rainsinger, posts by tag: cats - LiveJournal

Now and Then

Z is babysitting by sleeping next to the baby in its little caged enclosure. The baby is amusing itself by pulling at his chest hairs. It is hard to picture a more idyllic family scene.

It seems so weird to think that a year ago I was hugely pregnant, taking up most of the sofa and playing something like an 11 hour card game with Z and a friend, having no idea that shortly after midnight I would bolt awake with the clusterfuck of abdominal pains heralding the arrival of Matei. If I had known I would certainly have gone to bed earlier.

It's the eve of his first birthday and my son is walking.

Also, perfume may or may not be a baby sedative. Today Z sprayed him with some of my scent and the baby slept for a record of 3 daytime hours. Further experiementation is warranted.


Matei and the cats - an unrequited love story

Matei is naturally flirtatious, has always been. When he wants to impress a human (usually a waitress) he makes cooey noises, and batting eyelashes and then offers them his index finger to kiss and shares with them whatever treasures he has in his possession (like his dummy, or whatever plastic crap he has found and is chewing on).

Matei has consistently been trying all his Love Methods on the cats but they remain unimpressed and long-suffering.

M: (Patting the cat by smacking it on the head repeatedly)
Cat: (glaring and moving away)

M: (cooing for all that he is worth, with batty eyelashes)
Cat: (looking away with contempt)

M: (extending his index finger towards cat for the cat to kiss)
Cat: (flicking its whiskers in contempt)

M: (bringing the cat various treasures - my shoes, a pile of DVD cases- and piling them onto cat)
Cat: (jumping away while hissing)

M: (offering the cat some of his banana and prodding it in the face with it)
Cat: (recoiling)

M: (having cornered a sleeping cat, he lays his face against its body and sighs in rapture)
Cat: (putting up with this through gritted teeth)

I guess their love is not to be until he learns how to dispense cat treats.


My favourite thing about the baby has to be the way when he gets very frustrated and upset he grabs his dummy for some frantic sucking, in the exact same way that my mother in the same emotional context inhales a cigarette.

Merry Christmas to those that celebrates it, and happy time off work with nice telly to those that don't. Z and I fall into the latter category and have taken to not rising from our bed before at least 1 pm. Well not officially rising in any case. There are of course the toilet trips, and the letting in and out of cats and the getting up to bring coffees and teas and maybe a few snacks while we snuggle and watch Buffy on DVD.

Neither Z nor I are religious, but in line with our Unitarian leanings we are perfectly happy to make a fuss of any holiday that comes with food, particularly when it's also paired with Days Off Granted By The Government.

Our little potted pine has gratified us by surviving a year of the English weather and our good intentions in the garden, and its bald patches have been adequately covered by festive lights. It is all very cheery and merry and everyone is feeling good, including me, even though I am now resigned to being Pregnant For All Eternity.

And now, from me to you:

Operations Raspeberry Leaf Tea and Clary Sage Massage Oil are All Systems Go.

Nowadays most of the internal discussions I have with my child involve some manner of the following: "Hi! Goodness, you must be bored in there by now. Same scenery! Same noises! Boring! I bet you want to see All The Exciting New Things that exist in the world. Have I mentioned that they are exciting? And new? Come check them out!"

or else: "Hey, you know all those strong irregular contractions I was having between Sunday and Wednesday? I could totally handle some more! Regular ones even. Honestly, it's fine!"

On the other hand, when I think of the enormity of the event which is having my child born, and you know, HERE, in the outside world, my mind starts to boggle with it just a little and I think "er, maybe being pregnant a bit longer is just fine."

In the informal family pool that seems to be existing, the most popular day for the baby's arrival is 25th or 26th of December. On the other hand the strong Sagittarian faction is cheering from the sidelines and urging me to get on with it as soon as possible, preferrably before the 23rd of December.

