We all know how much Louis Catorze hates the sound of the guitar.
However, poor Catorze hates the guitar even when it’s not being played. In fact, he hates it so much that, when Cat Daddy picked it up the other day to move it to one side, the little sod ran for the hills.
Here he is, waiting anxiously to see whether things will go from bad (Cat Daddy picking up the Discordant Instrument of Doom) to worse (Cat Daddy playing it):
“Le champ est libre?” Little sod isn’t sure.
Luckily, this time, they didn’t; they remained just “bad”, and Catorze soon cautiously pitter-pattered back to us. But Cat Daddy practises every day, for at least an hour (usually more). So, sooner or later, “worse” will happen.
In stark contrast to Catorze, here is his cat-cousin Rodan, sneaking into the practice session of his human brother, aged eleven. It’s not a resounding yes to the cello, but it’s certainly an “I’m interested” …
“What’s this?”
Maybe Cat Daddy should switch to string rather than percussion? Or even singing, which seemed to work for this lady and her cat (click in and scroll down for the video)?
I’m glad to report that there have been no more mice since my last-but-one post. However, Louis Catorze did wake me at 5am one morning to proudly deliver me a piece of flaked almond. I know.
Anyway, in other news, remember my blissful morning ritual of sipping green tea whilst Catorze sleeps on my lap? Well, those days are now gone, at least for the next few months, thanks to a certain someone’s Summer Mode being well and truly activated.
These days, when I wake up in the morning, the little sod is nowhere to be found. Last weekend he was out all day, coming in at 9pm to scream and scream at us – no reason, just for fun – and then race back out again.
I suspect that the main draw for Catorze is the fact that our outdoor cushions have been deployed. Why settle le rump royal on hard wood or rattan when you can cradle it in/on something soft?
Here he is, in his new favourite places. I don’t suppose he will be budging until October at the absolute earliest:
Living the life of a king.A greyer day than the one above, but still a nice time to enjoy le jardin.
Louis Catorze welcomed a friend during the bank holiday weekend. Well, when I say “welcomed”, I don’t really mean that. In fact, “friend” may be something of a stretch, too.
Oh. Mon. Dieu.
If you are a long-term follower of Le Blog, you will know that relations between Catorze and Oscar the dog next door were, erm, somewhat mixed*. Catorze seemed genuinely curious about his canine neighbour and came in peace, whereas Oscar just wanted to kill him. And, the more Catorze refused to take no for an answer, the more murderous Oscar became. You get the idea.
*Non-Brits: if your British friends ever describe any experience as “mixed”, it means it was only narrowly short of an apocalypse.
Disco the dog, however, is a different case entirely: he’s younger, friendlier and more patient than his big brother Oscar. And, most importantly, the sight of cat doesn’t trigger his Urge To Kill switch. So, after some years of debating about introducing the pair, and after too much booze for most of us at the pub, last weekend we and the Dog Family hit upon the genius idea of finally making it happen.
These sentinels watched us as we walked home from the pub. If you ever played Spot The Ball in the 1980s, you’ll be able to place where Disco was at the time.
Dog Daddy, after arriving at Le Château: “To make this work, we all need to just act normal.”
(He and Cat Daddy then proceeded to drink three bottles of red wine between them, so they nailed that particular objective.)
In short: apart from one hissing incident (when Disco, in his keenness to say hello, bounced a bit too close to Catorze) and a lot of Catorzian screaming, the two parties behaved themselves. Catorze was offended, cautious maybe, but not particularly fearful. It helped considerably that one of us remained sober enough to veto the stupid suggestions. (“Why don’t we let the dog off the lead?” Erm, no.) Conducting the experiment with all four of us drunk would not have been a good idea.
The male humans, however, were far less civilised than the animals, with the copious amounts of red wine sending them spiralling into Unrepeatable Expletives and inappropriate conversation. I hope that none of our neighbours were home.
