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Je crie, donc je suis

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Sa Majesté Louis Catorze, Le Roi Soleil, supreme ruler of Le Château, sworn enemy of canine foe and scourge of Ocado delivery drivers.

  • Les résultats de la prise de sang 3,0

    Louis Catorze went to vet visit last week, for a blood test following the increase in his Methimazole dose. I’d originally booked him in for mid-September; however, since he was starting to itch, I decided to bring forward the blood test and give him his steroid injection at the same time. 

    I gave Catorze the prescribed dose of Gabapentin prior to the appointment, as he can’t be trusted do it sober. The poor little sod was quite meek and compliant throughout the initial examination – I’m sure that it helped to have a male vet – but, when it was blood test time, any prior goodwill that he may have had vanished into the air like dew on a summer’s morning, and he fought the vet with every ounce of his being. YES, DESPITE BEING DRUGGED. 

    The vet couldn’t believe it when I told him that Catorze had been Gabapentinned. He really is the Michael Myers of the cat world (Catorze, I mean, not the vet).

    As a result of his fightiness, they couldn’t extract blood from the first choice site (his neck) and were forced to take it, instead, from his arms. This has left Catorze with a very impressive set of prison tattoos: a neck one and two matching sleeves. 

    Anyway, the results came in the next day, and his thyroid readings are down but still not at a normal level. Catorze has also broken his own record of Lowest Weight Ever and is now 2.68kg. Any chubbing up that he previously did has also evaporated like that morning dew.

    We have to repeat the blood test in a few weeks, this time after a stronger dose of Gabapentin. Until then, his dose of Methimazole has changed from 0.06ml morning and evening, to 0.07ml in the morning and 0.11ml in the evening. Yes, DIFFERENT MATHS (as opposed to the same Maths repeated), with even more hideously unround numbers than those previously used. Good grief.

    So both the males of the household currently require medical attention and, somehow, I have keep the pair of them in order. The fun never stops here at Le Château. 

    His next tattoos are going to be two teardrops on his face (one for me, one for the vet).
    A clearer shot of the neck and the sleeves.

    For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com

  • Le sommeil nourrit celui qui n’a pas de quoi manger

    This is probably an obvious, entry-level part of cat care (or sanity preservation), but we have started leaving food out for Louis Catorze overnight, in the hope that it will make him less of a pest in the early hours. And, so far, it seems to be working, which is great news because he’d just discovered that clawing the inside of my wrist makes me react. 

    (Yes, he’s like a toddler when he wants attention: he doesn’t care if it’s good or bad.)

    The little sod has dramatically reduced his pre-dawn screaming/attacking since we, erm, gave him a never-ending supply of food, and he appears to be satisfied with just one two servings of Cool Cat Club wet food for breakfast, instead of demanding more and more. 

    Cat Daddy and I have agreed that, after 9pm, it’s Orijen only for Catorze. And, astonishingly, he has been eating it without issue, which shows that he was clearly lying when he made me think that there might be something wrong with his teeth.

    We have also had to start letting Catorze out at The Front for an hour or so every night, like letting a rambunctious toddler run off his excess energy to wind down before bed. We can tell when he starts becoming restless and agitated and, as soon as we get up, he gallops to the front door and waits to be let out. Just like the extra food at night, this is also an act of sanity-preservation as it gives us a full sixty minutes without being screamed at, headbutted and clawed.

    So now Catorze is well-fed and well-exercised and we get some peace at night, so everyone’s happy. I wonder how long this new-found harmony will last?

    Here is Catorze out at The Front, enjoying the waxing August moon last week:

    A very bad moon rising.

    For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com

  • Sous la lumière de la lune

    When you think your cat has hung up their hunting boots for good, there’s no really good time for them to prove you wrong. However, the evening AFTER the bin men have been, whilst you’re cosy on the sofa watching the football, is probably the worst time of all. 

    It was Cat Daddy who noticed that Louis Catorze had something in his mouth when he casually strolled in. As he is still incapacitated due to his knee, it was up to me to catch the murderous Catorze and pass him to his papa, who restrained him whilst I looked for a plastic bag. Might I add that I was DEEPLY displeased to have to leave the cosy sofa. 

    “Hurry up, he’s starting to go all strong,” Cat Daddy warned, as he struggled to hold onto an increasingly agitated Catorze. Luckily, by the time Catorze broke free from his designated prison officer, the poor hapless mouse was bagged up and ready to be deposited in its final resting place: the park bin across the road. And, even more luckily, it was dark, so I was unlikely to be seen by anyone. 

