The Interview - with a few recycling containers

Interview your favorite fictional character.

I do not believe it. One of the most boring prompts I ever got. Only 55 other bloggers bother with it, which explains how boring it really was. Just because WordPress put a years worth of daily prompts into an online album, it does not give them the right to ignore their bloggers with such repeats. They seem to think that it was really something fantastic to record all the old prompts in an online list, not thinking that some of us had answered the 365 prompts already. How dumb and stupid can you get? And now for something completely different.

No, this is not a bin for used up prompts, although it would be suitable. It is a bin for your doggy if you take a walk with him or her. Yes, we Swiss love order, tidiness and above all cleanliness and so we have these bins distributed along the river bank. They are even supplied with handy plastic bags. I am sure the dog lovers amongst us know how it works. Fido, or whatever he is called, had a natural urge. We all have them sometimes, but we have things called toilets, or you do your best to wait until at home. It is difficult to make it clear to Fido that he has to wait until arriving at home and so you allow him to go ahead. You then take a plastic bag, insert it over your hand, grip the unwanted recycling results with the bag and deposit them in the doggy bin. Humans are happy and Fido could not really care less. The things you see as you take a walk along the river.

If you really want to see how well we organise ourselves in this little country, then see this. These strange metal containers have a purpose. I found them standing next to our local tennis club. Perhaps there is one for discarded tennis balls. They are not Swiss robots spying on the population and recording all movements and thoughts. No they are bins, each for a certain purpose.

“I only accept glass.”

“Who said that?”

“Me, the one at the back on the left.”

“He is such a show off, I am especially reserved for aluminium foil.”

“And what about me, I literally swallow plastic bottles and spit them out again a few months later as a new plastic bottle.”

“I collect old clothes, but make sure they are clean before you throw them in.”

“Just a minute, I can hardly hear myself think. Take it easy, I am sure you all have a meaningful purpose in your lives.”

“Of course we do, but only because of the thoughtlessness of the humans. They would otherwise throw their rubbish unsorted in the bin bags.”

I suppose they are right. On the other hand these super containers are not cheap and neither is the recycling process afterwards. We, the Swiss tax payers, pay for the privilidge of having freshly sorted refuse, all neatly separated waiting for recycling. 

Today Mr. Swiss let me out on my own to do the week-end shopping. It must be at least a month, when not more, that I had the steering wheel of a car in my hands, but I remained cool and composed. I was surprised myself that I still knew how it worked. Mr. Swiss was attending the funeral of one of his ex school friends. I also belong to my school site on Facebook and it is tragic when you hear about the demise of a classmate and just a little depressing. As you become older, it happens more often than you would like and you realise how short our stay is in this time and space. Mr. Swiss saw many old acquaintances at the funeral. There will be another class reunion in a couple of weeks he told me.

And now I hear the call of the wild again. My blog is written, the sun is shining and I am in a short sleeved t-shirt mood, so I will put on my walking shoes and go - with a camera of course. This time it will be a solo walk, as Mr. Swiss is still recovering from the morning exhaustion. It will probably be a quick hop to the castle, a short visit to the horses and I have an appointment at the cemetery. There was an interesting ornament I saw, but unfortunately my prize winning attempt was blurred. It was a cold windy day and probably my hands were shivering. I now intend to do a retake of this.

See you all tomorrow with another warmed up boring prompt.

WordPress Daily Feline Prompt: Fight or Flight - a feline conversation

Write about your strongest memory of heart-pounding, belly-twisting nervousness: what caused the adrenaline? Was it justified? How did you respond?

“That is a dog Fluffy.”

“I cannot see the dog on the photo because I am blind, whatever that is,  but I know what a dog is Tabby. They have a sort of, well, doggy smell, not as  sweet flavoured as us felines and they bark.”

“So what do you do when you know there is a dog near.”

“I run Tabby as fast as my four paws will carry me.”

“That is because you are a beginner Fluffy. We are felines and we do not succumb to nervousness when there is a dog nearby.”

“So what do we do Tabby.”

“We look it in the eyes with an intense “I could kill you” look.”

“Does that work Tabby, does it go away?”

“If the dog is smaller than you are it might yap a bit and go, if it is a specimen like in the photo, an Alsatian, it will stay and return your stare.”

“So what do we do then.”