Anyway, Sa Maj now has his Château back to himself, and he appears to have forgotten all about what happened. Let’s hope he isn’t saving up a massive revenge -puke in some inappropriate place, at some inappropriate time …
In the time it took me to go upstairs, take off my make-up and change my clothes, Louis Catorze managed to produce a mouse from somewhere and place it in the usual trophy cabinet at the bottom of the stairs. When I came back downstairs he was sitting proudly next to his prize, licking his gross little chops.
The positioning of the mouse was such that there was no way I could have missed it when I arrived home. Yet how he could have found it in those few minutes after my arrival, is beyond me.
Catorze is fourteen. FOURTEEN. How in the name of Benjamin Button is he managing this kind of caper? Not to mention the fact that he is chubbing up so, if anything, you’d think the extra podge would slow him down a bit.
Oh, and he’s also been trying to roll off his spot-on onto some manky outdoor surface, because he now has crud stuck to his neck:
This is not gloss, but unidentified grey dust.A bit clearer here. Ugh.
Anyway, I am far too tired to trudge outside to the park bin – yes, I know it’s only a few metres, but that’s not the point. So I have left the mouse in an Ocado bag on the doorstep outside and sent a message to Cat Daddy, who is still out at the pub, asking him to do the deed when he gets home. I just hope he doesn’t get so drunk that he ends up stumbling home after dark, sticking his foot through the bag and treading squashed mouse all over Le Château.
Bloody cats. Remind me again why it is that we bother?
EDIT: Cat Daddy is home, having successfully disposed of the mouse in the park bin where all Catorzian kills are laid to rest. However, as he came in, Catorze dashed out at The Front. So now we have the arduous task of herding him back in before he goes screaming outside That Neighbour’s window.
A Dorian Gray metaphor: the wisteria withers and dies whilst Catorze remains sprightly and youthful.
Thank you to everyone who kindly sent birthday wishes to Louis Catorze. (Those who didn’t shall be sent to the guillotine.)
The little sod had a magnificent day, consisting of the following activities:
1. Waking me during 5am parkour/singalong.
2. Following Cat Daddy around all day, screaming for attention and headbutting aggressively if it wasn’t forthcoming. Cat Daddy had to escape from one end of the garden to the other, only for Catorze to follow him and do more of the same*.
3. Creepy-staring for food, then sniffing it and walking away as soon as it was served.
4. A bit more screaming.
5. Strutting around loving himself.
6. Puking on the landing (astoundingly, on the floor and not on the carpet).
7. Sitting on the outdoor cushions, gazing out over his royaume and dreaming up new ways to annoy the merde out of us.
*I don’t know why Cat Daddy thought anything different would happen; if he wanted to he left alone, all he had to do was unleash the guitar.
Right now, as the sun sets on his birthday and the mischievous Beltane spirits are out in force, I am trying to corral Catorze in from The Front, but he’s not having it. Every time I open the front door, he runs into the road (!) to escape from me.
If he lives to fifteen (which is doubtful at this rate; running into the road is hardly conducive to a long life), this is the kind of thing that I have in mind. Thank you to my friend AnnMarie for the idea.
There lives a certain cat in TW8 He is small and black, and he looks a total state Most people look at him with terror and with fear And Ocado drivers all know to stay well clear He can scream his guts out like he’s dying Even when there’s nothing wrong We can’t shut him up though we keep trying So we wrote this song
La la little sod Struts around as if he’s God He is a cat that really is strange La la little shit Why do we put up with it? He’s most bizarre and truly deranged
He rules his grand Château and is the one true Roi Yet he runs away when his daddy plays guitar On dark and stormy nights he goes on hunting sprees But he rolls and purrs when a man gives him a squeeze For his guests he’s sweet and captivating They think he can do no wrong Once they’ve gone he’s just excruciating Screaming all day long
La la little sod Struts around as if he’s God He’s got the whole world under his spell La la little shit Why do we put up with it? He’s really strange and creepy as hell
Yesterday we finally met Louis Catorze’s cat-cousins, Rodan and Mothra. And it turns out that one of them is a lot more troublesome than the other.