The amount of pain I am in, continues to increase and Not Be Funny. Other things that are not funny? Bruce Forsyth. And the fact that more than a week before the due date (!!1!!11!!) I am already having to have repeated phone conversations that go something like this:

No, I haven't had the baby yet. No, I'm not in labour right now. No, I have no news to report unless you'd like a breakdown of my trips to the loo. But you know, thank you for asking. AGAIN. You're right, that part where I was all - don't call me, I'll call you- was a stupid suggestion. Feel free to disregard it. I look forward to our next phonecall six hours from now.

On the other hand, what IS funny is a shaved cat. Who in this case is the New Old Cat, recently returned to us microchipped and vaccinated and wormed and wombless and slightly less frightened by humanity although still seemingly repelled by Z from the Cats Protection League. I am happy to report that I am still her snuggle bunny though and that I'm having to turn over in bed even more carefully than usual lest I kick her in the head or something as she curls up next to me. She's definately less wild than she was before, but she's also less purry. Still adjusting, I guess.

The other thing I could be very funny? The Santa costume for Zelda that I ordered off ebay because the Devil, he spoke to me and he said: "Give in to temptation. Give in. You know you want to. It feels soooo goood. Just do it. Excellent. Good minion, good. You please me muchly. Now go put make up on Z while he is sleeping."

One of these days when I figure out how to use YouTube I am going to start making and posting lots of videos of the cats. Because the cats, they are delightful and full of quirks that make me laugh. Like the way the tiny midget that is Zelda has to make her legs rigid and brace herself whenever she's being fluffed and stroked to try and hold herself steady. Or her strange, suicidal camouflaging fetish whereby she who is all black loves to curl up on completely black surfaces (especially say, a computer chair) and I have lost the number of times that Z, and I and our guests have accidentally sat on her.

And Milica, who can hear a fridge door being opened from three miles away and who never misses an opportunity to accompany you to the kitchen and attempt to ingratiate himself through seductively caressing your calf by winding and unwinding his tail around your leg. Or the way he falls over himself in his hurry to vault from our bed whenever any of us gets up, just in case we should happen to be, you know, going to the kitchen and he was going to miss it. Or the way he'll stand in the crossroads of the hallway with all of his body pointing towards the kitchenly direction all "Yes, I understand you just want to go to the loo. But may I suggest that a kitchen is a much more rewarding destination? And a better idea? So I'll just stand here, you know, helpfully reminding you of it."

They have thousands of delighful habits, the cats. Like Milica's obsessive attachment to my blue knitted sweater, or his way of curling up on your chest and mewling to be stroked and most of all how trusting he is (because this cat has allowed me to examine his eyes and poke him in the eyeball in an attempt to remove a stuck speck of dirt without so much as a hiss; also has consented to have helium balloons tied to his body).

The best thing though? The sibling fighting between him and Zelda. It's not bullying (there are no teeth or claws) and it's opportunistic in nature (say if she's sitting nearby when he's passing, he won't miss the opportunity to cuff her on the head; similarly she won't miss an opportunity to annoy him whenever possible, to provoke him with her nearness and the wavery of her fluffy fluffy tail).

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The weekend, it was good. Full of small successes.

On Saturday we slept late. And I used Filo Pastry and the enormous quantities of leek in the fridge to make my first pie. (My top cooking tip - chopping mountains of vegetables is made much better by being able to watch Strictly Come Dancing and X-Factor at the same time. Although Z felt that the way I was paying more attention to the Argentine Tango than to my chopping was hazardous for his taste). The pie came out rather nicely (like a low-fat version of a spring roll) and so buoyed was I by my culinary success that I want to make one with apples and raisins.

On Sunday we went to a birthday party and I got given The Most Comfortable Chair In the World and sat in it without pain for seven hours eating canapes and listening to amusing stories (Salmon and gherkin canapes! The new analgesiac!).