“We remain where we are of course and try it with a hiss.”

“And that will frighten the dog.”

“It could be that the dog barks.”

“Oh yes, they can be very loud. But then they go.”

“Errr, they should Fluffy, but there are canines that have no respect for us felines that were worshipped as gods in the old country.”

“And then”

“Yes Fluffy, it is then we apply the laws of Bastet, chapter 2, verse 3.”

“Which says?”

“Run for your life and dive in the next cat flap or up a tree. I would add that trees are only used if you know you can descend after the canine has gone.”

“What if the canine doesn’t go?”

“Fluffy, don’t ask silly questions.”

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WordPress Daily Feline Prompt: Doing it the Feline Way

Write about anything you’d like, but make sure the post includes this sentence:

“I thought we’d never come back from that one.”

“Remember that walk Tabby.”

“I will never forget it. Mr. Human says let’s go places so I thought a good idea.”

“True Tabby, I suppose he meant it well. I don’t get out much these days being blind it seems. Must remember to ask what that means. In any case he put on my lead and then we were off. I thought it would be a mouse hunt somewhere in the fields, but he decided we would do one of those human exercise paths.”

“I just came along for the ride Fluffy, but I would have been better off taking a trip to Nirvana in one of my sleeping cycles. No that was definitely not fun.”

“It was all over wooden planks going up and down. Even Mr. Swiss tripped on a piece of metal. He wasn’t happy about that and said a few profanities.”

“Humans always say profanities if something happens they don’t like. Glad that they do not exist in meow”

“But Tabby you sometimes say “dog”.”

“I know that is just a slip of the tail for want of something expressive to say.  You must admit when I say “dog” you pick up your ears.”

“Of course, dogs are not my favourite. On that mystery walk with Mr. Human there was a dog that crossed our path. Mr. Human got quite worried when I wanted to go back home. After the encounter of the canine kind things went quite smoothly until you shot off to chase a mouse and I wanted to follow. It was then that the lead got tangled in Mr. Human’s legs and he fell in the mud. He was not happy.”

“It was quite funny. Shame we felines do not know how to laugh. Did you see all that mud on his clothes.”

“I remember when we arrive back to our place. Mrs. Human was not happy and asked where he had been. He said he had gone for a walk with the felines and he added “I thought I would never come back from that one”.”

“I remember her shaking her head wondering how you get covered in mud by going for a walk with two nice felines like us. I think that was the last time he took us out for a walk. Building sites are not the places for felines, that is more canine. We have more refined tastes, strolling in the paths of nature.”

“And digesting nature’s rewards.”

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WordPress Daily Prompt: Bookworm

Tell us about the last book you read (Why did you choose it? Would you recommend it?). To go further, write a post based on its subject matter.

Photographers, artists, poets: show us WORDS.

The Alsatian in the photo belonged to a late friend of mine. It was her guard dog as she was handicapped, a dog to be proud of.

So what does the dog have to do with my daily prompt blog. To start at the beginning, I have a very good colleague on another blogger site, Mitch. He comments on my work, I comment on his and we once had a small discussion about  the late James Herbert, a British author. James Herbert writes normally so-called “horror fiction” and often centres his stories in the east End of London, where my origins are. This is not surprising as he also grew up in this area, his parents having a stall in the local market. He was only a couple of years older than me, but I never met him although probably knew his parents from local visits to the Bethnal Green Road market.

I have not yet read all of his books, but am on my way. Mitch recommended reading the book “Fluke” telling the story of a dog that was once a human. Generally I do not like reading books about animals. I just get too emotional if anything negative happens to the animal. I am an animal lover and one of the reasons I would never want to work at a vets is because I would be too much involved with the animal feelings. I have three felines, my trio infernal, but no dogs. I like dogs, but my felines have a sort of thing about dogs. They run away when they are near, I wonder why?

So I decided to read “Fluke” by James Herbert and found it one of his best books. Just two hundred pages, but packed with stories and emotions, both human and doggy. Fluke was born in an animal home where he was up for adoption. At the beginning he tells of his life snuggled up to other furry creatures like himself. He is eventually adopted but did doggy things his new family did not like (he was a bit careless about where his toilet was) and returned to the home where it was decided he was unadoptable and was on the death list. Fluke ran off and then the adventure starts. He is “adopted” by a large street dog who lived and was a watchdog on a site where cars are dumped. This is somewhere in the South of London and the man in charge appears a dubious character. Fluke’s settles in with his new friend Rumbo. Rumbo is a perfectly trained street dog and always seems to know where his next meal is. Needless to say Fluke learns a lot of doggy tricks from Rambo.