Do you think it’s the tabby, or the Chat Noir? Now, take your time to think about this.
Mothra loves her Cat Uncle.Rodan isn’t sure (but changed his mind later).
Rodan is a complete scoundrel. Here are just a few of his misadventures so far:
⁃ Sticking his face in the litter tray
⁃ Attacking his Cat Daddy immediately afterwards, trying to shove his litter-dirty face into his papa’s face
⁃ Trying to climb into the bathtub
⁃ Trying to climb into the fridge (and, on a later occasion, actually succeeding in being shut in; luckily his mamma rescued him from the veg drawer straight away)
⁃ Trying to climb into the dishwasher
⁃ Vandalising his mamma’s Lego (by knocking over)
– Vandalising his mamma’s Lego again (by chewing)
⁃ Escaping out at The Front (and his Front is far more hazardous than ours)
⁃ Stealing sanitary ware, and running off with it
Three of the above were ON THE SAME MORNING. No doubt, by the time this post goes live, there will be more to add to the list.
The kittens have also figured out that, if they split up after being caught causing trouble, the pursuing human can’t chase both of them at once.
Bastard kittens.
Rodan is only a few months old, so the humans have a good few years of carnage to endure. And although, as the Chat Noir, he will be the originator of all the trouble, I wouldn’t rule out his sister, Mothra, as a co-conspirator. Last week she jumped onto her human brother’s dinner tray, grabbed a piece of bacon and ran off with it.
TU2C? TUC²? 2(TUC)?
Kittens are cute, but I think I’m too old and too tired for this kind of caper. I’ll stick to senior cats … yes, even if they’re Louis Catorze.
“Yup, that definitely looks like a litter tray to me. Let’s do it.”
It’s Beltane Eve in a few days’ time, and this day is known in Celtic folklore for the activity of otherworldly beings. Louis Catorze’s fourteenth birthday is on the same day, and this year he will be turning fourteen.
I have always known that Catorze is not of this world. Last month I posted a photo of him showing the most bizarre alien eyes, with pupils appearing to be horizontal rather than vertical. However, I have since taken a couple more pictures, close-up this time, and the weirdness goes on.
This one, with boss-eyed pupils, although very strange-looking, is actually perfectly debunkable. What appears to be the pupil is actually the reflection of my head and, if you zoom in, you can see that the real pupil is actually in the correct place:
Bit weird.
However, what in the name of Men in Black is going on here?
Seriously weird.
Oui, Mesdames et Messieurs: the pupil and the surrounding area of his right eye (our left) seem to have swapped colours, giving him a green pupil and a black outer area.
What is happening? What is he?
And, now that he’s in our house, how on earth do we get him out?
Louis Catorze just won’t stop screaming. It’s absolutely awful and we don’t know what to do.
Taking a brief break before starting again.
Yesterday I came home to find that someone had taken away his new Versailles glass put his old, ugly, calcified water tumbler back. I thought the cleaning lady had done it, but it was Cat Daddy, who thought, perhaps, that the screaming was a protest against the new glasses. I told him that I had seen Catorze drink from the glasses many times, so it couldn’t possibly be that. However, that doesn’t help us in our quest to find out what on earth it could be.
Two days ago, when Cat Daddy was on the phone to a family member, Catorze circled him, screaming and screaming. Luckily said family member knows what he’s like (Catorze, I mean, not Cat Daddy), so she just did her best to ignore it. But that didn’t make it any less embarrassing.
He has food. He has water. He has warmth, love and comfortable places to sleep. Nothing has changed in his surroundings which could cause him to be unsettled. The only thing we can imagine is that he just likes the sound of his own voice. I guess someone has to.
Catorze and I watched “Inside the Mind of a Cat” on Netflix the other day, in the hope that it might provide some answers.
It didn’t.
