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Archive Category: Cats
Bed Early & Tiny Cat
Wednesday, 20 November 2002
Oh, must concetrate on getting to bed early. First night of no commitments (do not misunderstand me, a social life is Good) but it’s nice to come home and only have to think of all the stuff you have to do in between the walls of your house rather than knowing you’re going out and won’t be home til late…. Today I went to the Bureau of Meteorology and sat surrounded by….meteorologists (what a
suprise!) I did make a good contact for the stuff I’m researching at the moment, so that was good…I spent the rest of my time propping open my eyelids and being baffled by probability data….eeek! David Jackson, you owe me lunch!! The house of David & Ellise has a tiny cat!
Cats of the Air
Monday, 30 June 2003
Drove down to Brisbane (known to some by the name ‘Brisvegas’ which seemed hardly appropriate upon viewing said city, but maybe I’m missing something) to collect the felines. The whole trip ended up taking a solid twelve hours, which leaves me typing this post in a barely legible fashion. Having juggled banks and lent money for a non-existent boat and then had it deposited in a St George account from which I needed to withdraw it to hand over to it’s rightful owner (my bearded parent) I discovered that St George have about three branches in Queensland. So we had to find the Brisbane branch. Not having been to Brisbane before meant that we just drove (well, M drove, I just concentrated on turning the map upside down trying to navigate). We found the elusive branch in the middle of the city. There was no parking. None. We pulled over into a loading zone and M jumped out to hit the bank and I moved over into the drivers seat to wait. I had been there for approximately 42 seconds when a shape darted up from behind to the passenger door window, snaked an arm around to the windscreen and stuck a parking fine under the wiper!!! I was gobsmacked! Welcome to Brisbane I don’t think so. Then I was perplexed and didn’t know whether to sit there gaping like a freak or drive away quickly to avoid further financial torture. I drove away. Actually, I drove around the block eleven times until M emerged from the back, clutching the all important bank cheque. Grrr. Stupid Brisbane. We toured a few suburbs - all the houses were tres gorgeouse - all Queenslanders tarted up to various states of grandeur. We had a few hours to kill before finding the airport and sat and looked at the river for a while. Very picturesque.
The cats emerged from their trauma looking like one big multicoloured cat squashed in the corner of the cat cage. Because I am cheap I made them share the one container (thus saving about $150) - on the basis that they would be too drugged for Saf to hate Mow too much. Poor things, they were furry and trauma-laden. When they began to realise that there was still three hours to endure, they kind of lapsed into furry comas in the back seat (thank you M’s mum for lending us the new speedy modern car with cruise control - I wouldn’t own one myself, but they’re fun to borrow!).
So we left home at 6am and arrive back at 6pm, shagged out and mentholated from eating too many Minties in the car. The cats emerged from their torture chamber thankfully and were a bit dazed. Saf ate some food, though Mow is still avoiding his, but is now chasing moths quite cheerfully. They will stay inside for a week until they get comfortable, and hopefully in that time we will have built them a cat run for outside. These precautions are more for Mow as he has only ever lived in Seddon - Saf has roamed through most of my share houses and also down to Gippsland - so he should be OK, I hope.
Cat-Sa-Blanca
Sunday, 13 July 2003
Well, the two cats are spending their first night in their new abode. Poor things, I feel bad for them, but I would feel worse if they were romping around the acre marauding all the birds they could catch. Particularly our new friends, the ducks.
It is a relief to have them safe from the outside world and the outside world safe from them…though they are not currently convinced it’s for the best.
De-moped myself from last night and have regained some bounce. This is my new friend for the day…..
Painting is v.close. Yay. But the trip to Melbourne is getting nearer and nearer - so much to do in so little time. Must find small impressionable female between now and then who will be willing…actually, more than willing….grateful and enraptured at the opportunity to feed two pissed off, neglected fenced in cats. Oh, I’m feeling v.hopeful about this. (I think this is my cue to go and learn hypnosis.)
Bucket flushing the toilet has taken on a whole other perspective…well, it now has twice the view. There are currently two holes in the bathroom wall to the outside world - one from the window that M removed today and one for the window-to-be.
‘You’d be on the first plane back to Melbourne if you’d hit your finger as hard as I just did.’
(I take issue with this - I’m sure I’d do a few things before jumping straight on the plane - storm around, swear a bit, hide under the house for a good cry.)
Sonic The Cat
Thursday, 7 August 2003
Sonic is Ellise’s cat and I am her total fan. She is a freaky little black streak! Last night when I got here, she hung out with me, and this morning she gave me lots of photo opportunities and at present she is sleeping on my foot.
Oh, I and I’m glad I decided to leave late this morning. After Sonic had finished going basket-crazy she began playing with an almond that she’d found and it got wedged across the roof of her mouth! Poor thing…I was very glad that I was here to rescue her or she might have hurt herself by clawing it out.
Tale of Sad Sonic
Thursday, 23 October 2003
My next favouritest cat (besides my own) is Sonic, who has starred on [miaow] before. Something bad has befallen her. Her tail got slammed in a door as she was trying to make a break for it, and about an inch of skin and fur came off the top, leaving only the bone. Poor E was almost sick; the only positive being that Sonics nerves in the end of her tail were severed so she didn’t really feel the full extent of the accident. So then she had to have her tail operated on and they cut it off down to where there were healthy skin and nerve endings. Thus, for the pas two weeks, Sonic has been Bucket Head. During that time she was upgraded to Grand Bucket Head due to her ability to bypass the bucket and bite the bandages off her tail. Once she was upgraded to the status of Grand Bucket she lost her peripheral vision (but also, thankfully, the ability to savage her tail) and began walking into chairs, tables and, on at least one occasion, Ellise’s dinner.
