Our friend Penny was entertaining the grandkids and they asked her if she'd ever seen a Sasquatch. Now for those of you who didn't grow up in the Pacific Northwest, a Sasquatch is a mythical large ape that is supposed to live in the mountains around here. Some people believe they exist. I keep pointing to the utter lack of any physical evidence, real hair or other samples, no carcass has ever been found, none has ever been hit on the highway, or been caught rummaging through someone's garden. In addition there is a complete lack of ape fossils, Sasquatch or otherwise in North America, and even monkeys are not found after the Eocene. All of this makes me fairly confident when I say they don't exist. But as I said, some people think they do. Now the grandkids are ages 8 and below so they like to believe in a lot of things, the Tooth Fairy, the Great Pumpkin, and the Sasquatch. They asked Penny if she'd ever seen a Sasquatch. She said she had not seen any purebred ones but she had seen a part Sasquatch. They asked her what she meant and she told them if a Sasquatch married a regular person their kids would be half Sasquatch. Then if those kids married a regular person their kids would be one quarter Sasquatch, and that's what she'd seen, someone who was a quarter Sasquatch.  The kids eyes got really big and they said, “Really?" "Yes said Penny, and if you're really quiet I'll show you." She took them along on tiptoes to the other room where she lifted up a blanket to show a furry leg. The kids gasped with astonishment. That woke up Dave, Penny's husband who wondered what all the fuss was about. He was not terribly happy when he found out what Penny had told them. He was especially not happy when, for the rest of the weekend, the grandkids kept coming up with excuses to touch the fur on his legs and arms because "Grandpa is a quarter Sasquatch." 

Those of you that have cable know about Space, I guess they call it SyFy south of the border. It's the Science Fiction channel. They run a mixture of bad old science fiction movies, bad old science fiction series, and new, really really bad science fiction productions. They are fond of running things like the Sharknado films as well as Megashark vs Crocosaurus and Abraham Lincoln vs Zombies. They only deal in quality material. 

They would have had a field day with this. People near Victoria photographed a harbour seal catch a giant pacific octopus. (Yes we have giant octopus here).
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/seal-wrestles-octopus-in-rarely-captured-scene-in-b-c-waters-1.2952020
Of course the people at Space would have called it Megasealodon vs. Giant Octopusosaur and rushed it into production with a special effects budget measured in the tens of dollars.
I did notice the expression on the seals face. I didn't think seals had expressions but this one looks intense. It's mad and it's going to get that octopus come hell or high water. Of course high water would be no problem for a seal. But you know what I mean.

For the last few weeks we've been dealing with a couple of neurotic cats. Imoto is settling in. Marsha and her are bonding well. Marsha can pet her and they play together. Imoto is less comfortable around me though. I suspect it's because I'm gone at work all day so she doesn't see me as much. Well, then there was also the incident last Tuesday. You see, I get up before Marsha. I try not to disturb her so I don't turn on the lights. There's enough from the nightlight and the clock to see where things are. Anyway on Tuesday I was up getting ready, when I noticed I had left my slippers in a pile in the middle of the room. Marsha has a tendency to trip on them so I took my foot and scooted them over to the closet, or I would have, but as soon as my foot touched the pile of slippers one of them jumped up and ran out the door. Apparently like many cats Imoto likes the smell of leather and had taken up napping on my slippers. The result of this encounter is that she is back to eyeing me with suspicion whenever I walk around. All I can say though is that I did warn her. Longtime readers may remember a nice talk we had a month or so ago when I told her that I was a half blind primate and she was a cat. Her night vision is better than mine and so any incidents in the dark are therefore her fault. I suppose it could have been worse though. I almost tried to put the slippers on. 

Momiji is just generally neurotic. She’s happy unless she sees Imoto. When that happens she growls and hisses. But then she growls and hisses when a shadow reminds her of Imoto. She growls and hisses when she remembers Imoto. They haven’t come to blows, but that’s because we’ve been keeping them apart. Only supervised visits at the moment. I think Momiji will settle down. Familiarity breeds indifference, after all. But for the moment things have been a bit tense for them. 

There was a bit of international news involving Canada. A Canadian bred, born, raised and owned Beagle won the Westminster Dog Show. Not just Canadian, but one from B.C. even.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/photos/westminster-dog-show-miss-p-canadian-owned-beagle-best-in-show-1.2961442
There is no limit to the...oh what's the word I'm looking for. Pride? Not exactly. Amazement? No that's not really it either. Oh, I know. Indifference. I am filled with indifference upon hearing this story. It is immeasurable by any instrument known how little I find myself caring about this. I just include it because it's a nice Canadian story. 

The thing is, dog shows have always struck me as odd exercises. I mean let's take a variety of animals all well bred, all immaculately groomed, and all exquisitely trained and decide which of these utterly dissimilar creatures is "best". I just don't understand how they can look at a bunch of dogs and say, “This Schnauzer is better than that Great Dane but neither are as good as the Beagle." What? You're comparing completely dissimilar things. There's so much variation between the breeds that making a declaration as to comparative quality seems rather arbitrary. I can understand Best in Breed, at least they’re all the same thing, but Best in Show just seems weird. 

We have friends that showed dogs and they did rather well with them. We were always very happy when Sophie won Best Lhasa Apso, but I never understood how Sophie, as beautiful as she was, could have been better or worse than a totally different kind of dog. What's next, we put a bunch of cars and furniture in a room and declare one to be the "best"?  How about having a contest to decide between an assortment of computers, firearms, and potted plants which is "best". Now if the show were for similar items, say an all Beagle show or an all Clydesdale show, or an all Siamese show, then I could understand how you could decide one over another. But when they are comparing creatures that have about as much in common as I do with an orangutan I just don't get it. That does give me an idea though. How about we let chimps, gorillas, and orangutans compete in the Miss America pageant? That makes about as much sense, and the show would certainly be more interesting. At least the talent competition would have more variety. It would also have more drama too. I mean just imagine the girl that not only didn't win but came in third behind the winner - a chimpanzee. Ouch. Or worse yet, there's a scandal involving Miss America, so she has to step down and is replaced by a gorilla. 

I'm liking this idea more and more.

PIX: Closest snow, The long zoom.