There are plenty of reasons to envy other people.
Wealth.
Experiences they've had.
The fact they're tall enough to take things down off shelves without needing a stepladder.
But the one that has me in its grips at the moment is a deep, abiding envy of people who are able to give names easily.
As in give names to other human beings (you know, babies) or to pets and then stick with them!
I've had these cats for over a year now, since October of 2010 officially and about April of 2010 unofficially and I've only managed to name one of them.
The other one...
I keep coming up with names but then discounting them, or doubting them, or looking at him and thinking 'Does he really look like a [blah blah]?'.
When we got my cat Pickles 14 odd years ago it took me 6 months to name him and I thought that was a long time.
I thought I'd get better with age.
I did not.
I mean, it's just a name for [insert the name of your deity or scientific constant here]'s sake!
It isn't like it has to capture his essence and resonate with the universal truth of the cosmos!
I avoided giving the cats proper names during the 4-6 month period when I was pretending I wasn't going to adopt them and was trying not to get attached, during which time I just referred to them as 'Little Mama' and 'Little Boy'.
Now Little Mama has her real name but Little Boy... I can't call him Little Boy his whole life, I might as well name him Cat!
Also it's incorrect. He's huge! He weighs a good 6 kg* at least!
Some people just seem able to get a pet or spawn a child and say 'I name thee [whatever]' and then stick with it.
And it doesn't even occur to them not to stick with it.
That is the pet/child/whatever's name and that's all there is to know.
Envy.
So much envy.
I'm getting to the point where I think I'll just have to pick one of the ones I like the most, say 'that's the one' and then to hell with Future-Me when she starts um-ing and ahi-ng about it.
I will name you soon, darling, I swear I will.
*That's about 13 lb for the imperial crowd.
Showing posts with label cats. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cats. Show all posts
Saturday, 9 June 2012
Tuesday, 22 November 2011
Farewell Sweetheart
Yesterday we had to say goodbye to my beautiful cat Pickles.
He was 14 years old, he'd had a good long life and he'd just gotten to a point where an age-related health issue went from making him a bit weak and wobbly to seriously impacting on his quality of life.
It was really hard to let him go but it would have been selfish and wrong of us not to give him that peace.
It's going to take a long time for me to get used to the fact he isn't here any more, he's been with me for exactly half of my life and was such a wonderful companion and friend and such a nutter.
He would perch on your shoulder like a parrot and happily sit there all day whilst you walked around doing other things.
If you bent over to put something down or pick something up he would scoot down to lie in the small of your back whilst you were hunched over and would refuse to get off when you tried to stand up again.
He would chase a torch light across the floor and up walls all evening if you let him, only stopping to regain his balance and shoot you a dirty look when he remembered that you were in charge of the maddeningly erratic moving spot.
He would scramble up ladders and loudly proclaim dominion over all he could see from up there. When he scrambled up onto clothes horses he didn't have time to proclaim dominion as he was busy trying to spread his weight out so the whole thing wouldn't tip over.
He would let you hug him like a teddy bear when you were feeling down and the moment you were feeling better he would wash your nose until you let him go so he could reclaim his feline dignity.
He had the loudest purr I have ever heard and he would lie on your chest purring so hard that if you breathed in at the right time it felt like he was purring right into your heart.
If you couldn't find him it was a good bet that he had somehow wormed his way into the linen closet and was industriously shedding hair all over everything during a luxurious nap. No matter how you tried to secure the closet door he managed to wiggle it open, his skills as a door opener applying equally to sliding doors and clasp doors. He had a good try at turn-handle doors but eventually after years of danging from doorknobs by his front paws, he conceded defeat.
If you gave him a cardboard box he would be happy for months. He'd jump on top of it. Fall off it. Roll past it. Scoot around inside it. Disembowel it. Attack people and other pets from within it. And eventually when you took it away because it was falling apart, he would sit where it had been and stare at you until you found him another one.
Goodbye Pickles, I'll miss you.
