s good at teaching me how to do it. He adapted his trope pronunciation to the one I’m learning from my former rabbi’s mp3, which is helpful, considering I’ve just learned four different trope pronunciations in less than two weeks. Tonight, I finally figured out something that I’ve been having a lot of trouble with, that should make the lessons go a lot faster. We shall see what happens tomorrow; I am utterly wiped out tonight and need to go to bed. But before I do, I need to keep a promise.
Elisson told me about a cat post he wrote, which seems particularly fitting to my upcoming celebration: His kitty’s Bat Meowzah. (And yes, he does really use the word “Meowftir.” Go click the link, you’ll see.)
And while we’re on the subject of cats, I have some hot-off-the-presses pictures of Tig and Gracie today, and a couple from a few days ago.
Tig will lick Gracie’s ears and head from time to time. It’s a socialization thing with cats, and it’s also a mating behavior. In fact, quite often, Tig will lick Gracie’s ears, then bite her neck and mount her, even though he hasn’t had the stuff he’s needed to do anything since he was about six months old. That’s when Gracie tends to growl and yowl, I tend to yell, and Tig tends to run away. But while I was taking pictures, every time Tig started biting Gracie’s neck, I said, “Leave her!” and he backed off.
The backing off allowed me to get these shots. They look so cute together when they do this. You’d hardly know Tig is just about to beat the crap out of Gracie.
This one is from this morning. I left the door open (it was marvelous out), and the cats went in and out freely, then settled in. Tig decided to do his usual “dead cat lying in the sun” routine. Then Gracie showed up in this perfect little LOLCAT picture. I really think she wants to be an only cat.
“It wuznt me, occifer. I found him lyin there.”
There. Enjoy your kitty post. There’s been enough stress around here to cause a few cases of apoplexy; now we can look at cat pictures and de-stress.
Cat pics are a great destressor especially Tig and Gracie, never enough pics of them. I didn’t realize how big Tig is. Gracie is tiny by comparison. She looks so sweet.
He’s big, but she’s not tiny, either. She’s a twelve-pound cat. She’s all curled up and tucked in in those photos.