Jacoby really loves walking along Fort Point Channel.
I think he recognises the area, and he knows we’re close to home there. He can walk all the way to our building once we get past Binford Park.
You would think he’d prefer to walk on the side of the path furthest from the channel, but this isn’t the case at all.
I think he likes to look at the water.
I can’t argue with him; the channel is a lot more exciting than Gillette’s parking lot!
After the cat show in Concord, NH a couple of weeks ago, Jacoby and I couldn’t resist checking out Waterfront Park, which just happened to border on the parking lot for the showhall, Everett Arena.
I think it was his favourite part of the day.
I was amused that he was more active exploring the riverbank than he was the entire time he was on the agility course.
We’ve never really gotten to explore a river. We walk along Fort Point Channel, but we don’t really get up close to the water unless we’re on the dock.
I think after spending a day as a pampered show cat, Jake enjoyed a little walk in the wild.
And it’s a really pretty park, too.
My favourite part of the outing was Jake’s constant commentary. It was hard to get photos of him with his mouth closed, he was talking so much!
City cats have a whole different skillset than cats who live in rural settings.
Take, for example, the elevator.
Most cats would have no idea what the heck was happening to them if you put them into a box that took them to another place, but Jacoby takes it in stride.
“Oh, hey, the lobby! Cool.”
He knows that the buttons have something to do with making the doors open, and he knows which doors to stand in front on so he’s ready when they open. One of the elevators opens on both sides depending on which floor you’re on, and he almost always remembers which door is the one that will open.
He also gets impatient when the doors don’t open quickly enough for his liking.
Last Monday, I posted some photos of Jacoby running in the hallways of our building. But I left out the funniest part.
As I illustrated in last week’s cartoon, even better than running in the hallway, Jake loves to roll around in the hallway.
Just like I drew, he’ll be running along and then just suddenly flop onto his side.
I have to be careful if I’m running along with him; he actually stops so suddenly sometimes that I almost trip over him!
(This is actually a shot of him as he’s just about to flop)
And yes, sometimes he does that silly thing cats do on carpet: he pulls himself along on his side.
I have a theory as to why he does this. The house he was born in has carpeting. Our place has hardwood floors.
So I think that, for Jake, rolling around on the carpet is kind of like kneading; it reminds him of when he was a kitten.
One day a year, our neighbourhood goes just a little bit crazy.
Every year, on the Sunday closest to St. Patrick’s Day, all the rest of Boston descends on Southie for Boston’s annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade.
Even St. Patrick himself showed up!
Bet you’ve never seen an Irish Viking before, have you?
This police officer really got into the spirit of things. He even dyed his mustache green!
There were plenty of dogs watching the parade (including our neighbour, Arthur the Puggle), but I’m pretty sure Jake was the only cat in attendance.
This was the first time since living in South Boston that I decided to brave the crowds and go downstairs to see how bad it really was. Since it was an incredibly nice day (the best we’ve had so far this year), I took Jacoby with me.
(Thanks to the random paradegoer who took this photo of us!)
He did very well with all the people; the thing he cared for the least was the drums.
I have to say, though, that he was rather bemused by the crowd outside his front door.
It looks like he’s telling those damn kids to get off his lawn, doesn’t it?
Our building is at Ground Zero for the parade; the driveway between our building and the (pardon the expression) green building next door is used as one of the staging areas for the parade.
However, being at the start of the parade route means that if you’re trying to go somewhere in Boston away from Southie, it’s fairly easy to get out of the area (as long as you’re walking, not driving). Because it was such a warm spring afternoon, I took Jake out to the Harborwalk for our first trip to the park.
The street in front of the Welder’s place and Gillette’s parking lot are other staging areas for the parade.
Jake and I saw these Irish Setters getting ready for the parade when we cut through the parking lot on our way to the park.
Once we got past Gillette, the Harborwalk and the parks (we went to Wormwood and Binford) were remarkably quiet and empty considering the weather.
We had a wonderful time outside today.
Angel, too, celebrated St. Patrick’s day, in her own way.
She watched the parade live, on television!
In last week’s Fashion Friday post, I had just received two custom-made Hug-a-Dog harnesses. They looked amazing on Jacoby, and he seemed to like them, too.
It was a rather chilly morning when we took the train to Providence, so Jake wore his coat.
