La mise à jour du statut

Feb 28, 2022Feb 28, 2022 ~ iamthesunking ~ 14 Comments

I am the worst person in the world.

On Saturday, when giving Louis Catorze his Loxicom, it dawned on me that I hadn’t been turning the bottle upside-down to draw the liquid into the syringe. In short, the poor little sod hadn’t had any pain relief since the day after his surgery, and I had just been administering air. I hadn’t noticed because I thought I was drawing in clear liquid and, when nothing spilled when I delivered each dose, I simply thought my technique had improved.

So there I was thinking poor Catorze wasn’t bouncing back from this surgery as quickly as he did from the last one, when, in fact, I’m just a shit cat parent. I debated for some time before posting this, in case I received a torrent of (rightful) criticism for being so negligent, but I decided in the end to take a bullet on the behalf of the greater good so that nobody else makes the same mistake in the future. CHECK THE PRODUCT, Mesdames et Messieurs, especially if it’s one you haven’t used before.

Je suis désolée, Mon Roi. Vous méritez bien mieux que ça.

Catorze’s swollen snout is subsiding, as is his post-surgery chain-smoking drag queen voice, but there is still little sign of his trademark fangs. Something about the swelling, or the way his jaws fit together, or possibly both, means that they are hidden from view much of the time. Even when I position the camera low down under his chin, with him staring haughtily down, I barely see the famous fangs.

*Only the tiniest hint of fang … and (I think) a bit of dribble.*

Despite being subdued, he did feel well enough to join us when Cocoa the babysit cat’s folks came for dinner, pitter-pattering between people and sitting right in the middle of us, listening to the conversation as if it somehow concerned him. And he also felt well enough to bolt out at The Front as our guests left, just at the moment that I shouted to Cat Daddy, “Don’t let him run out!”

(Cat Daddy blamed me for not holding onto Catorze, but the real culprit was Cat Daddy’s whisky-induced slowness in closing the door.)

Catorze has his follow-up with the vet later this morning, which will give an indication whether everything is unfolding as it should. I still haven’t decided whether or not I should confess my horrendous mistake although, since the vets follow Le Blog, they will probably know by now.

The little sod thanks everyone who has wished him well, especially Cocoa the babysit cat and his sister Chanel who sent him a toy and some non-crunchy duck and venison treats (which he LOVES). Hilariously, Cat Daddy thought the treats were for us and I almost wish I’d just kept quiet and let him eat them.

Purrminateur 2: Le Dernier Jugement

Feb 26, 2022Feb 26, 2022 ~ iamthesunking ~ 14 Comments

We have been thinking about a suitable punishment for Kurt Zouma for what he did to his cat.

Ordinarily, for situations such as animal cruelty, I would be of the medieval “sharp instruments meeting with tender body parts” school of retribution but, since I’m a teacher, I’m not really allowed to say things like that. Gratuitous violence is out, and relentless ridicule will have to suffice instead.

Cat Daddy and I weren’t able to watch West Ham’s match against Newcastle, other than a few snatched minutes in the pub with the sound off. As you may be aware, Louis Catorze happens to be a fan of Sunderland, whose local rivals are Newcastle, so under normal circumstances he wouldn’t want anything to do with them. However, the Newcastle fans turning up to the match armed with inflatable cats, and the story of Newcastle striker Chris Wood meowing at Zouma throughout, has made him warm considerably to his bitter enemies.

Even funnier is that one of Zouma’s teammates allegedly complained to the referee about the meowing. Even my Year 9s wouldn’t have snitched to the teacher about something so pathetic and embarrassing. If it turns out to be true, however, Chris Wood will forever be my hero.

Catorze is also a fan of the latest masterpiece by Jim’ll Paint It. If you don’t know about Jim, people brief him with imaginary scenarios – the more ridiculous, the better – which he then turns into bespoke digital art pieces. After the Zouma incident he was inundated with requests for cats exacting their revenge, and this is what he created:

*Photo from Jim’s Facebook page. For more of his work, have a look here.*

As other social media users have pointed out, it’s quite clear that the black cat on the right is the one who masterminded this, and he is now sitting back and enjoying watching his devotees do his dirty work for him. And how shocking, yet unsurprising, that he looks so much like Sa Maj. He even has his little white chest tufts.

*Tufts very much visible here on this old photo of our mutual friend.*

One day, the British public will move on from this. Today, however, is not that day.

Le patient est de retour

Feb 24, 2022Feb 23, 2022 ~ iamthesunking ~ 24 Comments

Louis Catorze’s second, and hopefully last, dental surgery went well. He is now minus two more teeth: his last remaining lower canine and the small incisor next to it. And we are minus £435.

The timing has turned out to be less than optimal, to say the least. We are barely out of the monetary dearth that is January AND we’ve just got back from a country where a double vodka-cola and a pint of beer cost £26 AND both our roof and our car need repairs. It’s not the best time for little sods and their private health care to kick us in the wallet, but tant pis.