And when we came home the night was made of frost and cut-glass stars and I felt well enough to go for a short walk and all the iced-up cars looked like something out of a fairytale and I felt so buoyed by energy and good feelings that I inscribed hearts and stars and pleasant wishes on their frosted rooftops all the way down the street.

Ah, life, it has such a sense of humour. We all knew that right? And how nice it is to get reminders. So let me regale you with retelling the series of cosmic pranks which Z and I have been living with since Friday.

You know what's even more amusing than being sent a bill for backdated Extra Service Charges (merry Christmas to everyone!)? Having that bill sent to the wrong address.

And, what you may ask, is even funnier than that? Having court proceedings brought up against you because you neglected to pay this bill which you didn't know existed, and then being held responsible for all (steeply rising, bedecked with interest) costs for the legal proceedings.

And the punchline, the height of hilarity? Why, only learning about this situation upon receipt of a letter from your mortgage lender. A letter and copies of correpondence that uses an emotive turn of phrase such as 'blah blah violation of lease due to nonpayment of service charges' 'blah blah bad credit' 'blah blah remortgaging application on hold' 'blah blah sort it out suckers or look into the stony raging jaws of the repossession of your house'.

It's all been a barrel of capitalist laughs I tell you.

Actually, I am deeply proud of the way Z and I have dealt with it all. Nobody shouted, nobody blamed or accused or shook hands at heaven while shouting 'WHYYYYY MEEEEEEEEE'? Instead, we just pulled together in a steely team-like fashion to devise a plan and sort out the situation as quickly as possible and spent the in-between hours clinging to one another like chiller's kittens re-affirming the depths of our affection for each other and the the most important thing which was not losing sight of that or of our excitement at the nearness of baby.

Because if you do get stressed, if you do lose sight of that? Then the bastards have truly won.

So while the last few days have been embellished by all kinds of new and interesting stresses of the Plutonic 'let me strip you down to your naked shivering cores' sort, they were also some of the most deeply intimate of this year. Because the only antidote to harshness of the world? Exchanging ever-more tender language with your husband. And knowing that as long as you yourselves are okay, that is the key, the deepest heart and bone of it; that everything else will resolve itself.

Also, I have hope, for I have seen that men and God are not immune to the tears of women. How do I know this? Because yesterday the Cats Protection people phoned me up to ask if I wanted the little cat back.

Wednesday was my last day of work. Originally I wasn't meant to go on leave until the second week of December but the amounts of pain I was in made me collate all my annual leave and just take off early.

On Thursday I did as the cats do and slept all day with an occasional pause for food and stretching only to sleep in a different position. TOday I did much of the same, only with a shower and some hair-combing thrown in. Although I am no stranger to sloth, this crazy amount of self-indulgence made me feel quite guilty (I had been entertaining bold - and clearly doomed- plans of cleaning the house). I had no idea I could feel that tired considering I slept most of the day, then slept all night as well. However, in reality I think I should be making the most of it considering that after the baby comes I won't be getting restful shuteye for the next 18 years.

The last days of work were hard. Despite being buoyed by crazy rushes of adrenaline I was still struggling to get through the day. THe baby's head had begun to move down into my pelvis (an entirely normal procedure) but it roughly translated as OWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW as pelvic pain shot up another octave and I walked in a manner that was not so much waddle as Lurch Of The Undead.

I'm in the 37th week of pregnancy, and it's been a time of milestones it seems. My navel has begun to get shallower and I've had to take out my bellybutton piercing.

Everyone tells me I look great, which is encouraging considering that if I felt like crap AND looked like crap I'd probably spend all my days crying. One thing I'm grateful for is that at least it's not Z in pain because a) if he was we'd probably have ended up in marriage counselling by now and b) of the two of us he is much better placed to periodically haul the other into verticality.

And on that same note of counting my blessings and whatnot, here is a list of evils that have not been visited upon me in this pregnancy: stretch marks, heartburn, swelling, contstipation, piles, insomnia, excessive weight gain. Verily, verily, long may they stay away.

