Photos

Not your ordinary cat

Cheetahs are very friendly.  We visited a cheetah breeding center in Oudtshoorn, South Africa, and were surprised to learn that cheetahs are domesticated within a generation of being raised among people.  Ancient kings used to keep up to 1,000 of them as hunting companions, like dogs.  These cheetahs played ball with us, and purred very loudly (like a machine gun) when we pet them.

Daniel in the Lion's Den

Dan was very brave to sit here with these lion cubs, even though we were at a lion farm in Johannesburg where they raise them by hand to sell to zoos.  Unlike cheetahs, lions are never really domesticated, and while we were taking this photo the cubs vocalized their slight irritation.  The similarity in cat nonverbal language across species is amazing.  This was helpful for us to figure out when the cubs' patience had truly run out and it was time to leave. 

Wild Turkey...the one that got away

So I called Cambridge animal control and told them they would not believe what I saw from the kitchen window.  "A turkey?" she asked.  Apparently, there have been turkey sightings for the last two or three years in Harvard Square and elsewhere in Cambridge.  Some of them escape from farms and fly away.  They do pretty well on their own, finding food around the city and holding their own against local dogs. 

Wedding Day (August 17, 1997)

The wedding party (from left to right): Meredith Moss, Johanna Elfenbein, maid of honor Ing-Chuan Judy Shen, flowergirls Olivia and Georgia Blatchford, me and Dan, best man Greg Epstein, Phil Dawes, Dan de Ugarte, and Trevor Burgess. 

Kitty

"Don't love me just because I'm beautiful."

With husband Dan

Dan is an assistant professor of strategy, also at Wash U. In spite of being an economist, he works just a few office doors away.