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Follow up on cats – K’s question

January 10, 2009

The cats hang out on campus because they are welcome. I suspect they help keep the rodent population down. The college sees to it that they are neutered/spayed and the security guards feed them. There are stray cats everywhere in the city, so a few wandering onto campus is not surprising. In fact, they are the lucky ones.

I haven’t seen any evidence of the cats chasing or catching birds. Birds are also welcome on campus. Much of the landscaping is done to attract the birds. (Although, I do wonder if the myna bird population might reach critical mass some day soon.) Some of the birds are too big for the cats to easily take down – mynas, doves, pigeons, and hoopoes, but there are also smaller birds that would make an easy target. I suspect that the cats are content with mice and kitty kibble.

As for my library wandering kitty, I saw her as I was leaving campus Thursday and I sat down on a bench and beaconed to her. She came running to be petted, jumped up on the bench and cuddled up beside me. She kept rubbing her chin on me, so I think our relationship was not harmed by my refusing to let her wander the library freely. She even purred for me.

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Campus wildlife

January 9, 2009

These flowers look like gardenias, but I am always disappointed when I smell them, because they are not gardenias. I can’t detect much fragrance from them at all.
The red arrow is pointing to where my office is.
This fountain is a very popular spot with the minas in the afternoon. They love to have their bath in it.
The minas also congregate in the trees near the front gate. The noise of their chatter is astonishing.
This garden area near the front gate is usually full of birds in the afternoon also.

This is a white cheeked bulbul.
Can you find all the birds in the picture above? I see 5 white cheeked bulbuls. What do you see?
This is one of our campus cats. I usually see her near the front gate. She seems friendly and runs up to me, rubs against my legs and meows LOUDLY, but she does not like to be petted. Talk about mixed messages. Having her cheeks rubbed seems to be okay, but she’s not crazy about a simple pet down the back.

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Kitty fun

January 8, 2009

When I arrived at work yesterday one of the campus cats was laying on the mat in front of the door, so I stopped to pet her. Now that the weather is cooler, they actually have fur and are more pleasant to pet. In the 120F summer heat they shed to the point of being almost hairless.

A short time later I was sitting in my office and I heard her meowing. They tend to have very big voices here, so I thought “Wow, I can hear her all the way inside the building.” Then the meowing got louder and I, being brilliant, put two and two together and went looking for her. She had just entered the periodicals room and was roaming around to investigate. So, I talked to her and picked her up telling her we should take a walk outside where she belongs. We headed for the door, but one of my coworkers had called custodial to come and remove the cat, so I tried to hand her off to him, but he had NO idea how to handle a cat and she was soon loose again. I thought that she would now give us a chase, having been handled roughly, but she laid down on the floor and rolled over, so I was able to pick her up and take her for a walk away from the entrance of the library myself.

That was my big excitement for the day.

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Two follow ups

November 18, 2008

First – Rain

We both loved the rain in Portland and were not part of the crowd that complain about it, so moving to a sunny desert is a big adjustment for us. We will be celebrating every rain storm and every cloud.

Second – Birds

The common birds on campus, that I could not find in my bird book, are common mynas, which explains why they are so noisy in the afternoons. There seem to be even more of them these days, so perhaps some are migrating through.

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Book sale

November 14, 2008

Here we are at the Magrudy’s Bookstore warehouse sale. “Everything must go!” This is the line of people waiting. Yes, that is a man holding a Siamese cat (on a halter and lease, no less). He put it down later and took it for a drag.
Below, we have a Christmas tree. Yes, the Christmas shopping season has begun in Dubai.
A display of Christmas books.
The line continues…
And continues… Mostly expats, so they knew how to line up, at least.
Finally, the golden gates, the emerald city, the holy grail, the river Jordan, the end of the rainbow…
The madhouse — where butts collide. Just rows of boxes full of books of various kinds.
They had a very efficient system and once we got into the checkout line (which I thought would be long and slow) it moved too quickly. I wanted to checkout the books as I stood in line, but it moved fast. They counted them up, you paid your money and you got out. Simple as that. Dhs 5 for paperbacks ($1.37) and Dhs 10 for hardbacks ($2.74).
Above is the cafe where we sat afterward and watched the line which was still strong when we left an hour or so later. (Really bad service at this cafe. Felt bad about leaving a Dhs 7 tip, but had already waited a ridiculously long time for our food and didn’t want to wait for the change.)
Below are our treasures. Mostly travel and language books. 41 books for $60.00. Now we need a book case!