All good things come to an end and one day Fluke finds himself again on the road, but now a fully grown dog and no longer a puppy. He finds a few humans that take him in, for better or worse, wanders off again, and spends life living rough in forests and where he finds shelter. In the meanwhile he realises that he was once a human and finds his way to his human origins. I do not want to make this blog one big spoiler, so read it all for yourself. I can only say that Fluke’s human life does not turn out as he thought it was.

There are a few sentimental moments in the story, but I could live with them. It does not have a happy end or a sad end, but just the life of a roaming dog that wanders on his way. Fluke I grew to love you and your story.

Meet Toby

This may be a sort of surprise as most people know me as a cat person, but I am sure my cats will not mind me spending a few words about a dog. What did you say Nera - you don't like dogs. Nera my big black long haired furry monster cat seems to have a few objections. Nevertheless I will now spare a few words about Toby.

As already blogged, I spent almost a week in London. I was staying with a friend of mine and yes, she has a dog (see picture). I love dogs, but my cats do not love dogs, and so I have only cats. Anyhow Toby is a really lovable dog. He was found abandoned in park with two other dogs that were tied to a park bench and given to the dogs home where my friend chose him. He is a dog you just have to love, and I cannot imagine why someone would do something like abadoning such a lovable dog. He is very friendly and spent a certain amount of time sitting on my lap. Now and again he drifted into the garden, but he had discovered a hedgehog somewhere in a corner and had problems in deciding how to handle it. Eventually he gave up and came back inside.

So this is just a short blog to say meet Toby. He was also the subject of many photos that I took. He even posed for a close up, which is more than my cats would do. Yes Nera, I know you don't like close-ups, you prefer posing for a serious photo, but Toby was much more co-operative. He even looked into the camera, which is more than you cats do.

Taps was back in the office

Taps, my friends dog was back in the office yesterday. I made a short film (must remember not to talk so much when filming). He seems to be making himself at home slowly and quite enjoying himself. He has a nice sleep under the desk, gets lots of pats on the head from the girls in the office - he has moved in. He is now nine years old and is some sort of a retriever, but I am not so good on dog races. He has a new toy.

He also seemed to enjoy being photographed and let me take a close up of him. He definitely didn't disturb the work in the office. He is a very well behaved dog and most of the time was having a quiet lay down. He did attend one meeting, but didn't have much to say. It seemed that he was quite partial to croissants in the morning break.

Further to my blog yesterday in connection with the Swiss political situation, the story goes further today. The lady that became the candidate to replace the person that was no longer voted into the parliament, said she would give her decision this morning at eight o'clock whether she would accept or not. I had an appointment at the docs at 08.15 so I had just arrived at the parking house at 8.00 and was sitting in my car listening to the radio. Two cars away from me there was a young lady sitting in her car and I was sure she was doing the same. All's well that ends well, and the female candidate for the seat in our government said she would accept. I got out of my car at the same time as the other young lady who was sitting in her car and we both laughed and exchanged a few words on our satisfaction about the new member of the government. There is now quite a dispute about the whole thing in Switzerland.

Mr. Swiss did try to explain the details to me, but it is all so complicated. Someone did ask me how comes that you can just vote anyone into the government in Switzerland. Mr. Swiss said it is just part of the democracy that we are a free country and everything can be put to the vote. This makes the Swiss democracy a bit slow moving sometimes. If the government decide on something and you collect enough signatures against it then we all go voting to decided yes or no, with the result that we have 6 or 7 voting week-ends per year. Luckily we can also vote by post.

Of course to get popular enough to be voted into the government means you have to have a political party behind you, but it is possible and often happens in the annual government elections that always take place a couple of weeks before Christmas. If anyone is interested about what has happened now, you can read all about it on this link and click on the related stories, then you get the whole thing.

I am not very political really, I just know what I like and don't like. There is always a bit of excitement amongst us females in Switzerland when one gets voted into the government. Don't forget in Switzerland women only got the vote in 1971 and it is now the first time that 3 of the 7 members of the government are women.