He was warm and stylish.
I love his name on the back of the harness. Such a nice option to even have offered when ordering a harness!
Jake agrees with me!
On Sunday, we had a little downtime between getting to the show hall and the judging starting. Jake was a little antsy (he gets a bit tired of being carried everywhere at shows), so I put his harness on him and let him walk around.
At first, we just sort of puttered around the back of the hall, near our benching area (we were at the back, near an open space). We had wanted to walk in the foyer of the Convention Center, but some guy in the business center told me there were “no animals allowed in the public area.”
The foyer was completely empty; Jake just wanted to look out the floor-to-ceiling windows…but the foyer was carpeted, so I think the “no animals in the public area” thing was really “no animals on the carpet.” Whatever.
It seemed a little petty to me, but we stayed on the cement as commanded.
Then, my friend Laurie (who, with her husband Michael, was showing her little blue-cream and white tortie Sphynx and benched next to us) suggested we go next door to the Pet Expo part of the show. While the cat show started at 9am, the Pet Expo wasn’t open to the public until 11am, so we could go over there and explore before it got too crowded.
There was some sort of child beauty pageant going on, and this girl was in it.
I thought she was super cute, although she has more curlers in her hair than I’ve ever worn in my entire life.
There were also other animals at the Pet Expo. Like llamas…
…and goats…
Jake wasn’t entirely sure about those goats.
But the goats were curious about Jake!
There was even a goat on a leash, who was being introduced to a Basenji.
I would have gone up to them with Jake, but they seemed kind of busy.
The best part of going over to the Pet Expo side, though, was the dog agility course! Jake loved it.
But then, what Aby wouldn’t? It’s high, you can see everything, and it’s fun to climb.
Pretty much an Aby definition of awesome. One thing I really want to do with Jake is feline agility*, but we haven’t been to a show that was doing it yet.
Dog agility course furnishings are a lot bigger than the ones for felines, though.
Didn’t seem to bother Jake at all, though.
There was also a tunnel for the dogs to run through.
Pretty much the polar opposite of the A-frame, but still fun.
All in all, we spent about an hour over there, checking everything out, playing with the agility course, and talking to people and other animals. Jake met more dogs, too: a Papillon, two Golden Retrievers, and a Shar-Pei.
So, Jake’s Hug-a-Harnesses? Two paws up. There is one modification I’m thinking of doing to them for Jake, which is sewing the neck shut and putting the buckle on the belly Velcro©, because I find I tend to slip these over his head and only open and close the belly strap; if I do that, I’ll be sure to post photos…but first I need to outsmart my new sewing machine, which is smarter than I am.
* One note: if you follow that link to the NY Times’ article about feline agility, you’ll see a mention of “Twyla Mooner, a Bengal from Reston, Va., [who] is considered one of the greatest agility champions”. Yeah, we already know all about Twyla Mooner…and she is NOT a Bengal. She is a blue Abyssinian, thank you very much, and she is awesome at agility. So there, New York Times. You are incorrect.
I took Jacoby with me when I got my hair cut.
He was very calm and composed while I was being worked on.
Blow dryers, music, people talking? Not a problem.
Of course, my hair salon, Avanti South, is in the same complex as the building we live in, so it wasn’t very hard to bring him along with me…
One thing I want to do more of this coming year is explore the city with Jacoby. Because of the trapped nerve in my hip, I wasn’t able to do that at much as I wanted to in 2011.
This was last week; I took Jake with me on a quick trip to the Post Office. It was actually sprinkling when we were out, but Jake didn’t seem to mind.
Oh, my, what have I started?
Kim, the person who belongs to Jacoby’s Uncle Clancy and his cousin Finn, writes:
So, of course I have traveling pics of my boys, too LOL!
Finnegan much prefers to be out of his carrier in the car – he’s on lock down until we hit the highway for most trips – because he loves to gawk out the windows and freak out the cars passing us. Passengers will look over and see a ruddy aby screaming at them, because you just know he’s talking the entire time.
Clancy, however, will snuggle down and chill in the kitty cube that always travels with him – he’s an awesome car passenger… silent and most times asleep within 20 minutes!