He was 14 years old, he'd had a good long life and he'd just gotten to a point where an age-related health issue went from making him a bit weak and wobbly to seriously impacting on his quality of life.
It was really hard to let him go but it would have been selfish and wrong of us not to give him that peace.
It's going to take a long time for me to get used to the fact he isn't here any more, he's been with me for exactly half of my life and was such a wonderful companion and friend and such a nutter.
He would perch on your shoulder like a parrot and happily sit there all day whilst you walked around doing other things.
If you bent over to put something down or pick something up he would scoot down to lie in the small of your back whilst you were hunched over and would refuse to get off when you tried to stand up again.
He would chase a torch light across the floor and up walls all evening if you let him, only stopping to regain his balance and shoot you a dirty look when he remembered that you were in charge of the maddeningly erratic moving spot.
He would scramble up ladders and loudly proclaim dominion over all he could see from up there. When he scrambled up onto clothes horses he didn't have time to proclaim dominion as he was busy trying to spread his weight out so the whole thing wouldn't tip over.
He would let you hug him like a teddy bear when you were feeling down and the moment you were feeling better he would wash your nose until you let him go so he could reclaim his feline dignity.
He had the loudest purr I have ever heard and he would lie on your chest purring so hard that if you breathed in at the right time it felt like he was purring right into your heart.
If you couldn't find him it was a good bet that he had somehow wormed his way into the linen closet and was industriously shedding hair all over everything during a luxurious nap. No matter how you tried to secure the closet door he managed to wiggle it open, his skills as a door opener applying equally to sliding doors and clasp doors. He had a good try at turn-handle doors but eventually after years of danging from doorknobs by his front paws, he conceded defeat.
If you gave him a cardboard box he would be happy for months. He'd jump on top of it. Fall off it. Roll past it. Scoot around inside it. Disembowel it. Attack people and other pets from within it. And eventually when you took it away because it was falling apart, he would sit where it had been and stare at you until you found him another one.
Goodbye Pickles, I'll miss you.
1998 - 2011
Sunday, 14 November 2010
Throwing Out My Alarm Clock
A while ago *coff three months ago* my alarm clock stopped working.
This caused a minor problem because when I don't need to get out of bed in order to turn my alarm off, I don't tend to get out of bed.
Which means getting out of bed late, skipping breakfast and flinging myself half-dressed out of the door in a panic to get to work on time.
So I pro-actively got right on that.
Last week.
But I really shouldn't have bothered.
Because the cats have come up with a new game.
A game called 'let's knock everything off the bottom shelf of Ricochet's bookcase'.
They like to play it at 5:30am in the morning and then wrestle on the resultant pile of books.
I'm not used to being awake at that hour.
And chasing a pair of furry bastards off a stack of Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett and assorted murder mysteries isn't my idea of a gentle awakening.
So I surrendered the bottom shelf, redistributed the books, and settled back to enjoy a restful night's sleep punctuated at a seemly hour by the trilling of my new alarm clock.
Except the early morning wrassling has relocated itself to the foot of my bed.
There are two conclusions to be drawn from this.
One. Cats are the annoying, energetic, morning people of the animal world. You know, joggers.
Two. Procrastination is nature's way of telling you not to bother spending money on things that you'll never get around to using anyway.
So I might as well throw out the alarm clock.
I'll get right on that.
Eventually.
This caused a minor problem because when I don't need to get out of bed in order to turn my alarm off, I don't tend to get out of bed.
Which means getting out of bed late, skipping breakfast and flinging myself half-dressed out of the door in a panic to get to work on time.
So I pro-actively got right on that.
Last week.
But I really shouldn't have bothered.
Because the cats have come up with a new game.
A game called 'let's knock everything off the bottom shelf of Ricochet's bookcase'.
They like to play it at 5:30am in the morning and then wrestle on the resultant pile of books.
I'm not used to being awake at that hour.
And chasing a pair of furry bastards off a stack of Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett and assorted murder mysteries isn't my idea of a gentle awakening.
