Where Personal and Professional Life Collide...


Previous Entry Add to Memories Share Next Entry
Spring is coming in, but keep the scarf wrapped round your throat...
Some days, the Internet allows me to connect with people, to see another side, to experience outside my own comfort zone. And some days, it makes me think a good hard Flood is overdue.

(seriously: a little compassion, a little perspective, and a little less ego should not be so difficult, humanity...)

In other, I guess happier news, it is officially into March, which means my work schedule has kind of exploded. Some of that (writing the new G&T novel, working on the new proposal) I CAN talk about, some I CAN'T talk about, and some I can't talk about YET.  (yes, I know, I'm a tease).

So far, the once-a-week-on-the-coworking-space office seems to be doing what it needed to do: shaking up my habits and giving me a different perspective on what I'm doing.  I may up the time-split eventually...we'll see.  I've never been a "working in my PJs type" anyway.  I am going to try to keep the "less work on weekends" trend, but also reserve the right to go into full-on manic meerkat mode, as needed.  You'll know when.  :-)

So, relevant to the first bit of work, a question for those of you with household animals and technology:

do your animals ever pay the slightest bit of attention to the screen when you're skyping/otherwise involved in digital conversations?  And if so, what form does that attention take?

Sometimes my cat notices the cursor, and starts following it with her eyes, batting at it w/ her paw and sometimes faceplanting on the screen trying to eat it.

I don't think our kitty has done a faceplant on the monitor yet, but she is also intrigued by the cursor.

My critters don't pay attention to the computer. But my boss' dog is both baffled and intrigued by Skype. He can hear 'the girl' (boss' daughter, who is in France) but he's not sure where she is or how to find her. He usually ends up licking the computer screen.

Oh, that's brilliant, thank you. That is totally going into the book.... :-)

Sid is a total pain on Skype - MUST SIT ON LAP. Henry chews the headphone leads. Thank God my current EFL student has dogs and understands.

I had a Skype session with a book club not too long ago and THEY had a cat on the other side - and that cat let out a plaintive meow at some point, to which MY cat responded with one of her own, and for a minute or two we had the damned CATS Skyping one another while the rest of us sat back and laughed. Then they chased their cat back into the kitchen and my cat ceased to have any further interest and the humans could get on with it. But that... was funny.

So far, both of my cats have utterly ignored all Skyping sessions here. I'm not sure if that's a reflection on them or my Skype-companions...

my friend's current dogs are very tech savvy - if you start up videos of animals on the laptop, the one dog runs right up to it, and then runs *behind* the screen to find the animal, and is confused that it's not there.

his dogs also video chat with his daughter's dog and baby son all the time - they totally interact with the people/dogs on the other end.

his previous dogs, were apparently of a different generation, and had zero interest in the laptop or tv screens.

Only if they hear a familiar voice calling their name. They are far more likely to react to my cell phone if it is on speaker.

You are viewing suricattus