On Thursday, Mr. Shapiro's collection numbered 97, including a dozen iguanas, 8 cats, 4 kittens, 5 ball pythons, 5 boa constrictors (including a pregnant one), 4 California king snakes, 4 pit bulls, 2 bearded dragons, 2 corn snakes, 2 parakeets, a snapping turtle, an Egyptian spiny-tailed lizard and 45 newborn baby Burmese pythons, "some normal, some albino".
The movements of a kitten following a ball or string prepare the animal for stalking prey; likewise leaping and jumping in play are preparation for springing after a bird in flight.
To unravel the plot that follows would put me in the same position as a kitten with a ball of wool, but then Scorsese is gripped less by the lure of the whodunnit than by the maddening spectacle of the whodathunkit.
The good news is that Jack didn't immediately dive head-first into Basher's heroin pile and start rolling around in it like a kitten with a ball of wool, but the bad news is that Basher retaliates by shooting Jack in the arm.
Sure, we all like to watch a kitten with a ball of string or a brother biting his brother's finger.
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Starting last, 65 nervous novices blasted off the line like a litter of kittens chasing a ball of string.
To my surprise and delight, I saw a small kitten cavorting with a ball and a group of enchanted animal lovers cooing at him.
Michael O'Donoghue, an original contributor to National Lampoon and the first head writer for "Saturday Night Live," said that humor is not about a kitten tangled in a ball of string — unless the kitten strangles.
In February, elusive graffiti artist Banksy took his politically-charged spray cans to Gaza and painted three murals amid the strip's ruins: a kitten playing with a ball of wire constructed from the rubble, a weeping Greek goddess on a shrapnel-damaged door, and children swinging from an Israeli watchtower.
This will be the ball the kitten is playing with.
