Moira's Representin'

Picture courtesy of Herr Strobel

This evening we all got the pleasure of meeting Shelly, the woman who very generously (and understandably) has moved from Beijing to be with Marc.

Shelly has never met a cat before. Not socially, anyway. Moira got to be the first and, might I say, she performed admirably.

It helps that the cat in question doesn’t move a lot and when she does it’s not quickly. And that she really loves it when humans pet/scritch her so she will go out of her way to be with people. Moira was very pleased to be able to eat a treat out of Shelly’s hand (but only for Shelly’s benefit, of course).

Shelly’s initial response to a feline? “She is very handsome. I like her.” Shelly wasn’t quite ready to hold Moira yet but she did seem generally taken with her.

Go Mo Kitty! Way to be an ambassador for your race!

An additional piece of trivia which I learned: there is no word for “purr” in Chinese. Shelly will mimic the noise but there is no specific onomatopoetic word for that feline sound/reaction. “Really?” ask I. “No, we do not have a word for that,” says she. Curious! This must go hand-in-hand with the fact that felines are not common pets there. Why would you need a word for a sound you don’t often hear?