She is now much improved, the bucket is gone, and she only makes vague gestures toward her tail - however when she does this she gives me flashbacks and I must avert my eyes.
Mango-Socks & Hot Cat
Friday, 26 December 2003
M is standing on my right, seranading me with the acoustic guitar - a running commentary about how it’s too hot to build kitchens, his fat pet magpies, dry grass… He is right (occasionally it happens). It is TOO HOT. And it’s only about 33 or 34 degrees, but the humidity is sucking my soul dry. Slurp. I was feeling v.bad for the cats, because here I am sitting in barely anything, and they are clad in their little furry coats. I went to investigate - they are both passed out in the shade of their cat home:
Yesterday I suggested that all my friends on our mailing list should take a picture of where they were at 1pm on Christmas Day. I got M’s mother to take one of me right on the dot of one o’clock. Dyl is going to put them up in his web gallery and then I’ll post a link.
This is what a mango-sock looks like:
(I didn’t sew all those mango-socks - I loathe mangos. M did. Hee hee.)
Mowse
Monday, 5 January 2004
Mow is the dark brown, very aquiescent, super furry animal. His name rhymes with cow. I brought him in again last night to be my work companion. Which was fine. He just sits on his favourite chair like a little stuffed toy and demands the occasional scratch under the chin. I’d just gone into the other room for a second, closing the door behind me, and I heard him do a great lunge and instantly transform from soft toy to fanged predator. I cracked open the door and realised he was under my desk. His fur is so dak dark that he blended in the with the shadows and all I could see were the mouse’s tail sticking out of one side of his mouth. Oh god. If there’s one thing that I can’t deal with, it’s fire economics. Sorry. Cats and mice. M put on his avenger cape (but not before giving me dark looks for being a useless article) and made Mow give it up. I thought that it would half dead with showed shock and chew-marks. But no. Mow spent the rest of his time inside in disgrace and the Mowse was back….on my desk this morning. We can’t catch it, it’s very wile. If this is all an incoherent drivel…I got to bed at 5am.
Tumble of Terror
Friday, 9 January 2004
I got woken up at 5.15am this morning by a weird large noise. Wasn’t sure what it was. I thought momentarily that my hardback book had fallen off the bed. No. It was strange. I pondered it for a while, but then, as I am wont to do at that hour, I went back to sleep. Got up at 8:30am and went to feed the cats. Oh. My God. The platform where their beds are wasn’t there anymore. Well, half of it was, but it had all fallen to the ground, about a five foot drop. Saffron was unperturbed and waiting for the builder to arrive. Mow, who had been sleeping in the bed that had flipped over while plummeting, is a highly nervous bundle of feline anxiety. My theory is that he was saved from injury by the density of his fur. More later…M’s mother has just arrived for dinner. At five o’clock. Help!
Honey. Honey?
Thursday, 3 June 2004
Offers pour in to end cat’s detention
Groups from as far away as America are offering to help unite a refugee released this week after 18 months’ detention on Manus Island with the cat he had befriended there.
A stray cat was Aladdin Sisalem’s only companion during the 10 months he was held alone in the detention centre. He called her Honey. When arrangements were made to fly Mr Sisalem to Australia on Monday after he was granted a protection visa, he said he didn’t want to leave the cat behind.
There was not enough time to organise the cat’s departure, but offers of financial assistance to fly the cat to Australia have poured into the Australian Democrats office since. One person offered to pay the air fare plus a $500 bonus for a person to accompany the cat…read more from The Age
Freedom
Sunday, 11 July 2004
A few days ago we began to let the cats out of their cat home for the first time. They have been in their cathome for a year, and during the past month or two it seems as if they have finally begun to get disenchanted with their incarceration. They applied to Amanda Vanstone for a visa on humanitarian grounds, which, startlingly enough, was immediately denied - so it was up to us. I bought them collars with bells (even though about fifty percent of the birdlife here is cat-size or greater) and, on a day where we were both working outside on the house, we set them free. They both were completely blissful, though they expressed their wonder in different ways. Saf walked with me around the perimeter of the acre, climbed some trees and responded to my instructions (’Stop - dogs live there’, ‘Stop - stay behind the gate’), whereas Mow (who, it must be admitted, probably has more fur than brain) shot under the house, prowled through some undergrowth and finally found what he was seeking. As he’s only ever lived in the inner city with a courtyard garden, Mow was looking for… CONCRETE! He managed to get on top of the water tank and went into paroxysms of beatification.
Stress, Cats and Travel
Monday, 19 July 2004
The thought of travelling down to Melbourne with M has been at the forefront of my brain since the whole valuation drama finished. However, as keen as M is to go to Dr Grass’s Phd Party, he’s not so keen on wandering the streets of Melbourne while I’m at work everyday - so I’ve been trying to keep a lid on myself. For my part, having to think about someone elses likes and dislikes, worry about who is going to feed the cats, be the one that has to plan the travel/accommodation and a certain other thing I can’t mention for fear of jinxing - I am close to going out of my head. On top of this my new favourite email program, Thunderbird, has carked it and is refusing to get my mail, so I have had to trudge my way through converting all my saved email into this format and that format until I settled on using Eudora (of course I could just used Outlook Express, but that would be too easy).
M doesn’t want me to plan his life while we’re in Melbourne, so I am trying to keep everything open ended. Usually I am the queen of ‘going to dinner’ for the majority of nights - when you’re working every day, it seems like the best way to catch up with people. Anyway - with all of this stewing in my brain I have not been sleeping very well - however this has been exacerbated by M developing an intense morning hatred of Saffron the Orange Cat (StOC) . I must digress and say that I’m glad my brother is somewhere in Croatia, because he would give M 110% support in this matter.