Yuki Hattori, the Japanese cat guru, stated that “Cats who live with humans meow a lot.” Excusez-moi? So it’s … OUR FAULT?
It doesn’t bode well, does it, if the one person who is supposed to be working to help us understand our enemy, has clearly been gaslit and/or nobbled* by them?
*Americans: “to nobble” means to bribe, blackmail or otherwise influence in some sort of nefarious manner.
They also state in the programme that 79% of cats look to their owners for “emotional advice”. So their shit behaviour is our fault, too?
Here is Catorze, watching the programme intently (and being quiet, for once). I focused on him towards the end of the recording to show his bald, piggy ears, the cause of which is another Roi mystery that nobody understands:
Oui, Sa Maj, that’s how normal cats are supposed to look and behave.
Merde, merde and thrice merde: Louis Catorze’s fancy drinking glasses aren’t working.
For reasons that I cannot fathom – and, having observed him drinking, I am none the wiser – he spills water everywhere when using them. He never did this from his previous straight-up-and-down glass.
Cat Daddy was convinced that a funnel shape and a shallow depth made for “choppier waves” (?) when the little sod stuck his snout in to drink. However, Cat-Disliking Friend – a science teacher – had the opposite view, i.e. that a funnel-shaped glass ought to spill LESS water than a straight one, as the volume at the top is greater than the volume at the base.
“Just put less water in” was his advice. “Also, why the **** does your cat have a wine glass? Is he a count?”
⁃ Been called a name starting with C and ending in T
So nothing new to report at Le Château, then.
Anyway, I have promised CDF a video of Catorze drinking, so that he can see how much of the snout is shoved into the glass and use the information to provide a theory on the water displacement.
Louis Catorze loves the rain. Usually, when it starts raining, he races out to sit in it.
However, he is highly displeased right now because, although he loves the rain, he doesn’t happen to like THIS rain, TODAY. And he would very much like us to switch it off, merci s’il vous plaît, and to replace it with the good kind of rain.
None of us understand this.
Here he is, whining like a brat. And there is a bonus demo of his weird kicky-out back leg thing. (None of us understand that, either.)
Bad cat gone worse.
This was just a few seconds. Think of us, having to listen to this all day.
I have just been screamed at whilst making, and eating, a tuna mayonnaise sandwich.
I don’t know where Louis Catorze was when I started making it but, as soon as I opened the can of tuna, it flushed him out of his mystery hiding place place and the noise started. And it went on. And on. AND ON.
If you have ever had a cat, known a cat or even glimpsed one from a distance, you will know that they like tuna. But this is Catorze, and Catorze is not interested in food for humans. I have opened cans of tuna at least 8,063 times since he was crowned Roi du Château, and he has either shown mild interest, only to refuse any scraps offered, or not shown any interest at all.
I tried to fob him off with some Orijen, but he wasn’t having any of it, clearly knowing that the tantalising aroma swirling through the air was something else. He wanted tuna. But, after The Great Salmon Grab and the highly stressful two-day hunger strike that ensued, I had learned my lesson; this time, I wouldn’t be offering him any scraps.
Finally, when I had finished, it dawned on him that he wasn’t going to get any tuna. So he settled on my lap, had a good wash and went to sleep. But it was a bitter wash, and a nap oozing with resentment.
What is HAPPENING? And what kind of a state of affairs is it when I don’t even blink at the more sinister, occultist Catorzian capers, yet him wanting tuna makes me question life, the universe and everything?
I have bought Louis Catorze two new water glasses for his birthday. I wanted a spare one for when the other was in the dishwasher, and I chose two different styles from the same range because I didn’t know which one Catorze would like better.
The range is called Versailles, bien sûr.
(You’d think all glasses would be created equal, right? But, over time, we have learned that Catorze will drink from a pint glass, a wine glass and a highball tumbler, but not a cocktail coupe and DEFINITELY not a bowl. He would rather shrivel up and die of thirst than drink from a substandard water vessel.)