The urchin cat is wonderful. I am particularly fond of her habit of sleeping either on me or curled up next to some crook of my body, purring and generating contentment. (Though she still fears Z, I am very much her little snugglebunny). As far as I'm concerned, she has one bad habit which is an insistence on grooming me. While I appreciate the thought, the raspiness of her tongue I'm not so wild about. She is a strange little creature. Half puppy, half-cat. Incredibly affectionate, with a passion of curling up near wherever I am, but without the need to chew shoes and stuff.

LJ has been sadly neglected in the past couple of weeks while I struggled to get through my contracted hours without crying, but now that I am no longer gainfully employed catching up on your lives seems like the finest use of my time and I look forward to doing so.

My mother's tenants may well be the thing that finally buys me a one-way ticket to insanity. But let us not dwell on that! Or on the enrmous amounts of physical pain that I am in and how thousand and one tiny stresses from my work and my course are conspiring to make me feel like crying.

It's rainy and I'm achey, and in one of those moods where I just want someone to cuddle me and bring me tea and tell me that everything is going to be all right, there there, let us just curl up in bed now and drift our thoughts to happier realms.

So instead, let us talk of joyous things (do you have any joyous things you want to share? Now is the time to tell them!) or at very least things which have made me laugh.

1. My embassy's explanation for the prices they charge for consular services.

So, here we have the breakdown of the tax charged for resolution of requests about military service

Request for a resolution £11
Tax for the resolution £16
Tax for the act of physically giving you the resoluton £8
Actual cost: (forms x2) £1
Total: £36


2. First Cat is my boyfriend. He looooooves me. And he prefers to let me know about this with equal measures of love and possessiveness. When the time has come for me to go back home and for us to be reunited and stop the crushing loneliness of a Nina-less day he throws himself into my arms, or into my lap or weaves himself around my legs with in ecstatic throes of head-rubbing and purry love. But I am fickle. And if I should happen to do something so intrinsically immoral as oh, i don't know give any affection to the other cat, well First Cat hisses at his rival, gives me a dirty look and departs the premises in a huff. For I have Betrayed Our Love. I have Desecrated His Affection, and stamped on his heart. Only time will tell whether the baby will be The Last Straw.

Among his other perversions, First Cat has developed a bathroom fetish. Many is the time when he has been caught attempting to drink out of the toilet bowl (needless to say he has a perfectly fresh and lovely bowl of water in the kitchen, but clearly it lacks a certain je ne sais quoi), he accompanies my bathtimes by either perching on the edge of the tub like a mountain goat (no mean feat as it's a narrow ledge and he has four wide paws to fit onto it) or by standing up on his hand legs with his front paws perched on the edge of the tub, making an occasional attempt to bat me out of the water.

Similarly I cannot last remember when any trip to the toilet I made was not inveigelated by at least one cat, with First Cat preferrably assisting in the operations by curling up on my lap.

And if there is one thing which cannot stand, one thing which maddens and wounds him it is the concept of the closed bathroom door. If I happen to be in the loo without him he will spend the entirety of my sojourn there by standing and crying outside the door. I'm sure you'll agree, the actions of an entirely logical mind. Because who knows what I could be doing there on my own?

He is very possibly being cheated out of lap time people! Or I could be drowning in the bathtub without faithful cat's attempts to fish me out. Or maybe it's even worse than that. Perhaps I too am using this opportunity to draw complicated mandala patterns in the litter tray with my paws! Or hogging all that delicious toilet water all to myself.

My nefariousness drives me crazy too, just thinking about it.

General News

Generally speaking, Tuesday is my favourite day of the week. I don't usually have to work today, and until I go to my course in the evening my time is usually my own. On Tuesdays I tend to at least attempt to counteract my natural lethargic tendencies to lounge about in my pyjamas until it's time to leave by getting up and doing exercise and cleaning house all the better to feed my illusion of productivity with. (Unless of course I am in the glorious company of humanfemale, for there never was a finer slumming companion)

Today started out predictably enough with all the best productivity intentions, but as soon as I discovered that along with my child I am also gestating cystitis I gave it up for a lost cause and declared it a waste of resources to do anything beyond lounging in my bed, sucking on white maltesers and watch episodes of American Dad.