    One person who did see me, however, was Foxy Loxy, who was in the park on Important Fox Business. For a moment our eyes met in the half-light, at which point I decided that I might as well drop the the contents of the plastic bag on the ground for him. 

    So the mouse has been disposed of in an environmentally-sound fashion, Foxy Loxy has had a snack and Hounslow Council will be minus one piece of rubbish for landfill. Everyone’s happy. Well, Catorze isn’t happy that his prize was taken away, although he did seem to – shudder – enjoy licking the area of floor from where I’d picked it up. (Don’t worry, it has since been thoroughly cleaned.)

    I shall say this again: how is our creaky, ancient cat still managing to do all this? I would put it down to full moon madness (although shouldn’t an eclipsed moon mean very slightly LESS bad juju?), but you all know that he’s capable of stupid shit anyway, moon or not. 

    What moon madness?

    For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com

  • Un renard change de poil, non de caractère 

    Remember when we naively hoped that Louis Catorze and Foxy Loxy could live harmoniously together? Yeah, well, it turns out that they can’t. Cat Daddy witnessed An Incident the other night – or, rather, two mini-incidents one after the other, but we’ll call it a single incident so that it doesn’t sound as bad.

    Cat Daddy was relaxing on the sofa with Catorze on his lap. Suddenly the little sod perked up, eyes wide and ears upright, and jumped down to the patio doors, as if eyeing an invisible intruder outside. There was some low-key hissing and glass-tapping, but nothing too concerning. Then Cat Daddy glimpsed Foxy Loxy’s unmistakable tail and, presumably, Catorze saw it too, because he was out of the cat flap like a speeding train.

    Cat Daddy tried to grab his tail to stop him – yes, we know you’re not supposed to do this to cats but, in his panic, he didn’t know what else to do, and this seemed the less awful alternative to an absolute bloodbath in the garden – but, on account of his recent operation, he was too slow to catch Catorze. 

    Catorze was back in after a few minutes. Not long afterwards, for reasons that we cannot comprehend, Foxy Loxy returned and peered through glass again. 

    Luckily Catorze didn’t go out again. However, something about this second vulpine impingement triggered Catorze’s “Lose Your Shit” switch, and he hurled himself at the glass door like a rabid wolf, hissing, clawing and letting out that awful, guttural cat fight howl. 

    Cat Daddy flashed the outdoor light on and off to make Foxy Loxy run away, which he did eventually but it took some time. Either the poor thing was frozen in fear, or he couldn’t understand what this snarling black hell-beast was and had to keep staring to be sure that he wasn’t imagining it. 

    One of my friends later asked if Catorze had had a steroid shot recently. Erm, nope. His previous one was almost two months prior. So, nice try, but he’s not escaping responsibility for this. 

    Me: “He’s the Ricardo López of the cat world.”

    Cat Daddy: “Who’s Ricardo López?”

    Me: “A boxer who weighed almost nothing yet never lost a fight.”

    Him: “But boxers only fight people of the same weight, so that’s not a very good comparison.”

    Erm, there AREN’T any animals of the same weight as Catorze. Unless you know of any particularly combative guinea pigs, they’re all heavier. 

    We don’t know what to do now, and I fear that it’s my fault for leaving water out for Foxy Loxy. It’s only rained a couple of pitiful times in the last two months, so I would feel bad about withdrawing the foxes’ only source of water now, whilst our grass remains an unreassuring shade of beige and our trees’ leaves are hanging limply and sadly. 

    Here is the wicked animal at the heart of all this drama. Non, il ne regrette rien: 

    Absolute bastard cat.

    For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com

  • Un chat qui ronronne sur vos genoux est une prière de gratitude silencieuse

    Louis Catorze is continuing to annoy the merde out of Cat Daddy. One night, when they were up late for Boys’ Club, I was awoken by the sound of Catorze being told off, with an exasperated Cat Daddy shouting, “You’re so SELFISH!” 

    The next morning I was greeted by three piles of cat puke downstairs, which Cat Daddy hadn’t noticed (and he wouldn’t have been able to bend down and clean them up, even if he had noticed). Cat Daddy told me at breakfast time that Catorze had been screaming constantly for attention and had even clawed his face a few times when said attention wasn’t forthcoming. 

    We do have some good news at Le Château: Cat Daddy went for his check-up with the knee consultant and his recovery is going exactly as it should. However, his knee is healing with a slight bend, and the consultant told him that he ought to try and straighten it more when at rest. In fact, he said that the best thing would be to stretch his leg out on a footstool, and rest a light weight on top of the healing knee. 

    I’m not joking. That genuinely is what was said. So, now, all we need to do is find a suitable weight. 

    I asked Cat Daddy if anything came to mind. He said no. 

