Some knitters belong to the Society of Sneaking Schemers.
Some knitters' cats belong to the Dame Edna Appreciation Society.
Some other knitters, mostly those who are Erqsome, promise to post thoughtful and interesting full-length posts on both Societies as soon as the week stops beating them with the busy stick.
The love of my kittens' lives -- a love they fight over and press their faces into even more than the armpits of Matthew's smelly day-old t-shirts -- is a grotty old goldfish on a stick. While Mozzie enjoys simply springing feline cunning upon the innocent fish, Yeti is obsessed. She's tongue obsessed. She grooms the goldfish as though it was her fishy child. See the halo? It's the product of a frequently applied kitten tongue, grooming the life out of a stuffed orange goldfish.
It's hilarious to watch, this love. A literal laugh riot.
I may not have mentioned it, but I'm a little tipsy.
Why are you hiding, my dearheart?
Surely it can't be that bad.
Perhaps you are recalling what happens when you taunt the cats with your Jack Daniel's BBQ sauce and wind up by pouring it all over your delicious Vegan Shepherd's Pie.
You buy a box of Just For Men, dye your beard black and try to join the League of Moustachioed Defiants.
It's all right, Tootie Gizzardchunks. It's safe. You're among friends here, even if Mozzie doesn't want to be seen with you.
I, for one, am with Yeti on this one.
I think you looked pretty tasty, too.
My first proper day as a full-time student-cum-part-time freelancer was not exactly what I expected. There was a lot more breaking and entering than I thought strictly necessary.
There's a small rooftop ledge thingammy outside out kitchen window which we've been training the girls to go out on to, in the hopes that they will learn to put their territorial angst to practical use. Thus far they have had no cat-to-cat contact, just staring contests down the garden and hissing furiously at any thing that gets a little too close. This is because they have yet to learn how to get from the rooftop to the garden below, but as they only really go out when one of us is home I've always put it down to a lack of practise than a lack of interest, which is why yesterday I left the window open all morning.
And that's how B&E #1 occurred.
I was curled up on the sofa reading Things as They Are, or Caleb Williams by William Godwin (oft declared the first 'modern' detective/spy novel), with Yeti next to me, when I heard a scuffling noise in the kitchen. It settled down to the crunch of kitten food being nibbled at, so I ignored it. It was silent for a bit and I carried on reading, and Yeti carried on snoozing, and there was a small thudding noise. Followed by Mozzie jumping down from the scarf and hat bin on the landing to go investigate. Which got me up to see what was going on, because hang on a second Moz had been on this side of the flat the whole time?, in time to see the large yellow eyes of a large black cat as it turned on its heels and darted back into the kitchen. I ran down the corridor, Mozzie and Yeti on my heels, and just managed to see the alien cat's large bushy behind jump out through the window and scarper.
This Bushy Black Marauding Bastard cat had climbed in through the window, eaten all my kittens' food, drank all their kitten milk and generally made itself quite at home.
Yeti and Mozzie were completely unnerved by this whole episode, and perhaps a little embarrassed that they hadn't picked up on the scent of an alien cat entering their own home, and sniffed and fussed over every inch that had been tainted until the Erqsome to Wave household had been restored to normal. After a while they felt secure enough to brave reclaiming their roof space and climbed out to sniff and fuss some more, and I went back to my reading.
Which is how B&E #2 occurred.
I was just getting absorbed again in my book when suddenly the sounds of scrambling and scratching and crying came from the kitchen. I ran across, thinking the black cat had come back, to find Mozzie clinging on to the window ledge, howling, and no sign of Yeti. I called out to her and she responded with that strange guttural cooing my kittens make when they can't find each other. So I pulled Mozzie off the window and eased out on to the roof, then crawled over to the edge.
Down below, at the bottom of the ivy that envelopes the edge of the roof, was Yeti, staring plaintively up, wailing. Somehow, she had fallen or jumped or climbed down and was now trapped in the downstairs neighbour’s garden. I don't think she knew how she'd got down and so had no idea of how to climb back up. Of course, that was when the roof slating started to shift under me and I had to retreat back inside.
For the next hour, while Yeti pleaded for rescue, I hung out of the window trying to intice her to at least try climbing the wall, mobile clamped to my ear as I called and texted the downstairs neighbour. I haven't mentioned yet that at the moment I'm somewhat pre-menstrual. There have been a number of changes in my life over the past couple of weeks and this, added to everything else, made me break down a little. Nonetheless, when Yeti eventually went silent and disappeared from view completely, I decided that torturing myself with the fact I'm going to make a terrible parent seeing as I can't even look after a cat was a much better idea than breaking into the downstairs neighbour’s flat in order to get into the garden.
