bad habits

worse than my excessive drinking, swearing, and fingernail biting is my habit of spying on my neighbors. i'm sitting here minding my own business spying on my neighbor's pets out of the living room window. i think this is an inherent behavior that i acquired from years spent in my youth with my maternal grandmother (whom we now know is just plain cuckoo). she used to peek out the blinds at the neighbors to see who the smith's son was dating-"oh my, like what the cat's dragged home this time! i wonder what his parents think of her"-and probably still does for that matter. in any case, as i was saying, i was just sitting here minding my own beeswax when i noticed a fight break out across the street. it was one of those interspecies brawls that tends to be accompanied by lots of moaning and hissing. what i can never figure out though, is how dogs don't smarten up enough to just leave pissy cats alone?!?! our dog used to do that with one of our cats, and it always ended poorly for the poor little poodle (to clarify: she's not really a poodle, i just use that to insult her when she's been bad-i feel that calling a dog a poodle is probably the equivalent of calling a woman a bitch). i'm not really in favor of degrading anyone, but sometimes people (or pups) need to be put in their places. perhaps this is why cats are so rough on canines. however, i just somehow always get the impression that they feel morally superior to their four-legged counter parts, and this hurts my feelings for dogs. i prefer to see interspecies "canoodling" as a good friend of mine calls it; fortunately one of our feline friends is much more tolerant and diverse enough to put up with the poodle. here is a shot of them loving it up:

i wonder if it is solidarity because they are both black and big eared. whatever the case may be, they seem to be an exception the "fighting like cats and dogs" rule.