The mayor is the Mayor of Latvia’s capital city Riga. He was delivering a lengthy interview on camera with his laptop in front of him and a mug, perhaps of coffee, just to the right of the laptop.
It appears that the building where the interview took place is the town hall and two cats live there which may be because the mayor is an animal lover, which is great in my book.
The cats are Kuzya and Muris. The mayor’s name is Nils Ušakovs. About 17 minutes into the interview one of the cats strolls into view and checks out the mug of tea or coffee. ABC News (the source of this story) says that the cat started to drink out of his mug but I don’t think that that is the case. The cat was simply checking it out in case there was something worth eating or drinking.
As you can see the mayor dealt with the incident very nicely as is befitting a cat and animal lover. I think it’s a nice moment. I also think it does him a lot of good. Thirdly, it’s great that the town hall has two resident cats. This is the way it always should be in workplaces in my opinion.
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I don’t see the exhaling as an intentional action to shoo the cat. It seems that the Mayor was just preparing to chuckle, as I do all of the time. Sniffing and face dives into whatever I have prepared for myself is a way of life here. It doesn’t bother me at all either.
Something happened here that I’ve noticed with cats: when we express amusement by exhaling through our nose (an understated laugh), I think it sounds like a hiss to cats and they react as this one did. Also it can happen when they are close to our face and they feel the air blow. Both action and reaction are unfortunate. The cat misunderstands and bolts like this one did. I’ve made a conscious effort to not do this, and instead when I feel it coming on, I do a low chuckle instead which they seem to understand better. I also try to aim my nose away from them so they don’t feel the air blow.