I wish Jake took after his uncle and not his cousin! As I’ve posted in the past, he feels the need to comment on every single thing he sees and feels…
I got this email and photo from Julie, Toki Nantucket’s mom:
“That ‘Other People’s Abys’ post with the Aby in the car reminded me of this, so I had to send it to you. This is Toki complaining in the car. We were stuck in traffic. The funny thing is, this was on the way home after the Blessing of the Animals. Toki got blessed by a priest at the Church of St Francis for the Feast of St Francis. He was really good the whole time, even when the priest put the holy water on his head. And even though there were dogs everywhere. On the way home though, I guess he had enough. He complained LOUDLY the whole way home. I put him back in his carrier after the traffic let up. But he doesn’t look very holy here, does he? Hehe.”
I think he looks like he’s saying, “I said to go through the Park, not take 5th! Now we’re gonna get trapped going uptown at rush hour!”
It is so much fun to take Jacoby out in his stroller.
He really loves his stroller. He knows it’s his (just like the Sturdi show cage) and he treats it like his own personal fort, and when he’s in it, he’s absolutely fearless.
He also likes to go fast. Very fast.
Just like with the cart in our building, he loves it when we run while we’re pushing his stroller.
The faster, the better, as far as he’s concerned.
It is so funny to watch that little speed demon stretch up as far as he can to feel the wind. Zoom!
Today was an extraordinarily amazing, warm, gorgeous day for late November; it got up to 63° in Boston (the record for this day was 67°, in 1946) and there was no way Jacoby and I weren’t going outside to take advantage of it. We didn’t do much, just walked along Fort Point Channel to the post office and back, but we did have a chance to check out the new P&G/Gillette Public Dock that they were building all summer and which officially opened last month.
It’s really cool. It’s just a small wooden dock, floating on the water, that’s open to the public. I’m sure it’ll be busy in the summer when people with kayaks and little boats start using it. But hopefully we’ll get a chance to sit on it and watch the jellyfish at some point next year.
Actually, it was really nice to sit on it today. There weren’t any jellyfish, but we did see a Horned Grebe
Now you get to choose: a photo where I’m ready and Jake isn’t…or one where he’s ready and I look like I’m asking why the flash didn’t go off.
(Me ready, Jake not)
(Jake ready, me not)
But my point is, how often, living in a place that gets a freak snowstorm on Halloween weekend, do you get to sit outside with your sleeves rolled up and no socks on?
Yeah, it was a pretty good day.
After we’d exhausted the possibilities of squirrels and trees at Boston Common, we went to meet my husband where he was getting his hair cut.
Truth be told, it was a little chilly outside, and coming inside was rather pleasant.
Jacoby loved it. It was a new place to him (I hadn’t thought we’d be allowed inside before) and full of things to see and hear and smell.
And, of course, everyone in the place made a fuss over him.
I think that’s the part he likes best about going on outings with me!
Whenever I find a good climbing tree when we’re out, I love to put Jacoby up into its branches so he can have a look around.
Granted, this particular tree wasn’t very tall, but it still put Jake higher than the top of my head.
He seemed pretty content with this.
Although it seemed to take him a few minutes to settle comfortably in the tree’s branches.
Jake did eventually find himself a cozy perch from which he could spy on passersby.
I’m sure he also kept an eye out for any squirrels
Thanks to Abyfriend Katscan for this link to an article in today’s Vancouver Sun: For jogging Vancouver cat, life’s a walk in the park
(Photo via the Vancouver Sun)
Jafari Jamison Underfoot, or JJ as he is called by his friends, is another Aby who loves to go out with his people on adventures (and another Canadian Aby, too). I had to laugh when I read his story and looked at his photos, because he reminds me so much of Radar, the Central Park-going Manhattan Aby. And, of course, Jacoby and me (especially the part about being “cat ambassadors”).
I don’t know if Vancouver is just happy to have some non-hockey-related news to report (oh, snap!) or if they just really love Abys at the Vancouver Sun, but they really did a great job of showcasing JJ; along with the story, there is also a video showing JJ running with his humans as well as an extensive photo gallery showing JJ’s adventures both at home in Vancouver and on vacation in Seattle!
Be sure to check out JJ’s Facebook fan page, too.
Just for fun, I looked up Port Coquitlam Abyssinian breeders, and turns out, there’s just one: Abayomi Abyssinians. This is the breeder who raised the remarkable three-legged blue kitten, Ajani Tut, So JJ and Ajani are related!
