Friday, June 09, 2006

Marlin Perkins Must Live In The Neighborhood

When I was a kid, way before Animal Planet ever existed, we had Mutual Of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. I don't remember much about the show other than it highlighting wildlife as we've never seen it before; especially in the Bronx, where I grew up.

Here at my temporary digs, we have a lot of creatures in our cul-de-sac. Dogs we live with, cats that roam the neighborhood and an occassional mayfly that gets in the house and freaks me out because it looks like a mosquito on steroids.

Today I was watching the neighbor cats stalk some prey. This one, Amethyst, with the green fire in her eyes, had just captured a mole. I watched her sneak up on it, pounce and then carry it to a private area to torture it some more. She was looking around like the crazed feline that she is, making sure no one was watching. Oh, but I was. Check her out:

Then we have Frank, a pretty albeit devious one, just sitting by and watching the whole thing as I was. He was very intent on what was going on with 'ol Amethyst and I could tell by the way he continued to stare and then cock his head, that something was amiss.
Amethyst turned her back for a second, and boom! Frank moved in. As you can see, he picked up where Amethyst left off and took her prey back to his own yard. Didn't turn back, didn't show any remorse, just walked away like nothing happened.
I got a real kick out of watching this transpire. Down here in the South, I'm learning that being on the front porch makes for an interesting evening. And I'm also thinking Marlin is lurking around the corner laughing somewhere; and probably saying to himself, Boy, this chick is easily entertained, isn't she?

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