When we collected Catorze from the TW3 branch of the vet, he had just come round from the surgery and was beating the sides of his pod and trying to unzip it from inside, all the while screaming his guts out. However, after a chillingly silent car ride home, he then escaped out at The Front within minutes. So clearly all was well.

He has a couple of dissolving stitches in his mouth (although no Cône has been prescribed, so I hope we can trust him not to mess with them), and we are to give him a dose of Loxicom every day until his next vet visit at the end of the week.

It was hard to take a good picture at this time (the morning after he came home), with the feeble living room light struggling to illuminate him and the unsightly backdrop of our coffee table with rubbish all over it, but somehow his chin and cheeks seem to sit differently. And, sadly, his trademark fangs don’t appear to protrude as much as they did before. Hopefully, as the swelling subsides, they will realign and he will look a bit more like the Roi that we all know and love. Right now it’s almost as if they swapped him for another cat, and the only reason I know they didn’t is because nobody in their right mind would swap him in rather than out.

Thank you for all your good wishes. We will keep you updated.

Les dents du Roi (Partie 2)

Feb 21, 2022Feb 20, 2022 ~ iamthesunking ~ 22 Comments

We have survived Storm Eunice and Storm Franklin and emerged on the other side, triumphant and victorious. Our only casualty was part of the fence separating us from That Neighbour, which means Louis Catorze will now find it easier than ever to pitter-patter over there and annoy him.

Meanwhile, Catorze’s food weirdness remains as it was after his last dental surgery.

Every time we feed him, we are forced to choose between letting the tap run for long enough to heat the water to his satisfaction, or boiling a kettle in order to use just 15ml of the water. Cat Daddy tends to choose the former whereas I choose the latter. And, if someone else is feeding Sa Maj, we say, “Do you prefer wasting water or wasting electricity? Feel free to choose how you want to destroy the planet on his account.” In fact, when we go away and leave others in charge of him, this is exactly, word for word, what we tell our chat-sitteurs.

The Gabapentin, which was supposed to indicate whether Catorze was in pain, hasn’t really told us much, so his dental surgery is booked for tomorrow. Ideally I would have done it much sooner in the year, but there was zero availability in January (despite me enquiring in late December), and we needed to time it to land away from his steroid shot.

Luckily for us all, the little sod isn’t acting like a cat in pain or distress: he’s playful, noisy and loving life. Let’s hope he keeps up his high spirits through this second dental procedure, and that he won’t need any further treatment.

Les chats islandais

Feb 19, 2022Feb 18, 2022 ~ iamthesunking ~ 14 Comments

Cat Daddy and I are back from Iceland, and we were lucky enough to land just before Storm Eunice hit. If you have never been to Iceland, I highly recommend it; it’s the most exquisite, enchanting place. I have learned that a single ten-minute mud mask at the Blue Lagoon can miraculously erase several days of vodka and poor sleep from your face. And Cat Daddy has learned not to stand too close to active geysers.

After reading that Reykjavik’s streets were full of cats, I had hoped to get my feline fix that way during our Roi-free week. However, a huge snow blizzard hit on the day of our arrival so, as you can imagine, the cats stayed indoors. The same snow blizzard meant that we didn’t see the Northern Lights, but this gives us an excuse to go back again.

The closest we came to any cats (Cat Daddy: “That’s not actually why we went, by the way”) was reading about a demonic cat of Icelandic legend called the Jólakötturinn, which is said to walk the earth on Christmas Eve, intent on devouring anyone who isn’t, erm, wearing new clothes. Luckily, since it’s February, we were in no danger of bumping into this beast, but we were somewhat unsettled to discover when Googling pictures of it, that most of them looked like slightly more pleasant versions of Sa Maj:

Apart from one or two screaming incidents, Louis Catorze behaved very well indeed during our absence and was sweet and affectionate towards his chat-sitteurs. In fact, he didn’t even say hello to us when we came home, choosing instead to remain with one of his chat-sitteurs on her work Zoom call. He then followed her outside when she went to vape, walking straight past us.

(Incidentally, he wasn’t sulking that we’d left him. He doesn’t care anywhere near enough to bother doing that.)

These were the scenes at Le Château during our absence:

*Not a merde was giv’n about the departed chat parents on this fine day.*

Purrminateur: Le Soulèvement des Chats

Feb 16, 2022Feb 15, 2022 ~ iamthesunking ~ 13 Comments

Cat Daddy and I are still in Iceland. News from Le Château is that Louis Catorze has latched onto the gentleman of the chat-sitting couple and won’t let him get on with his work. This will not surprise anyone.

It seems that the universe has rewarded me for putting principles over points because, last week, after I removed Kurt Zouma from my Fantasy Football team, my players did so well that I was able to climb from fourth place to third in our mini-league. And what a pity West Ham didn’t follow my example, because it’s all kicking off there (no pun intended).