Unfortunately we built the cathome at the side of the house quite near our bedroom window. Some mornings - not every morning - StOC sits as near as he can get to our bedroom window and miaows loudly. He sounds like a pigeon in pain. He’s started to do it more and more, and whether it’s due to our recent spate of celebration or the coldness of the mornings, I have been roused about four days of the last five with M shrieking “FuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuCK! I HATE YOUR CAT” (he becomes my cat whenever he’s bad) and then running into the bathroom and flinging glasses of water at Saff through the window. The final straw was yesterday morning when M tore himself out of bed for the third time, spent some time at the sink and then I heard pounding feet running out the back door. I sneaked out of bed and peeked through the window. M, naked from the waist down, was standing at the cage throwing water in StOC’s direction and making hissing noises. I snuck back to bed. M came back, breathing in a slightly psychopathic manner. I said nothing. For a few minutes there was silence, until StOC - damp, but unbowed - let a few more pigeon noises loose.
M’s whole body went into spasm as he made (what I assume he thinks are) cat repelling hissing noises. I couldn’t take much more.
“You know that if you’d just fed the cats a bit of dry food when you went out there they would be quiet by now?”
The logic seemed to act on M like his hissing noises acted on StOC, i.e. they didn’t.
“Shut up.”
“Buy some earplugs.”
M huffed his head under the pillow and I ruminated at the ceiling, again cursing my brother for pinching my sleeping pills.
The Cat That Ate…
Saturday, 7 August 2004
There are feathers. We have banished the cats back into their home and have put cheese out in the hope that it wasn’t Puppybird that was caught. F***ing cats. I want to trade them in for a quoll. But is keeping native animals as pets good or bad? It’s a contentious issue. Surely it’s better than having evil little imported furry killers?
Winston’s Black Dog Comes To Stay
Monday, 9 August 2004
A dire day of feeling depressed. Black armband for Puppybird - we gave him a little burial. M found him in the front garden - he looked unscathed. So we’re not sure whether he died by cat or not; but are assuming he did. However it was more our fault than the cats; we killed him by letting him trust us and then letting the cats out after they’d been in their cat home for a year. A crap day all round. I went for a long walk, and made myself tea with egg and soldiers to try and shake off the black dog, but ended up like a squashed bug back in bed. Was only able to get up in the end by feeling horribly guilty about M toiling away making shades for the fifteen million bloody windows that we have here. Didn’t want to speak to anyone - am happy that I have a brother who doesn’t take it personally when he calls all the way from the UK. And if M’s mother calls and hangs up on our answering machine one more time I’m going find some gay, black, whale-loving Labor voters and send them over to her house to harass her and her poodle. Repeatedly.
Bring Out the BIG Guns
Tuesday, 31 August 2004
I don’t want to say that my brother is right. I will simply suggest that being wakened every morning from 6am onwards by a mewing cat that sounds like a pigeon is doing nothing for my psyche. It makes me very grumpy. It turns M psychotic. Today we thought we’d up the ante. No more glasses of water will be thrown out of the window. We have a Cat-Uzi.
Flopsy, Mopsy, Sonic and Hazard
Thursday, 14 October 2004
I am just going to keep on posting pictures. I’m sure no one minds. This is a rabbit that I met this morning - it’s on the same level of cuteness as the Quokka…
At present I am in the pleasant situation of having the keys to three different households in my possession. Obviously tonight I will stay where the bunny is - then tomorrow…[looks thoughtful] I may move on to visit Sonic the Cat, having already spent some valuable quality time with Hazard ( the TerrorCat of Coburg). Then on the weekend I will finally bestow some affection on Chris’s new little stumpy dwarf cat Eric…
Moo…I am a cow*
Friday, 4 February 2005
Poor M is still wretchedly under the weather. He was taken to the doctor today - I gave him lots of hope by chirping “antibiotics will fix it, antibiotics will fix it”…
Apparently the doctor said antibiotics would fix it, if it wasn’t a virus that can be fixed by nothing but time. D’oh. It’s bloody hot. M has carked it in front of the fan. I am being a good cat owner, and took both cats into the vet this morning for a checkup (their first since we moved here).
The vet, strangely enough, used ‘doctor-speak’. He actually discussed the cats using the royal ‘we’. Is that third person removed? Who knows… So he looked down at Mow, who was trying to render himself and his accompanying fur, invisible on the examination bench, and said;
“We don’t want to be here, do we?”
I looked around for this friend of his he was referring to, but found no one.
“OK then,” he said, grabbing Mow by the scruff of the neck, “now we won’t mind this too much.”
And in a rapid blur of vetinary karate, he squeezed, peered, innoculated, worm tableted, and shoved Mow back at me, smiling engagingly.
Saffy, on the other hand, came out of the carry box and ponced, purring provocatively, around the examination bench. He rubbed his head against the vet, then came over to me and allowed me some affection as well. It was almost embarrassing.
“We don’t mind it here at all!” crooned the vet, performing more cat karate, “We have a very nice personality, don’t we…”
Thankfully, the royal ‘we’ was good for something. It reminded me of wee. Which reminded me of my worry about how much water Saf has taken to drinking, and how I suspect kidney problems. So I relayed this to the vet, who had a go at putting a needle through Saffy in some magical manner that would draw some urine from his bladder, but despite the fact I’d watched Saf chugging back the fluids just before stuffing him in the cat carrier, there was not enough there for the vet to nab. So I had to leave Saf there for the day, in order for him to build up enough wee to be stolen from him for testing.
I was a bit apprehensive about going to pick him up, but apparently the tests are neither positive or negative, they’re borderline.