So I surrendered the bottom shelf, redistributed the books, and settled back to enjoy a restful night's sleep punctuated at a seemly hour by the trilling of my new alarm clock.
Except the early morning wrassling has relocated itself to the foot of my bed.
There are two conclusions to be drawn from this.
One. Cats are the annoying, energetic, morning people of the animal world. You know, joggers.
Two. Procrastination is nature's way of telling you not to bother spending money on things that you'll never get around to using anyway.
So I might as well throw out the alarm clock.
I'll get right on that.
Eventually.
Sunday, 17 October 2010
Assimilation Complete
I resisted I really did.
When my landlord's niece left her skitty cat and its kitten with him in March because she couldn't keep them any more I remained calm and dignified.
When they wouldn't let any other humans but me anywhere near them I was only patting them to help them get used to people so they would move into my landlord's flat out of the cold.
When I dosed them with flea gel and worming paste it was only because nobody likes having fleas or worms.
When I started applying white zinc cream to their ears and noses every morning so they wouldn't get white kitty skin cancer it was only because I had this white zinc I wasn't using.
When they started sleeping inside my flat every night since June it was only because they somehow got inside and it seemed cruel to kick them out when they were asleep on my bed.
When I finally asked my landlord if I could keep them this week it was only because I was in denial and have been pretending I haven't technically been owned by them all year.
So, yeah, now I own two cats.
And am either really good at rationalising or really bad at reality.
When my landlord's niece left her skitty cat and its kitten with him in March because she couldn't keep them any more I remained calm and dignified.
When they wouldn't let any other humans but me anywhere near them I was only patting them to help them get used to people so they would move into my landlord's flat out of the cold.
When I dosed them with flea gel and worming paste it was only because nobody likes having fleas or worms.
When I started applying white zinc cream to their ears and noses every morning so they wouldn't get white kitty skin cancer it was only because I had this white zinc I wasn't using.
When they started sleeping inside my flat every night since June it was only because they somehow got inside and it seemed cruel to kick them out when they were asleep on my bed.
When I finally asked my landlord if I could keep them this week it was only because I was in denial and have been pretending I haven't technically been owned by them all year.
So, yeah, now I own two cats.
And am either really good at rationalising or really bad at reality.
Saturday, 21 March 2009
Tonight I Have No Doona*
This is because one of the cats, probably the smaller one, decided to go tinkles on my brother's bed and as I'm only home on the weekends he borrowed my doona whilst his is being exorcised/washed.
By the time I got home this weekend and heard this exciting story he had already achieved unconsciousness wrapped in my cosy blanket but I'm not fussed because it's not yet cold enough for me to need it and also this makes me laugh.
As the only person who leaves my room completely open at all times to kitty access and perusal I am richly rewarded by never being the focus of their occasional ire.
Anyone who, worried about the exact peril that befell my sibling, chooses to keep their room quarantined will be punished during the merest slip of vigilance with a urine-based demonstration of exactly what at least one of the cats thinks of this.
They don't do it very often but when they do they never do it to me.
My slow transformation into a crazy old cat lady continues smoothly and despite my lack of doona I will be quite warm tonight.
I've got the cats :-D
*Doona = eiderdown, duvet, counterpane, comforter
By the time I got home this weekend and heard this exciting story he had already achieved unconsciousness wrapped in my cosy blanket but I'm not fussed because it's not yet cold enough for me to need it and also this makes me laugh.
As the only person who leaves my room completely open at all times to kitty access and perusal I am richly rewarded by never being the focus of their occasional ire.
Anyone who, worried about the exact peril that befell my sibling, chooses to keep their room quarantined will be punished during the merest slip of vigilance with a urine-based demonstration of exactly what at least one of the cats thinks of this.
They don't do it very often but when they do they never do it to me.
My slow transformation into a crazy old cat lady continues smoothly and despite my lack of doona I will be quite warm tonight.
I've got the cats :-D
*Doona = eiderdown, duvet, counterpane, comforter
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