Except that I did attempt to break into the downstairs neighbour’s flat in order to break into the garden. Three times. We have a key, in case of emergencies, and as I couldn't get ahold of her, I decided this was an emergency. The first time, I couldn't find the backdoor key. The second time, I did find the backdoor key, but out in the garden Yeti was still nowhere to be found. It wasn’t until later that I started to worry that, having left the backdoor open while I was searching the garden, I may have accidentally trapped the kitten inside the flat, which would give away the fact that I'd been in the downstairs neighbour's flat without permission. Even though this was a huge emergency for me, I was still thinking clearly enough to realise that a lost cat isn't an emergency for everyone. So I broke in for a third time to search the flat. But Yeti wasn't there either.
By this time I was getting horrible visions that not only had she injured herself in the fall, but had locked herself in the garden shed, then caught on a gardening tool and hanged. Convinced that if I ever managed to find her, she would be strung up dead from the prongs of a garden rake, I called my neighbour again, left another message and decided I would just have to wait until she got home. In the meantime, I comforted myself (?) by sobbing over Mozzie, because breaking and entering had proven futile as well as unethical.
At last, four hours after Yeti had first gone over the edge, my downstairs neighbour called and immediately told me to let myself into the garden. In the waning light of early evening, I found her. She had indeed been hiding in the garden shed, though she was quite injury-free and indignant I would suggest it was anything other than an intentional ploy on her part to do some exploring. I don't care what she thinks. I just glad she's back.
(Lest you think I am completely without morals, I did confess and have our neighbour up for a bottle of wine as thanks, and she told me not to be such a daft monkey, because of course it was an emergency. She's rather lovely, our downstairs neighbour. She knocked on the door to make sure we were all right when B&E #3 happened later that evening, but it wasn't us at all. It was the flat across the road, though technically, it wasn't even a B&E, but someone throwing a brick through their window, so B without the E. All the same, I'd be rather pleased if that was it for breaking of any sort for the rest of the year.)
I want to live like this, with a teapot on a swing and a cup ever ready. I want creative Thursdays, but on Tuesdays. I want to love folk and take tea with Mr Forbes. I want to pledge to buy handmade. It's a good thing, a bit like a Martha Stewart 'good thing', but less creepy.
I want to be able to get reading done in the evenings so I didn't have to be jolted into consciousness every morning at 5.23. I want to get some reading done at all. I want to not wake up at 4 in the morning thinking about yarn and what I might do with it. I want to not have to cancel plans all over the place because I'm so stupidly optimistic about how much real guilt-free time I really have to give people (as opposed to the clock-watching half-hours I persist in, during which I wish I were reading/knitting/sleeping/listening to this podcast). I want to be able to read and knit at the same time while hanging out with friends. I want to believe signing up for NaBloPoMo was a good idea. I want think that the Nut Lady might just have something there. But I don't. That nut she's holding looks like a bum and now all I can think when I look at that site is 'Bum-nut Lady'. Which strikes me as rather thinking ill of the dead.
Actually, what I really want is to be able to focus on less than eight billion things at a time. Although that said, I now also want to make something that needs a set of kick-ass bust darts. Don't look so surprised, Yeti, there's a great tutorial right here!
(This picture is one of my favourites of Yeti. What is she looking at? What is she thinking? She looks so tall and graceful and oh so very surprised about something.)
Thank you so much for all your kind wishes for Mozzie and Yeti, and your comments in support of my general paranoia about the wee ones going under the knife!
At ten to four yesterday afternoon I shut down my computer and raced out the door to go and pick up my little darlings from the vet. I was anxious, I was nervous, I felt guilt like not even my mother can inspire... I have no idea why. Other than being slightly groggy and very hungry, Mozzie and Yeti have bounced back to their usual nose-licking, tail-chasing form. The patch that was shaved away is about two inches square, much smaller than Medusa certain people would have me believe of British veterinarians, with only a small, centimetre-long gash in the centre to betray they'd gone through anything at all. To my great relief they do not seem resentful or pissed off at all; in
fact, I would go so far as to say they are more doopily affectionate
than ever, which is lovely unless you're trying to eat soup. And
they're still engaged in mortal kombat, so that's a good sign.
The shaved patch is weird. If they sit right their little shorn hip bones poke through their pelt. Like furry monks. It's quite amazing, really, because you can totally tell how tiny they would look without their fur and you can see the stratification of baby fur, winter down and outer coat. Far from being rough, the shaved area is very slick and soft, like the back of their ears. I'm going to try to keep a documented record of how long it takes to grow back -- does anyone know?