“So just keep a good eye on him,” instructed the vet.
“And if we noticably lose some weight [I looked down at my thighs, and quickly glanced away] or seem to be going off our food, then bring him back in for some blood tests.”
Even though he’d told me this morning that blood tests aren’t much good for kidney problems, as they only indicate something is wrong if it’s really wrong, I nodded dutifully.
*The cow reference is because of my recycling rant, about which I am feeling a little bit guilty…now that M is still ill. Bugger.
Au Revoir Lovely House
Monday, 27 June 2005
We had to be on the road by 11am. I managed to squeeze more into the back seat and boot of the Humber than anybody believed. We dashed into town to say goodbye to M’s mother and nephew and to fill up the van. In the meantime, my Dad drugged the cats :-0 and vacked the house (many, many thanks!). When we got home, we had One Hour. I arranged the electricity to get cut off, and did final packing (’packing’ meaning; stuffing odds and ends anywhere I could find a gap, and throwing things into the bin that should probably have been taken to the op-shop) while M gave our beautiful floors a final mop. Rick did some final Humber-whispering and assisted in assembling the new cat carrier.
I went to examine the cats. Saf was spread, whalelike, on the ground, looking like he’d had too many whiskies and white wines; while poor Mow had retreated to his bed box, and couldn’t be tempted to leave it. Dad had to help me get him. I stuffed both of them in a carrier each. They were drugged, floppy and unhappy. I began to worry about how they were going to survive such a long day of travel - four hours to Brisbane, then probably another four hours of waiting around and flying to Melbourne. Horrible.
M and I said goodbye to our house 
and I took some final footage of our acre - the trees, the little creek… It was very sad. But I almost didn’t have time for it to register. When I left back in April, not knowing if I would see the house again, I cried all the way out of town. This time, I was swamped by logistics and drugged cats. It was all over very quickly, which, I suppose, is a good thing. Dad took pictures as we drove the van, pulling the boat trailer, out of the gate for the last time.
Settling In
Monday, 11 July 2005
M and I, when we have had a spare second, quietly marvel at the good fortune that has let us appear in Melbourne and be absorbed into an already existing household.
“Just imagine,” marvelled M, “if we had moved into our own place. We would have had to buy a heater, a fridge, a bed…”
“And it would have been tiny and expensive.”
“Mmmm,” he agreed. “And yet we’re here, with all those things provided, and in walking distance of our new favourite cafe, the beach, a yacht club and a chandlery.”
“And we get our own bathroom - almost an impossibility in a share house…”
We shook our heads in wonderment, like two bemused sheep.
We’d walked across the road and down to the chandlery, where I mooned over bits of red rope that would make Oomoo look even cuter, and we bought a rather expensive stainless steel handle for the new storage compartment. PBS was playing in the background - a station I used to be very involved in - and I realised I was back in the land of interesting radio, no longer confined to Radio National and JJJ. Then we wandered to the nearby cafe - think windsurfer hire and Diver Dan - we ordered a juice and a coffee. I couldn’t leave. I made M get another cappuccino so I could continue sitting in the sun, reading the paper and mocking the upmarket Hampton mother who was buying her three year old a sausage roll, but wanted to know all the flavours of all the muffins; ‘are they low fat?’ and ‘I want a cappuccino in a mug’ and ‘is it low fat?’ I was tempted to give her a lovely low fat thump to the head, but the weather was too nice. As M was ordering his enforced second coffee, the sausage roll child began to scream, so M asked;
“Can I have two biscuits, a cappuccino and a sack with some bricks so I can drop that kid off the pier?”
The guy serving didn’t even pause.
“You won’t need the bricks,” he said, “She’ll sink like a stone.”
We both decided that our luck is almost too good to be safely discussed. Our weekend was hermit-like; due to the fact that I accidentally gave out the wrong phone number to everyone we know; because we have so much unpacking to do; and because our heads are slightly fried by the events of the past three weeks. Of course, moving into a fully furnished house does have a few minor downsides - we have two blenders, a surfeit of chairs, cutlery and glasses; there is nowhere to put our lovely dining table, and the cats are freaking out at each other. All these things have been worked around - except the cats, who met for the first time last night. We staged an ‘introduction’ (though it was more like an ‘intervention’) in the lounge room last night. It was not completely unsuccessful, but it was close. We will try again tonight.
In the garden by the broccoli
Monday, 17 October 2005
Now I am off to move the boat trailer on my own so I can get Small Brother’s car out. I would have asked M to help me this morning, but he had hit his head on the van and couldn’t find the stove lighter - so it was best just to pet him gently and let him go. Wish me luck!
Cat me out of here!
Saturday, 22 October 2005
Will Somebody Please Love Humphrey?
Tuesday, 7 February 2006
I haven’t been blogging very much, as I’m finding that this relatively new job of mine is just sucking away my life force will to write. I spend seven hours four days a week writing reports and I am a husk of my former writing self… but enough about me. Say hello to Humphrey!
I met Humphrey over at the house of the lovely lady who is fostering him until somebody adopts him properly. He is a playful cat. He’s not exactly trusting of everyone until you’ve met him and patted him for a while. If I didn’t have two cats already… I tried to get my sister to adopt him over the weekend, but she kept going on about another cat called ‘LeRoy’ who has stolen her heart (but obviously hasn’t kept it, as she hasn’t gone and got him). You can read about how Humphrey is going with his foster family here.
