Below is an example of a autostereogram. ‘Crossing your eyes’ (crossing the lines of sight from your eyes) you should be able to see a 3D version of this pic. This concept, invented by the Hungarian neuropsychologist Bela Julesz features in this chapter.
Forgot to get the reference, it’s from the Wikipedia article about autostereograms.
This image is a cut from an original photo by whom I don’t know from somewhere in the gloaming beside the virtual ocean where we go surfing when we open our laptops, switch on our desktops or scroll up our mobile phones. Cell phones to you, too.
It might even be a cut from an image from iStock where I purchased maybe thirty useful shots a few years back. I don’t remember. The fire is the important thing, though. As in, Claire builds a fire.
We have started training. Apparently it’s a good idea for me to learn the meaning of some human words. This week we’re tackling “Sit” and “Come”.
When the old woman says “Sit” she means for me to go sit beside her on the couch. When I get there, I usually get some kibbles on her lap table, which is the board she lays over her knees to eat her dinner off or use her laptop on. “Sit” is easy.
“Come” is hard. She wants me to come right up to her feet before she puts the kibble down. When I have finished the kibble, she walks to the next place where she can perch on a chair or a bed, and says it again. “Come.”
I so don’t see the point. I’ll sit down and wait for the next kibble right where I am.
So then, next time we did “Come” I was really hungry, and it was worth my while to just follow her around the house, and be there before she even said the word. Too easy!
Probably she’ll make it hard again next time.
PS, I’m also learning to take selfies …
This story was written well before the no-no thing started about dogs dying in a story.
[I realize dogs are our best friends. I’ve owned a dog myself and it was a wrench to let her go when that became necessary. She was only nine years old when she developed a brain tumor and could not be saved.]
In this story one of the dogs briefly dies. So, I guess, you can take this as a spoiler alert.
I’ve started learning to put my head in things to get the kibbles out. For a long time I didn’t like my whiskers to be bent backward. Now, because I know there’ll be a kibble at the end of my hunt, I can bear it.
It proves that we cats are just as good at delayed gratification as humans are, don’t you think?
The old woman craftily loads kibbles into my catnip pillow case … I swear I don’t know when … in between me looking here there and elsewhere it must be.
When I walk by the bundled up pillow case and I can smell a kibble or two, that’s when I pounce.
I can even get the kibbles out of a crumpled piece of paper now. We had a lady visiting last night. She said, “My place is much tidier than yours!”
The old woman laughed. She said, “Tthat shouldn’t be hard!“
It’s true that the whole floor is busy with activities, is that necessarily untidy?
Just having a nap here, waiting for my bedtime kibble storm. Once I’ve eaten them, it’s time for me to encourage the old woman to go to bed. She complains it’s too early, but when I bite her ankle she soon goes.
Night times I play with the toys the old woman has put on shelves. Which I can reach now, except for my bird. It lives high on a bookshelf.
The old woman says I can have it back when she’s taken its voicebox out. Apparently there’s a nasty battery in there that’d kill me if I chewed on it.
Rita de Heer 