I have a weird bruisy nubbin on my rib in the centre of my chest. Speculation of alien beasties colonising my human skeleton aside, I reckon it must have come from when I was reattaching the legs to my desk or from rearranging the furniture so create an open, welcoming of academic space for my study. What's that? A study? All of my own? It can be true and it is! My parents have finally buggered off to France for two months which means my study has stopped sidelining as a guestroom.
My parents have not been staying with us ever since they touched down three months ago to start life anew in their home country, instead they've been playing incessant drop-ins. Every couple of weeks they would fly in, complain about the lack of a regular supply of butter/cream/biscuits, fill the fridge and fly off again, leaving Matthew and me frizzy and windswept. The upside to all this was that they like to buy lots of good food (and are rather nice about sharing) and that Mum is peculiar about maintaining a spotless bathroom, which meant that it was cleaned daily instead of weekly, as is more conceivable in Matthew and my hectic schedules.
The downside is that being on-call we were never quite prepared for them, so the house would inevitably be in some degree of chaos whenever they decided to touchdown. Also, Mum, who treats Mozzie and Yeti like the grandchildren she would give her left ovary for, is nonetheless extremely allergic to cats. It's not fair, really. She becomes such a sop around them and they adore her, but if she stayed longer than ten days they would begin to slowly suffocate her.
In any case, Mum no longer has that problem (which means Dad can stop darting disapproving looks at her as she draped them about her like a fine stole) and I now have a study. Hurrah!
The irony of Mum doting on my little girls is that as of Thursday they will no longer be able to have babies of their own. I have never been one of those dozy asses who claim they want to 'leave their animals intact' or that it's not natural. I think spaying and neutering is one of the best things you can do to your domestic animal. Both of mine girls were from surprise litters and we don't want any springing up in our house, thank you. We aren't ready to look after our own offspring, let alone an entire litter of somebody else's.
All the same, the thought of a knife piercing their flesh, that it could all go so wrong, that they will somehow be grievously mutilated makes my heart pang terribly. They're at that age where they're so little and so huge all at the same time, and they trust us because we have never let them down. I feel like I'm somehow betraying them by willingly allowing them into the hands of an unknown so he can sever things inside. I feel like after Thursday they might change because they know it was me who arranged to put them through it. Yeti might stop grooming my nostrils and stretching out a comforting paw whenever she thinks I might be poorly. Mozzie could stop demanding we tickle her belly and racing to the top of the steps when she hears Matthew's key in the door. And they can't do that.
They have been our girls for not quite five months but it seems preposterous to think they could one day not. I couldn't bear it if they suddenly changed into unhappy, unfriendly cats; for, even in their determination that the pepper plant should live in the kitchen sink and delight in kicking shoes down the stairs, they are perfect.
I'd like to thank everyone who participated, particularly the random number generators:
Using the powers of divination, Matthew was able to seek out the most worthy.
Yeti and Mozzie were both very interested in making sure that all the numbers were there.
It was very difficult, but eventually, after several stops and starts, the numbers were chosen,
(drumroll please):
2nd runner up: number 29, blogless Gretchen
1st runner up: number 76, Sherry W
And the winner: number 6, Auglaise!
Hurrah! Congratulations Gretchen, Sherry W and Auglaise, I'll be emailing you all over the weekend for your addresses Gretchen you've been emailed, but Sherry and Auglaise, I can't find your email addresses anywhere, so get in touch! Well done everyone else, too. The response was freakin brilliant! And, rather than spoil any surprise, I will let them tell you what they've won. Whee!
Sweet holy crap, I can't believe the extent of the piratey response to the contest, hurrah! Thankee all very muchly. I am going to endeavour to respond to everyone to let you know I received the comment, but it might take a wee while.
The winner(s) will be announced tomorrow. (Yeah, that's right, there's a potential plural in there. I think at least one runner up, but I need to give a long hard think about what the prizes are going to entail if there's more than one going out. They have to be good, yo.)
Regardless, as of today I am officially a student again! A slightly daunting prospect is this sudden realisation that I'm now going to have to actually start reading properly again. Reading a lot properly. But beneath the terror of failure is a thrilled sense of anticipation. I'm being given the chance to research a topic I adore, and that's no small feat. Plus, Sharon and one of my best friends, Susanna, are both heading back into the lofty world of academe this year, too, so it's not like I'm alone in this. Because, you know, other than myself there are only three other students in the entire university.
Gratuitous kitten picture? Oh, all right then:
 buy handmade at madebyloumms our etsy shop is open! |
