Docility in Man and Beast

Hola - Just a few things quickly, and then it's back to correcting:

T was walking the neighborhood with Mami today and they noticed how many houses have decorations up for Halloween. T did not like being outdone, and so she came home and immediately set about rectifying the situation, drawing witches and pumpkins and walking out onto the porch to hang them on the posts. She is very dedicated to image maintenance.

Q had two scooer games this weekend, and had streaks of wild action in both, but was mostly a little catatonic. Alex B's mom noticed the same thing both games. They won Saturday and lost today, to the big evil team they had tied a few weeks back. Q had a BRILLIANT run today, frighteningly controlled and showing a touch on the ball that is beyond his years. At another point, a So. Berkshire player started to make a long run toward the goal - and Q ran him down from the opposite side of the field, covering almost the whole length of the pitch, and took it away from him JUST as he was about to shoot. Brilliant plays. But much of the rest of the game, he stood around and watched things happen, yipped and jumped out of the way of players rather than trying to challenge them. Can't force him into it, I guess - he has to grow into it.

We all sat down after supper and found a program on the Discovery Channel about the evolution of the dog from the wolf, something Q and I had talked about at length before, and so we all settle in to watch it. T zonked out after a few minutes, but Q was hyper-attentive throughout. Brilliant show - they outlined an experiment at a fox fur farm in the soviet union, where a manager tried to make them more docile by simple inserting a gloved hand into each adult fox's cage, and if the fox cowered, attacked, or otherwise showed aggressiveness, it was not allowed to breed. And in ten years' time, the foxes had changed color, going to black and white rather than grey; they had gotten blotches of white over their eyes and on their bodies; their ears had lopped over; they began to bark - They turned into a tame animal! Not a dog, of course, but PRACTICALLY a dog! I was fascinated. As was Q. We both want one of them as a pet now - they showed them at that same fox farm now, being petted by school children. They have completely lost their fear of people.

T loved Mami's pound cake tonight, which made mami very happy indeed...And that's the news. Updates as time allows...