When educated people explain the application of
Occam's Razor to the rest of us poor simpletons, the example that they might use is this: if he were to perceive a noise like approaching thunder across an open meadow under a clear blue sky, the sensible Saxon churl would expect to see horses and
not zebras.
While it is meant to reduce complication, Occam's Razor does not exclude other possibilities than the obvious ones. It merely allows that, in
most cases, the simplest explanation is the most probable. It does not imply that the invading Normans might
not, in fact, have been mounted on bloodthirsty, carnivorous zebras.
To illustrate further, when we hear the same sort of rumble in our house, we find that, rather than expecting either horses
or zebras, it is more reasonable for the Tall Lady and me to infer the proximity of a clowder of clog-dancing kittens. So it has ever been, and with any sort of luck, shall always be.
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| Fabio |
Our housing co-op has an eight-paw policy, and currently, including Sheral's and mine, we have thirty-nine paws in our two-bedroom unit. The others belong to our two
Flying Fellini Sisters, la Bella Bianca, the Mighty Leonard, and our four eleven week-old foster cats, who are called
"the Carport Kittens", or to be more familiar "
the Littles".
The handsome, spotty lad in the photo at the left is named
"Don Fabrizio", but because it is too much of a mouthful, it is usually shortened to "Fabio". We are so very proud of him, that on occasion, we call him
"Fabulo". Because of his passing resemblance to our
Big, Perfect Cat, this has been extended to
"Fabulo, Son of Xena" - although never within shot of
her sensitive ears.
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| Cheech |
The long, lean, black smile on the right belongs to
"Don Ciccio". Cheech has become our Leonard's best little buddy, and the two of them will tear around the house in blatant disregard of innocent bystanders or their personal space. All four of the Littles are lap-cats, but Cheech has the least time to spare for that. He has too many things to do,
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| Connie |
"Dona Conchetta" is still the biggest of the four. Connie's short, soft, wooly coat is Russian-blue in colour, but has faint tabby stripes. Her body type and her face have a British short-hair look about them, and she has a little, kinky manx-like tail which she twirls like a pinwheel. All of these things lead me to believe that their mom is a liberal democrat. Connie enjoys long, animated conversations, the
National Geographic Channel and French kisses.
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| Cara |
Finally, there is
"Dona Carolina", the little cutie who settled, purring, onto Sheral's lap that Saturday at Karen Duncan's house, and sealed our doom. Her markings are a mix of tabby stripes and tabby rosettes. We were not aware until our friend Lilian spotted it in one of my photos that the pattern of her coat forms a little monogrammed
"C" on her right side, but we always knew that she was cool. Cara is the smallest kitten at the moment, but she is fearless. Where the other seven cats will flee in terror from
Our Friend the Vacuum Cleaner, little, fragile Cara can usually be found standing defiantly on the middle platform of our big cat tree, hurling insults on the poor Kenmore's ancestry and making rude gestures at it.
The Littles should be up on the
VOKRA gallery pages soon. Today, I'm supposed to be writing biographies to include with their photos. I just hope that I can think of something interesting to say about them.
I too have a swirly tabby. I think that quite possibly the 'C' on Cara's side might serve two purposes: firstly, to indicate that she is blessed with the Italian version of my younger daughter, Caroline's name, and secondly to indicate that she is what the books (aka Google Images)describe as a 'Classic Tabby'. Cara, of course, would no doubt prefer you to believe that it does, in fact, mean 'Classy'.
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