    “Soon, mon papa …”

    For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com

  • Une livraison à domicile

    Our relationship with Ocado has been, erm, complicated at times. And it’s all Louis Catorze’s fault. 

    Luckily, now that he’s a bit older, he seems to be growing out of his habit of harassing drivers when they arrive, screaming at them and circling their feet to trip them up. However, reduced energy certainly doesn’t mean reduced embarrassment, as I found out the hard way a couple of days ago. 

    When Ocado delivered, Louis Catorze came out of wherever he’d been hiding and decided to stick his face into all the bags. Standard Catorzian behaviour, naturellement. The driver asked if I’d like him to bring the groceries indoors, at the precise moment that I glimpsed two piles of cat puke on the hallway floor. The poor man would not have been able to enter the kitchen without slaloming around them.

    Unfortunately my mouth and body hadn’t quite caught up with my eyes, and I had already started to say yes and point him through to the kitchen. So what I actually ended up saying in response was something like, “Yes, thank yohhhh MY GOD NO”, with a an awkward, jerky wave of the arm as if trying to swat invisible flies. He gave me the “I was only trying to help” look and then left hurriedly. 

    Cat Daddy, later: “You should’ve just said, “Yes, thank you, but don’t step on that bit of floor where my cat’s just puked”.” Erm, no. I will not be saying that, not in this lifetime, nor in the next. 

    Luckily the chances of seeing that driver again are slim, as I don’t think we’ve ever had the same one twice. That said, after all our incidents* with them, they probably all have a WhatsApp group chat dedicated to this address and are talking about us among themselves. 

    *This wasn’t great.

    *This also wasn’t great.

    *This was absolutely excruciating.

    Waiting for the next delivery.

    For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com

  • Les blessures nous façonnent

    Remember when I had to lock myself in a room with Louis Catorze because he couldn’t behave during Zoom calls? Well, now, I am locking myself in a room with him because he can’t behave generally. It beggars belief that this is what has become of me. 

    When the beautician visited recently, naturellement Catorze barged into the bedroom and screamed. But, after tiring of that, he went back downstairs to torment Cat Daddy, and the last ten minutes of my supposedly relaxing treatment were peppered with cries of “Ouch! Get off!” from downstairs.  

    The little sod won’t leave Cat Daddy alone. Usually, at worst, this is just a bit annoying. However, because Cat Daddy is recovering from an operation, jumping onto wounds and digging claws into infection-prone skin is quite dangerous behaviour. 

    So it seems that Catorze absolutely cannot be left unsupervised with Cat Daddy for the moment. And this might present a slight problem when I go back to work on 1st September. 

    At least, this time, he’s not screaming to be released from the room. However, I’m getting Looks. And they aren’t particularly pleasant: 

    Mon Dieu.

    It can take months to fully heal after a knee replacement. Am I condemned to spend this time locked in a room with a cat giving me the evil eye, to save poor Cat Daddy from further injury? 

    For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com

  • Les chats sont malins et conscients de l’être

    Louis Catorze has started requesting to go out at The Front every evening. He often does this when it’s warm outside and, although I wasn’t keen at first in case he tried to cross the road and consort with marauding youths in the park, so far he seems able to have been sensible and stay on our side. 

    A couple of nights ago, I let Catorze out and forgot about him. We were so engrossed in a new drama on ITVX that we didn’t remember him for a good few hours, when we paused the television to make a cup of tea and then heard the infernal screaming coming from the front door. 

    Catorze pitter-pattered in, wild-eyed, psychotic and determined to make us pay for not opening the door more promptly. And the first thing he did was step onto Cat Daddy’s just-operated knee, then kick off from it with his back feet to jump to the floor. 

    He may only weigh 2.7kg, but this still hurt. 

    This is as close as he’s now allowed, next to Cat Daddy but absolutely not on him, and only when he’s in a calm mood (Catorze, I mean). And, yes, he is using the Waitrose magazine as a mattress. 

    Bastard cat.

    Just stay put, little sod.

    For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com

  • Il y a un rat dans ma chambre: qu’est-ce que je vais faire?

    If you could erase one event from history, what would it be?

    This one from 2017:

    Fresh-faced but still not giving a shite.

    A couple of days ago, Oscar the dog’s mamma told me that she had seen a large brown rat in their garden. Ever-hopeful, I asked her if she were sure that it wasn’t a very big mouse, or an unusually skinny-tailed squirrel.

    She was sure.

    I suggested to her that, if she ever saw it again, provided Oscar weren’t in the vicinity, I would happily flick Louis Catorze over Le Mur and let him have a bash at catching it. However, I hadn’t quite expected him to catch it of his own accord, so soon after our conversation. Nor had I expected him to bring the damp, stinky carcass up to our bedroom.