Last week he was on the Save-A-Dog Scheme site, despite the fact that he is, obviously, not a dog. Go and check out the site if you have a furry cat or dog shaped place that is empty in your home…
Smear of orange fur
Wednesday, 15 March 2006
Au Revoir
Thursday, 30 March 2006
It is Thursday. We are finally about to leave. The lights on the trailer are fixed. The boat is packed. M’s birthday is over. We have just discovered that the trailer rego ran out last month and will ponder what to do about that as we try to make it on and off the Western Ring Road before rush hour. The cats are housed in L & D’s backyard - their German Shepard is showing little or no interest. We discovered two design flaws - we forgot that cats are taller when they sit up than when they walk (cat chiropractor anyone?) - but they can sit up on the bottom level of the cat home, so it’s not a total disaster. L also pointed out that once someone is inside the cage saying hello to the cats there is nothing to keep the door shut behind them.
We’re aiming for Albury by tonight…
Hello from Brunswick Heads
Friday, 7 April 2006
Aloha! The weather has been mildly crap for two days. I have been blogging into my palm pilot every day and have about a bazillion posts - but I have to find a laptop with infared so I can beam my texts into the computer and then upload. One day I will be set up for technological travel. So in the meantime, if you want to see where our cats have to stay while we investigate rivers and drink beer, go here…
Tail between legs
Monday, 15 May 2006
This morning we were given a dinner set, old toaster, old kettle, a wok, three little three drawer thingos (for clothes or tools, haven’t decided) and a coffee table. All courtesy of my mother clearing out her storage joint. So we have a few more bits and pieces to set up house with, but no house as of yet! I slunk back to my work (where I had been given a great send off - taken out to dinner and given a swanky hand-bearing compass). It was a little bit embarrassing to have to go back and admit to not being able to find anywhere to both live and build a boat in NSW and confess to the fact that I’ll be staying in Victoria. Luckily, my timing was good. The lady that took over from me had just that morning made the most huge blooper and my former boss actually was white with fury. I begged for work. They begged me to come back. I am able to work from home - or not. We agreed I’d do two days a week, and would drive into town to work onsite - mostly because I really like the place, and also to get me back into civilisation. Oh - and to hang out at my mum’s place while she’s away - she only lives around the corner from the job.
I have a large sense of relief. I did have other work lined up for my old university boss, but was not looking forward to it. So…I start next week [gulp] and have just begun madly clearing crap off my laptop so I can install Dragon Naturally Speaking - as the lady who replaced me has also nabbed my computer (and my wonder chair) which is only fair.
We drove over to the house of L and D who have been virtuously minding our cats (in the home that they find it hard to stand up in) while we’ve been away. We were overcome with gratitude that they had saved us SO much money that we would have otherwise had to spend on a cattery, and bought them alcoholic beverages and chocolates and nibbles. And then when I saw how well they had looked after Saf and Mow I wished I had bought more! The cat cage M built is very Guantanamo like, and L took pity on them and they were given frequent R&R in the spare room. D took a particular liking to Mow, who is now more vocal than he has every been before!
The drive back to South Gippsland took two and half hours. It seemed like a really long drive, even though we’ve just driven 95% of the NSW coast. Anyway, the cats are bewildered, and Saf is grumpier than normal. Then he saw the new little kittens and really spat it. We are hoping to only be here for a week or two, so they will stay in their Guantanamo cage during the day and be warm and cosy in the house at night. I am trying to tame the little kittens, as it’s their only chance of being adopted by anyone, otherwise they might have to be, um, eliminated, which I would very much like to avoid.
Feral kittens
Wednesday, 17 May 2006
Two of the three feral kittens that I’m trying to tame…
More kitten pictures. Yes, I’m pimping for them.
Sunday, 28 May 2006
We’re hoping that in two more weeks the kittens will be ready to adopt. The twins are less tame than the other two, so I’m going to try and win them over to the dark side over the coming week or so, before we move into the trailer. Then they will have to be taken to get their injections. We don’t know yet which are male, and which are female - I’m punting on the furry one being female, because it’s so polite.
If you know anyone in the Melbourne or South Gippsland area who would like a kitten, and who is a cat lover, send them here to have a look. There are more pictures over on Flickr. They were born wild, so are bit more timid than your average kitten, but all of them respond to attention, and, of course, food. More updates to come.
One is a Trailer dweller
Sunday, 11 June 2006
One is in one’s trailer. One spent the first night in ones trailer last night and one has lived to tell the tale. The cats appear to like the trailer very much, and are partlicularly pleased to be amongst things they recognise, like the mattress and boxes that smell familiar. (I have to lose the royal mode of address now, as one doesn’t appear to be able to sustain it.)
M made a fabulous bed base, and once again we have an uber-high bed! Somehow our wonder-mattress is far nicer when it’s a long way from the ground. Last night was spent unpacking, with me squeaking with delight about all the things I’d forgotton we owned. M cleaned the glass in the woodheater, and it looks very Vogue Living - the flames almost appear to be faux-flames! Basically, the presence of the woodheater makes the trailer a viable place to live - without it, I doubt we would be here.
I had unpacked my original Teasmade and set it up with a tall green teapot that I bought just before I ‘quit’ my job. It’s perfect. I put in three teabags, and promptly at 8am this morning, the alarm went off (it’s such a racket) and there was steaming tea in the teapot. I was completely thrilled. All that was lacking was a maid to bring it in to me, but I braved the bite of the morning air, and got it myself - and whisked back into bed. We could have been anywhere this morning, the fog was so thick that I was imagining we were back at Echo Point in Katoomba with the mists rolling up.
The cats jumped up on the bed and looked out the window. They were immediately transfixed by the ostrich. I could see Mow thinking,
“That’s the biggest chicken I ever saw…mmmmm…chicken.”
While Saf observed it for at least five minutes, before deciding it was beneath his dignity to appear so utterly awed. (Rule of Cat #211 - When in doubt? Wash!)