Cat News

Ah, cats. I love cats but I can't understand them. First Cat is all about the love (when he's not about bullying of the Small Cat) and routinely exchanges with him break my heart. It melts me that he follows me from room to room and curls up to sleep somewhere nearby, it irritates me beyond all reason that he refuses to classify Small Cat as not-prey and continues to stalk and pounce on her (without teeth and claws mind you, but being double her size and weight she is not amused by these overtures) and it kills me that he gives me this wounded look when I chase him away from her and makes a noise, a forlorn mew of utter, dejected heartbreak.

Husband News

Generally I like to show my appreciation of Z by leaving him dinner on those days when I'm away in the evening but not working during the day. And to ring him randomly at least three times a week in order to tell him that I love him and think he is the hottest human being on the planet. But I don't just confine myself to praise and helpfulness. No, I also branch out into pointing out that he has dwarf legs (deliciously muscular legs to be sure, attached to some phenomenally hard and pert buttocks, but fairly stumpy nonetheless. I would be more inclined towards delicacy of phrase were he not chronicling my pregnancy weight gain (6 kilos so far) through song, most recently Once, Twice, Three Times a Lady

Although this is not a position I expected to take, I am starting to
feel quite sorry for mice.

True, I still prefer a dead mouse on the doorstop than a living one in
my home, but in the ideal world if mice chose to go about their lives in
a place far far away and our paths never crossed, I wouldn't be hunting
them down. I'd leave them to just get on with it and the cats would
content themselves with chasing crickets instead.

As it is though, rarely a day goes by without me waking up to some
little cadaver outside my door, and the sight of all those rigor
mortised little bodies is beginning to fill me with melancholy. Neither
cat has any interest in eating their catch, so they usually seem a
curiously peaceful collection of stiffs - as though they've just laid
down to sleep. (Except this morning, when Zelda's mouse lay in a pool of
blood, like a teeny tiny gory crime scene).

The cats also have very different attitudes to prey. Although Zelda is a
fierce and passionate hunter, her interest in her catch fades the moment
it stops moving, and she contents to laying it out in front of the door
neatly in a row, like a collection of badges. She never gives it a
second look, preferring to focus on throroughly washing herself and
asking to be let into the house.

On the other hand Milica is all about the exhibitionism. Statistically
speaking, he is a much less succesfull murder-machine but any occasion
he manages to catch something is announced with him turning sommersaults
in the air, running in circles and literally bouncing off the walls. If
he could manage to beat his chest and emit Tarzan-like howls of triumph,
then I'm convinced that's what he would do - but as it is he throws
himself into physical acrobatics of glee, followed up by The Replay Of
The Triumphant Hunt whereupon he pounces upon the dead thing and
pretends to kill it all over again. He will repeat this exercise many
many times, in fact he won't stop until the poor little desecrated
cadaver is removed from his Jaws Of Doom and still the cat will be all
'Did you see me? Did you see what I did? Let me show you again how I
pounced on him! I am Hunter! I am Mighty Hunter! Nothing can escape me!
Especially not dead things! I am Magnificent! Oh, the Glory of Me!'

It reminds me of one of my favourite Montenegran cartoons where a
sparrow and a worm greet each other with: "Hail, Mighty Eagle! Well-met
Fearsome Snake!"

On a separate note, I am wearing extremely cute shoes today (black
peep-toe flats with white polka dots and a little bow. I had to dissect
them a little bit to make the peeptoe hole larger to accommodate my
Freaky Giant Toe. Thankfully their cuteness is undiminished AND I can
walk with ease.

And now a poll!