I avoided opening the box for ages because I knew that Cat Daddy would be furious, but eventually I couldn’t put it off for any longer.
Needless to say, Cat Daddy hates them and doesn’t think we need them. It’s true, but we don’t, but then not much about Catorzian life is about “need”. He doesn’t “need” the most expensive food on the planet. He doesn’t “need” fancy Japanese raised, tilted bowls. He doesn’t “need” antique silver Louis XIV cutlery. But he has them. That’s just the way things are.
Cat Daddy also says that the glasses are brash and ostentatious. But then that’s what la noblesse are all about; understated good taste is not their style.
I don’t suppose having me lying there taking photographs was especially conducive to a peaceful drinking atmosphere, but the little sod was initially wary:
“Quoi le merde is this?”
He sniffed the glass, walked away, returned for another sniff and walked away again. Oh dear.
Thankfully, he eventually relented. This was a huge relief to me as I couldn’t handle the inevitable grief from Cat Daddy had he not.
Oh, and the volume of the Versailles wine glass is slightly less than that of his previous vessel (a Bodum storage jar, the kind used for tea or sugar or whatever). So I can tell Cat Daddy that we are doing our bit for the environment. Ahem.
Incidentally, whilst I escaped the I Told You So Chorus, I didn’t manage to avoid the comments about giving the little sod his birthday present early. How is it possible to be against the idea of a cat receiving birthday presents, yet insistent that said cat should not receive said presents in advance of the day? Am I the only one who doesn’t understand that?
Taking a cat to the vet: always an adventure, but never the good kind.
On the morning of our steroid shot appointment, Louis Catorze was nowhere to be found. Cat Daddy eventually found him in the guest bedroom, asleep on the autumn/winter duvet and, just as he tried to grab him, the little sod darted under the bed.
Cat Daddy shut him in the bedroom whilst we finished our tea, so that at least we wouldn’t have to search for him when it was time to go.
Then the screaming started.
When we went back upstairs to put Catorze into his transportation pod, he decided that he no longer wanted to be released from the room and dived back under the bed.
Eventually it was a two-man effort to flush him out, with one of us (Cat Daddy) scrabbling at one side of the bed to make him bolt, and the other (me) catching him on the other side. Catorze never scratches, but he did give me a hefty kicking with his back feet as I scooped him up and stuffed him into the pod.
As usual, we walked across the park to the vet practice with Catorzian screams ringing out through the air, falling silent only when an alarmed brown Labrador in the park stopped to stare at him. And, because the translucent mesh side of the pod was facing that way – we always give him a scenic route, just like Marie Antoinette on her last ride to the guillotine – he was able to stare right back.
The pod has eyes.
The biggest surprise of the morning was that Catorze has gained weight, despite his Ibrahima Konaté-style fasting during the day and only eating after dark. We were all ready to have to deal with decisions about further testing, medication and dietary changes due to his weight loss, but it seems we don’t have to since he’s now a whopping 3.14kg.
There has been some indecision as to whether or not Catorze has a heart murmur; first we were told that he did, then a different vet said that he didn’t, then another one said that maybe he did after all, etc. Apparently one of the danger signs is a cat doing forty breaths, or more, per minute. I have just conducted a little test on Catorze and he did twenty-three, so he’s not even close, nor does he have any of the other classic heart murmur signs such as breathlessness, low energy (!) and a distended belly.
Don’t feel obliged to sit through this; it’s literally a minute and two seconds of my cat breathing. You will never get that time back.
We came away from the appointment with our hearts full. Our wallets, on the other hand, were anything but.
Cat Daddy, to Catorze later: “£120, Louis. That’s how much you cost us today.”
Catorze: “Mwah!”
(It was actually £130, but never mind.)
As we approach Beltane and Le Roi’s birthday, it looks as if he will be in his finest form yet. This is wonderful and terrifying in equal measure.
When you’re goth, but you still love pretty pink blossoms.
jesuisleroisoleil 