    Worse yet, it was our easily-startled cleaning lady who found it. I came home to find her so traumatised that she could barely speak, and eventually I managed to get it out of her that there was a rat in our bedroom. (Once again I said, “Are you sure it’s not a mouse?” although, deep in my heart, I knew.)

    As she and I stood staring at it and wondering what the heck to do, Catorze picked that very moment to switch into psycho play mode and attack her feet. Because he ambushed her from behind, she felt him before she saw him and, thinking he was another rat, she screamed as if she had been shot.

    I went to look for a bin bag and, naturellement, we didn’t have any, so I had to take the sturdiest plastic bag I could find, which was a Selfridges one. Once Ratty was safely entombed I dropped a 2p coin in with him, hoping it would land squarely on his body and give a sense of scale when I provided people with photographic proof of how big he was. But, unfortunately, it sort of wedged in at his side and, because it was the same colour as his body, it ended up looking more like some sort of cystic growth than a 2p coin, adding to the horror of the whole situation.

    Whilst our cleaning lady sat in a corner and cried quietly, I headed for the park bin where so many of Catorze’s victims have been laid to rest, praying that nobody would see me. Although, if you don’t want to be seen, you should carry an unobtrusive, plain bag and leave the house whistling nonchalantly. Leaving the house holding a bright yellow Selfridges bag with your fingertips and at arm’s length, all the while shuddering and retching, probably isn’t the way. And, of course, I bumped into Bert the dog’s daddy, who was working on his car in the street right outside Le Château, and I was forced to explain the bag and the shuddering and retching.

    So now I am confined to Le Château on account of being too ashamed to leave it, and Catorze is banned from the bedrooms on account of being too disgusting. And our poor cleaning lady will probably never lead a normal life ever again.

    Cat Daddy, however, can’t help but admire his boy’s pest control efficiency, and this has been echoed by Dog Mamma, who is delighted that Catorze has done his civic duty. Another friend said, “Isn’t it reassuring to know that he’s such a good rat-catcher?”

    I don’t know what makes a “good” rat-catcher. But I’m pretty certain that depositing smelly rat corpses in spotlessly-clean places where there were no rat corpses before, isn’t it.

    For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com

  • Le début de la fin

    What’s a conspiracy theory you actually find believable?

    The Uprising is nigh. Black cats are masterminding it, with the aid of their ginger footsoldiers. But every single cat on the planet – yes, even yours – is either an active conspirator or, at the very least, a sympathiser.

    They’re coming for us.

    For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com

  • Poca favilla gran fiamma seconda

    Another week, another heatwave. This one was the fourth this year (or maybe the fifth, I can’t remember) and, once again, the hottest place in the UK on the hottest day of the week was Kew Gardens, 0.6 miles from us, at 38.1°C. 

    On Friday we received a government emergency alert on our phones, the sound of which profoundly displeased poor Louis Catorze. It’s concerning, to say the least, that we need a warning not to use barbecues or fireworks when the whole country is a brittle tinderbox, but then we are the same nation who, when instructed to stay away from others during Covid, all piled down to the seaside and packed out the beaches. 

    I wish we’d read about this before it happened, not after.

    Sleeping with the window wide open makes me very uncomfortable indeed, as I worry about the likes of foxes and psycho killers entering the house. Oui, Mesdames et Messieurs: London foxes are adept climbers so, even on an upper floor, we aren’t safe. And, in the event of foxes creeping in, I fear that it would be my fault because, against the wishes of Cat Daddy, I have been leaving fresh water out for our resident Foxy Loxy. Therefore it would make sense for them to mistake my pity for an invitation to come in. 

    Luckily Catorze, who strikes the fear of the devil into the hearts of all foxes, joined me in bed on Thursday night. He remained there for much of the night, enjoying the breeze that drifted in and moving only occasionally to the window sill to check that all was well. I genuinely felt safer with him there as he would have seen off any foxes without hesitation. 

    As for psycho killers, assuming them to be male (not sexism on my part, just a statistical likelihood), I know that Catorze would have launched himself at them for cuddles, screaming with all his might, both warning me and giving me time to escape. 

    Here are Catorze and Foxy Loxy, enjoying opposite ends of the garden at the same time. I feel quite relaxed about them spending time there, as long as they continue to keep a respectful distance from each other: 

    “Multi-pet households: why not provide each pet with its own outdoor seating area?”
    “The Alpha Pet should, of course, have the bigger sofa.”