After going shopping for even more things - doormat, clothes horse, storage contianers, wastepaper bin, mofo angle grinder etc. etc. we came home and Decided To Try Out The Washing Machine. It was a somewhat fraught process, as we must of done something that it didn’t like, and thus we had to pull out a lot of wet towels and put them in a bucket. After a few more tries, and studying the manual, we (or at least M) seems to have it under control. It spins up to 1200 times a minute. The first few times it did this, M kept running to the other end of the Trailer shrieking, “It’s about to take off! It’s about to take off!”
And it did seem as if all the surrounding suburbs were being sucked toward the Trailer with the power of its spin… I’m assuming we’ll get used to it, but at present, it’s like having a Tasmanian Devil locked in the bathroom.
I have made roast pumpkin and sweet potato soup for dinner tomorrow night (I can only gape at myself in wonder), and tomorrow we venture back to dad’s place to say hello to the beautiful kittens, purloin some bookshelves and do more [sharp intake of breath] computer fixing. I am happy to report that former housemate E is going to be adopting the little tabby, so at least I will be able to keep in touch! The furry kitten may also have an owner - so now I’m going to start looking for homes for the twins (who don’t have to go together, although they might prefer it).
Bye bye tabby kitten
Sunday, 18 June 2006
Yesterday I took the tabby kitten over to the newly built wonder-house of our recent housemates, E & D. Poor kitten had only ever known a fun life, running with his kitten siblings, eating, drinking milk and kicking back in front of the fire. Dad and Mgs were very sad to see him go. Of course E had bought him a bed, new blankets, five star kitten food, milk, toys - the works. The poor little thing was completely terrified - especially when confronted with Sonic who has a dubious temprament at the best of times.
By the time we’d been for a walk (to walk off E’s biscuit and cake) and had a kangaroo sausage or two each, I could coax Tabby out from under the bed. He polished off some dinner and began to show some curiousity about where he’d ended up. I have always likened him to a violin, such is his power of purring resonance - his purring started up and he played with his rabbit toy and I thought that was a good time to depart. I used up a few tissues on the way home.
We plan to take the other three to the RSPCA Shelter in Pearcedale where they will be wormed, vaccinated and speyed. They will then have 28 days in which to be adopted.
Cats that look like Hitler
Sunday, 18 June 2006
Go there. Via whatdoiknow.org
The brief interlude of Yodel.
Wednesday, 21 June 2006
In an update to the proposed idea that we were going to take the other three kittens to the RSPCA shelter in Pearcedale this plan has been shelved. I meant to write earlier about what happened the night we moved into the trailer (just over a week ago). As if my life wasn’t already overun with more than enough cats already. M and I were commenting on how happy our two cats seemed to be in our new digs, when we heard sad miaows coming from outside.
It was a COLD cold night. I tiptoed out and found a white cat with brownish splotchy splodges looking very abandoned and sad. I couldn’t bring him inside as our cats would have gone insane, but I gave him some food and made him a bed in a box in the shed. It was terrible. We realised that when we’d first seen the trailer, I’d told the owner that we had cats, and he’d mentioned that the previous tenant had been feeding a cat that had been hanging around. This was that cat. The bastard former tenant had just left without taking any responsibility for it at all, even though they’d fed it. [Tangent: must remember to track down former tenant and make suffer]
In the morning M put some food in the cat carrier and poor little unloved cat was so excited that he ran straight in there. We whacked him in the back of the van and took off for the shelter. It was then he realised what had happened and began yodelling. Thus, I named him Yodel. He was very distressed.
We initially took him into the wrong bit of the RSPCA - the everyday vet - and Yodel scared the pants off all the waiting animals and their humans, because he sounded like he’d been shut in the carrier with a swarm of wasps. They hurriedly pointed us in the right direction. M told me I didn’t have to go into the shelter if it was going to be too upsetting handing Yodel over, but I wanted to make very, very sure how Yodel’s life was going to be handled. They told me that he would be put in isolation for eight days, vaccinated, wormed and then, if necessary, desexed. After that he would have 28 days to be adopted.
I thought that sounded pretty fair. I knew of a lady who was interested in getting a cat, so I called the shelter the following day and asked when I could come and take a photo of Yodel so I could pimp him around - because there was no way I wanted him being put down. No problem, they said, he’ll be up for adoption on the 19th of June, come in then.
So I went in on Monday with my camera. Was sent to the adoption part of the shelter, where about 30 pairs of eyes reduced me to planning to build a cat sanctuary on about five acres somewhere - so sad - but no Yodel. The cat attendant said that he had probably been sent away for desexing and to go back to the office to inquire. I inquired, and after they’d found the file, they said,
“Oh, he was found to have a bit of skin cancer on his nose.”
“Yeah, I think white cats are prone to that. So where is he now?”
“Well, like I said. He was found to have skin cancer, so…”
“So? SO?!”
I knew I’d signed him away when I handed him in, but after I’d called and organised to photograph him I thought they would have at least CALLED me and given me a chance to either rescue him or pay for treatment for his nose. Very. Unhappy.
And the moral of the story is that there is no way the three remaining kittens are going there. I have plans for them. Big plans.
Posers!
Thursday, 22 June 2006
Thanks for all the roo…
Thursday, 29 June 2006
Yesterday my father traitorously closed the door on the kittens as they slumbered in their cat carrier bed in the laundry. I don’t think they’ll see the cat carrier as such a nice place to sleep anymore. They tried to escape, and we tied some rope around the carrier to make sure they didn’t succeed. We drove them into the excellent vet around the corner from my work (the kittens did not make a peep for the whole hour and a half - too scared) and sadly dropped them off to be desexed, vaccinated and wormed.