Posted in books, cats, Christmas | 2 Comments »

Hoopoe Bird!

November 11, 2008

This is a Hoopoe bird. I’ve seen a few in motion from a distance, but this one was very accommodating and stood still to pose for me. Unfortunately, his crest was not unfurled. They are very impressive when in full plumage array. (http://www.birdsoman.com/Birds/091-Hoopoe/Hoopoe/Hoopoe.htm) He was happily hunting for bugs in the area around the base of a tree.
I really enjoy the variety of birds here. The campus has a lot of trees, bushes and fountains, so birds are drawn to it like an oasis. In the afternoon, it can be quite noisy as they are bathing in the fountains and chattering to each other in the trees.

We also have yellow or red vented bulbuls (their butts are vibrant yellow or red, but you have to be under them looking up to see it – dangerous position.) There is another very common bird on campus, but it is not listed in the bird book I bought, so I am still wondering what it is. It is about the size of a robin and acts very similar, but is colored very differently. They are amusing, because they will get up on the windowsills and peck at the window as if they want to be let in. They’ve provided comic relief for many a long meeting, I suspect.

We also have many doves. They are a rosy brown color. They make lovely cooing sounds and toddle all over campus.

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Miscellaneous – cats, civil servants, Obama

November 6, 2008

First – cats. Daddybird met up with our little friend (pictured in previous entry) again. He offered him some cat food, but Nipper (as he has now been dubbed because loves to give “love bites”) was more interested in being petted and playing with Daddybird than with eating. Very odd for a cat living by his wits on the streets. I told Daddybird this cat seems to have Maslow’s hierarchy of needs all upside down. (Maslow says we have to have our basic needs of food and shelter met before we can deal with social interaction and self-actualization.)

Second – civil servants. The government has declared that everyone has to get a national identity card. Apparently, this has been in the works for some time and the plan was that citizens would get theirs first and expatriates would get them by the end of next year. However, in true UAE fashion, it was recently announced that professional expatriates would have to get them by Dec 31 of this year and government employees would have to get them by the end of October. This resulted in a big rush to comply. However, the online application form is inadequate to handle the load and it is near impossible to get the form filled out successfully. You also have to make an appointment to go to one of the offices handling this procedure in order to complete the process. IF you didn’t fill out the form online successfully, you can go to the office an hour before your appointment time and pay them to type it up for you. The online form is the only form that is acceptable, so don’t try showing up with a printed out form. Also, if you are even a little late for your appointment, too bad. You are turned away and will have to make another appointment for some other day. Here is the “Third World” part of this country. The civil servants are neither civil nor servants. The rules are the rules and there will be no deviating from them. No mercy. No accommodation. Just come back when you can do it according to the rules. So, I think it goes without saying that we were late, with the wrong application forms, and do not have our id cards.

Third – Obama. You may be happy or sad according to your political bent, but most everyone here is happy. Daddybird was stopped last night by an Emirati woman who was doing a survey about a new furniture market and when he said he was American, she congratulated him on Obama’s win.

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Down our street

October 31, 2008

It was 77F when we left the apartment this morning. We thought we’d take a little walk before it got too hot.

This is the police station just down the street from our apartment building.
The rapid transit train will make its transition from being an elevated train to a subway here. You can see the support columns getting progressively shorter.

Notice the men in the picture above. Two of the men on the right are wearing lungi (or dhoti) instead of pants. This is basically a single piece of cloth about 5 yds long that is wrapped around and knotted at the waist. The man on the left is apparently African and wearing a caftan type garment.
In the picture above, our apartment building is just above the head of the guy in the foreground.

I attempted to get this hotel that is under construction in one shot, but it was impossible. And, yes that is a plane flying over it. We frequently see planes flying in for a landing, but there isn’t a noise issue.

This amazes me. They have brought in this large metal platform and will be attaching the concrete sections that will connect the columns and support the train track soon.

Yes, that is the same plane as in the previous photo.
This is the path we take on a daily basis to go to and from our apartment. On the left is the train construction and on the right is a new building being built. This particular building is slow going up and is being done the hard way. Probably not as well funded as most construction projects are.
The black spot way in front of Paul is a stray cat. We both carry a small bag of cat food with us so that we can give a little treat to the stray cats we encounter. He was a cutey. Very lean, but looked healthy. He had a hard time choosing between being petted and eating the food we gave him.
He broke my heart by following us and meowing pitiously. The cats here are very long legged, have big ears and very long tails. They have very little fur due to the heat. Every cat I’ve met so far has had an incredibly loud voice.