    For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com

  • Boire l’eau en pensant à sa source

    The cold water tap in our kitchen is leaking. It varies from a light but steady flow to a drip per ten seconds, but it never fully stops. Cat Daddy was all for just ignoring it until I showed him exactly how much water was being wasted: a washing-up bowl placed under the tap at 10pm is overflowing by 7am. It simply won’t do to just allow clean water to run down the sink in the middle of an ACTUAL DROUGHT. 

    Louis Catorze was initially profoundly displeased by the sound of the dripping, especially when it changed pace (as it does when we’ve had to open the tap). He’s now used to it, and only very occasionally flicks an ear when he zones back into it. I, on the other hand, am slowly being driven insane. It’s like Edgar Allan Poe’s Tell-Tale Heart, thumping away ominously in the background and becoming progressively louder, until I can’t stand it any longer and end up confessing to murder.

    (Disclaimer: I’ve not murdered anyone yet, but I’m teetering on the edge. I swear I can hear the rhythmic drip-drip-drip even whilst I sleep.)

    The person who needs to come and fix the tap is Chris. And Catorze scared Chris the last time he visited, by pulling this ridiculous stunt. 

    Cat Daddy has called Chris to make an appointment, and Chris has replied that he needs to order a part first and wait for it to arrive. Is this true, or is it just a delaying tactic to avoid having to return to the Demon Cat House? 

    EDIT: it turns out that I actually CAN hear it as I sleep, and that I wasn’t dreaming. The sound of the dripping echoes up through the Velux windows and into my bedroom at night. It’s inescapable.

    “Demon Cat House, y’say?”

    For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com

  • Se rétablir, c’est progresser, pas atteindre la perfection 

    Cat Daddy’s recovery has been a mixed bag so far. Physically, everything is healing as it should. However, I fear that Le Château is not a suitable environment for someone recovering from surgery, and this is mostly Louis Catorze’s fault. 

    His actions, so far, have included the following:

    • Thundering around the house early in the morning, sounding just like an adult human in heavy work boots.
    • Constantly fighting to get into Cat Daddy’s bedroom. And, naturellement, Catorze’s efforts to access his papa rise proportionally to Cat Daddy’s desire for him to go away.
    • Screaming. Oh dear God, the screaming. 

    Poor Cat Daddy, having been desperate to escape a noisy hospital with alarms buzzing and people rushing around, had hoped for a little calm upon coming home. He says we should have arranged for someone else to take Catorze during his convalescence. But who would have him? 

    (That wasn’t a rhetorical question, by the way. WHO WOULD HAVE HIM? We want actual names.)

    Mid-scream, again.

    For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com

  • Qui Zoom qui? (Partie 4) 

    Just before his knee surgery, Cat Daddy had another Zoom call. He messaged me asking if I could be prison officer again, but unfortunately I didn’t see the message until just AFTER I had turned Louis Catorze loose in the house. So he had to recapture the inmate and haul him back to the cell before the call started, and the whole thing was just like launching a grenade: open the door, fling in the incendiary device, close the door and flee. 

    Catorze was highly displeased at this state of affairs, and promptly started screaming at the door to be released. I thought, “He’s bound to wear himself out sooner or later”. 

    He didn’t. 

    Catorze paced up and down by the door, screaming himself senseless. Not even the Dyson air cooling unit and the television turned up to maximum were enough to drown him out. As the minutes ticked by, I had to content myself with recording the Catorzian cacophony and sending the resulting horror shorts to my friend, so that she would believe how awful it was. 

    Every few minutes, I would think, “Surely the Zoom call can’t go on for MUCH longer?”

    It did. And so did the screaming.

    Saint Jésus.
    SAINT JÉSUS.

    I then decided to boot him out at The Front, through the window. He has escaped out there 9,663 times when we haven’t wanted him to, yet, naturellement, at the one moment when I was desperate for him to go, he wasn’t having it. So the screaming continued, in stereo, with Le Roi leaping from the floor to the armrest to the back of the sofa, all the while hollering his guts out as if he’d been shot.

    Finally, after FIFTY torturous minutes, Cat Daddy’s Zoom call finally came to an end, by which time I was just about ready to claw at my own flesh with what was left of my fingernails. He was disappointingly casual about the trauma that I had suffered, replying that I “ought to be used to it [the screaming] by now”. And it turned out that he had been able to hear it throughout his call anyway – yes, Catorze had been THAT loud – so shutting him away only partially achieved the desired goal. 

    Catorze then lunged for his empty bowl, wild-eyed and still screaming. Cat Daddy gave him some food, of which the little sod ate about 20% before going out. 

    I don’t know what more I can say about this, except that there are twenty-two days left until the start of term. And I shall be counting every single one of them. 

    For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com