My punt was correct. The furry one is a boy and the twins are girls. They reportedly behaved beautifully and didn’t even hiss once! I picked them up at 4pm and drove them to South Caulfield where they are going to live with Cat Saviour Anne (CS-Anne) for two weeks (as dad, as their legal guardian, is working in town and can’t look after them).
CS-Anne is a wonder. She had set up her spare room entirely for the kittens and was rapt to have them there. In a couple of days I imagine they will just be passed out in front of her gas heater, skidding on her polished boards, and batting at the hanging handles of her blinds. CS-Anne is going to decide whether she wants to keep one, two or all of them, so we will have a better idea of their futures in a few weeks time.
After all that I was completely drained and I headed to my mum’s (who is still away overseas)where M made a special trip down because our lovely friends, Mr & Mrs H and smaller Master H came and made us a marvellous meal of slow-cooked kangaroo with scalloped potatos (they had a more impressive name for the potatos that I can’t remember) and vegetables, followed by a lemon delicious pudding. Oh my GOD - it was decadent. We drank our way through our entire supply of wine, but, judging by the way we all stumbled into the kitchen this morning, it was good that we didn’t have any more hanging about.
It was like we just spent a night camping with our friends - none of us being in our proper homes. Master H has now been taken off for an educational journey to the museum and they have been invited to be the first visitors to the Trailer (which means we will really have to find something to sit on - a few somethings!).
The muffin hunt
Thursday, 13 July 2006
After a late night last night I awoke this morning at 8.37am - a whole 23 minutes to get to work. And for some reason I had a puffy eye, just to help things along. By 8.56am I was in the shops near my work, having fanged along the beach road - all I needed was something to put in my tummy. I decided a muffin would do it. Went to Brumbys or Bakers Delight, whichever one it is, and they had NOTHING in their window. They had obviously decided, overnight, that baking was not their thing. There were a few employees inside looking perplexed. Goodbye to that idea.
Next to the cafe next door to the former bakery. Our friend from our fave beach cafe used to run it and says it’s crap. I have always agreed - $6 for a small banana smoothie - grrr. But I was desperate. I went in, waited for the guy behind the counter to finish his conversation, and asked what kind of muffins they had.
“These ones.”
“What flavour are they?”
“Raspberry, coconut…”
I got ripples of grateful excitement.
“…and white chocolate.”
“White chocolate?”
He may as well have said ‘raspberry, coconut and slugs’. I hate white chocolate. I asked if they had anything else. They said no. I said ‘thanks anyway’, and as I closed the door behind me I heard him sniff derisively. Gah.
The next cafe had muffins with raspberry almond and milk chocolate chunks. Rejected. I don’t necessarily feel that chocolate belongs in muffins, but I’m willing to be lenient - except at breakfast time. I don’t WANT chocolate for breakfast.
Now a full four minutes late I went to the little grimy bakery further up the road and got a perfectly respectable croissant, that has just made my keyboard a wee bit buttery.
Upon my arrival at work they exclaimed at ‘how tired’ I look, but also said that CS-Anne had said yesterday that she wanted to keep the kitten twins, and that if her neighbour didn’t take the pretty furry one (which she has christened ‘Frederick’ - hmmm) she might keep him as well! I will be following that up in the next day or so!
Mobile dead for two days
Wednesday, 19 July 2006
If anyone out there is trying to contact me via my mobile, it is dead until I locate the charger (which I have a feeling I left at my mother’s last Friday). Also, if you’re bored and into video clips, over at DIG Internet Radio there’s a podcast of a show called One Hour of Music in 20 Minutes and links to some classic clips, compiled by Hermione Gilchrist. More on my Baxter Station experiences and fate of the kittens later.
And what of the kittens?
Saturday, 22 July 2006
The kittens went to stay at CS-Anne’s place for two weeks while my male parent was unable to look after them in the manner to which they had become accustomed. CS-Anne was going to decide whether she wanted to adopt any of them. Dad’s work dragged on for another four or five days after the initial fortnight and CS-Anne was untroubled. The kittens have their own bedroom, the only thing they’ve knocked over was an antique clock which then started working for the first time in 19 years, and they have their food warmed up for them.
Someone gave each of the kittens a catnip mouse, which they run riot with, throwing them up in the air and catching them again. They have begun sleeping on CS-Anne’s bed. Finally, after hearing no news, I called CS-Anne last Monday night - she’s keeping ALL OF THEM!! Shock and awe! When they were in our care, they were referred to as Furry, Feral and No-Personality. They have now become Frederick, Lily and Fleur. Ha! I have been promised visiting rights and photographs. It all ended well!
Separated at birth?
Thursday, 24 August 2006
Robbed
Saturday, 7 October 2006
A month or so back I took a photo of the mangroves reflected in Cannons Creek.
The guy who owns the property where our boatbuilding shed is had commented that the creek was looking particularly photogenic. M got the photo printed and framed and gave it to him last week. In return, his wife baked us some wholemeal blueberry muffins, which M was rhapsodising about when he brought them home. I decided to have one after dinner with a cup of tea. I left it, stupidly, on the arm of the chair while I went to put on the kettle. I turned around to see that Saf had chomped a whacking great bite out of the top of it and was scarfing his way through about four blueberries under the chair. I was so furious-o that I put the entire remaining muffin into his bowl so he could eat it all and hopefully feel sick, and possibly guilty.
Nope. He just ate it down to the paper and then passed out in a large furry muffin inspired stupor. Gah.
The orange cat
Saturday, 18 November 2006
Saffron, my orange cat, immortalised in song and my furry friend since 1993 (it sounds like he’s died, doesn’t it? He hasn’t…) has lived in at least ten houses and two states. He is, it seems, quite adaptable. He is also, on occasion, quite stupid. A month or so ago our landloard wandered by with his old, semi blind, and generally decrepit Alsatian dog. The dog decided to wander up on to our porch, where Saffy was waiting to defend his abode, the trailer, from any approaching enemies.
M later described Saffy’s method of attack as ‘a furry out of control orange rowboat’ with slashing paws instead of flailing oars. It was interesting, to say the least. The dog yipped and ran for the driveway, while I apologised to our landlord.
“No problem,” he shrugged, “the dog has to learn that it’s not his territory.”
He sounded equable, but I suspected that he might be secretly planning Saffy a simulated ostrich-kicked demise. First he would use woodworking skills and create a lookalike ostrich foot, stamp Saffy to death with it, and then leave him near enough to Jake the Ostrich to be absolved of any blame. Yike!
So last night when Saffy didn’t respond to repeated calls for him to get his furry arse inside NOW! - we began to have those little tingly nasty feelings. I went outside with the torch at about 10.30pm whistling for him. I asked Matilda, the horse, whether she had kicked him to the other side of the paddock and had just neglected to tell me. She looked at me with soft eyes and a long face that said, “Where’s the carrot? Aren’t you supposed to give me a carrot whenever we talk?”
I wandered around to Jake the Ostrich, but he is never too forthcoming, and I couldn’t imagine that he would divulge his badness. I decided that Saffy might have got locked inside Jim’s house on the other side of the hill, as there is a small child there that would probably like feeding him. I based my assumption on the time in Seddon when we lost Saffy for more than 24 hours - until he came home sleek and brushed, with a vague waft of perfume. I imagined he had been sitting in some aristocratic lady’s powder room helping her select which diamond earrings to wear, and that he had allowed her to use his furriness to powder her décolletage. Anyway, I digress….
M looked and whistled. Made cat food tin noises. Rattled the dry cat food bag. No cat. We went to bed. Mow, in his special status of the One Remaining Cat, was given special dispensation to sleep at the end of the bed. I had Saffy dreams. We woke up. Mow was still in place. Saf was nowhere. M went out and did more whistling, and then came in and made breakfast. I wandered, in pajama pants and thongs with a bowl of porridge, around the edges of the paddock looking for orange fur. M pulled on his boots and prepared for a proper investigation (which I was putting off, because it meant that there really was a missing cat).
I had headed over to Jake the Ostrich to trade my porridge for information, when I heard M.
“I found him!”
I galloped around to the front of the trailer. And there Saffy was, only a bit more dishevelled than usual.
“Where did you find him?”
M shook his head.
“He was locked in the van all night.”
“Locked in the van?”
“Locked in the van.”
I looked at Saffy, who purred at me.
“Couldn’t you have said something?”
I looked inside the van, which still had the mattress in it from our trip to Maldon. On top of it was my coat, with a small cat shaped indentation and some wisps of orange fur. I think he still has at least seven lives intact.
The Lost Weekend
Tuesday, 5 December 2006
I lost the weekend to my caravan endeavours. And you can barely tell from the photographs (that are still on my camera) that any progress was made. So take my word for it, it’s getting there. M devoted a day of boat time to it yesterday, and has the sunburn to prove it. He sat on top of the carport and sanded the caravan roof (in a proper suit) and then coated the whole top of the caravan with resin to protect it from the rain. Yah!! I won’t go into more boring detail as I am organising a caravan page as my online outlet.
But! While typing of restoration, I just discovered that my good friend Dylan has got himself a restoration DatModBlog for his Datsun 1600. Really have to pull my finger out and get my caravan one sorted.
Hmm. In other news, I have another food to add to my cat’s galaxy of nutrition. He is very annoying and comes and whimpers at my feet whenever I’m chopping something in the kitchen. The other night I was chopping capsicum, and threw some at him in a fury. He ate it. Why am I not surprised? This is the cat that used to kidnap corn cobs from our neighbours barbeques…
P.S I really hate apostrophes. It’s because I don’t fully understand them, unless they are replacing a word. [Sigh]
Snooze
Wednesday, 7 November 2007
We wondered where Saffy had been hanging out during the daytime - in the $20 baby capsule I bought by mistake on Ebay that I’d stuck in the shed. Comfy for a cat.
The cat thing
Friday, 30 November 2007
Cats are nice. Cats are cool. Cats are my friend. But, do you know what? After my two cats have their own peaceful furry deaths? There will be no more cats for me. Mow has killed one baby bunny too many. And now, logically, I want to kill him.
Lame
Saturday, 19 January 2008
This is indicative of my state of mind in the early mornings at the moment. I put out food for the cats, and Mow went running to his bowl. As usual. However, Saf did not barrel through, casting him asunder in the rush to get to his own bowl of cat bits. No Saf did not emerge from the study, and I had a feeling of instant foreboding. L’s cat, Escher, who lived for about a million years, hung on to this mortal coil until just after Chloe was born, and then retired from life. Saffy has started looking a bit older and skankier over the past year…so when I found him under the desk, unable to use his front paw? I immediately assumed that the end was nigh. The dice were thrown. The gig was up. It was time for the fur to hit the road. [sob]
I thought he must have had some kind of stroke or been struck by instant virulent arthritis. Before calling the vet, I elevated his bowls so he could get to them, as he couldn’t use his leg properly. Thus…
It was only about five minutes later, after surfing a wave of dread and panic, that I discovered his leg was trapped in his collar. D’oh. Disaster dissolved. Case closed. I am a panic merchant. Must endeavour to be more ZEN.