The RSPCA have taken Zouma’s cats away and he has been fined £250,000, which equates to two weeks’ wages for him. However, his teammates are now outraged to discover just how much he earns and are demanding more money. Furthermore, numerous sponsors have withdrawn their support from both the player and the club.

Whilst we don’t find animal abuse the slightest bit funny, we can’t help but crack a wry smile at the fact that a not-especially-nice football club is being brought down by a cat. This is just the first step in the feline plan to take over the world, which might not happen overnight but it will happen.

This is an old photo of Catorze, but I think the evil in his eyes perfectly sums up the feelings of all cats as they plan the next part of their uprising:

*“L’âge des hommes est terminé. Le temps des chats est arrivé.”*

Hotel Diablo

Feb 14, 2022Feb 14, 2022 ~ iamthesunking ~ 26 Comments

Cat Daddy and I are in Iceland at the moment, so we spent the last couple of days preparing for the arrival of Louis Catorze’s chat-sitteurs.

We systematically have to remind all visitors that Catorze has a naughty habit of entering bedrooms and raising merry hell as people sleep, and this occasion was no exception. However, despite our advice to keep doors shut, it seems that some bizarre and twisted part of our guests finds his nocturnal visits entertaining. So they ignore us and, naturellement, Catorze takes advantage.

Guests have been known to wake up to find their suitcases open and their stuff strewn all over the floor. And what makes it especially creepy is that Catorze does this utterly silently, slipping undetected into and out of the room, like a ghost. Imagine Paranormal Activity, The Sixth Sense and Poltergeist combined and you will have an idea of what it’s like. Sometimes he remains there, presiding arrogantly over his handiwork, as we discovered below.

My mum carefully constructed a sort of Jenga-style tower using a cardboard box and her suitcase, with her next-day clothes neatly folded on top. This was how she found the smug little sod the next morning:

Another guest made the mistake of leaving her case open on the bed whilst we had dinner. This was the result:

*The Covid testing kits weren’t quite ready for THIS particular contagion.*

Guests who place towels on the bed are also not safe:

En conclusion: if you stay here, your stuff will be messed with. And, since Catorze is a trans-dimensional being who can teleport, we are all powerless to stop it.

Come at your own risk.

La piqûre magique

Feb 12, 2022Feb 10, 2022 ~ iamthesunking ~ 31 Comments

Oui, Mesdames et Messieurs, the answer to Wednesday’s French Wordle was this:

I know. I didn’t think proper nouns were allowed but, after some research, I have discovered that a louis is a type of sovereign coin. So I have learned something new.

I have to give a special mention to my friend Ben for his attempt (even though I know my mum is going to read this):

Ben then proceeded to blame me for his naughtiness, saying it was my fault for insisting that he try French Wordle that day. Erm, ok, but that still doesn’t explain how he arrived at THAT starting word. I think this says far more about him than about me.

In other news, earlier this week I had the joy of taking Louis Catorze to the vet for his steroid shot. The little sod fought like a demon when I shoved him into his transportation pod and screamed all the way there, startling the dogs in the park as we walked past them. This is by no means unusual but I don’t think I will ever truly get used to it.

Luckily the practice was empty when we arrived, so it didn’t matter too much that the screaming continued. However, two ladies came in shortly afterwards to collect some medication, and they were hit by Catorze’s decibels as soon as they opened the door. Whilst waiting to be seen, they politely looked the other way and tried to pretend that they couldn’t hear the infernal racket.

Because there was a complicated blood test cat being seen just before us, we had a longer wait than usual. Pretty soon the two ladies couldn’t stand Catorze’s noise anymore and had to start talking about something – ANYTHING – in an effort to mask it, and I even heard one of them say, “Isn’t the weather awful? When it’s like this, you just don’t feel like going out, do you?” (It was glorious sunshine outside at the time, so clearly the screaming had got to her so badly that she didn’t even know what she was saying.)

Eventually, Complicated Blood Test Cat came out. She was deathly silent in her pod at first but soon decided, after hearing Catorze’s screaming, that she would join in. So, whilst her bill was being sorted out, the five of us (Complicated Blood Test Cat’s human, the two ladies-in-waiting, the receptionist and me) were subjected to a cacophony of feline screaming from both cats, in stereo.

Because Catorze is due to have his next dental surgery later this month, he wasn’t able to have his usual steroid shot as it would prevent his wounds from healing. So, instead, he was given a fast-acting shot designed to last a week, and we are just going to have to try to keep him itch-free until after the surgery. And, since we don’t know what it is that triggers his scratching, this is going to prove somewhat tricky.

So, for now, all I can do is keep blasting him with the atmosphere-purifying beeswax candles, brushing him regularly and hoping it doesn’t all turn to merde before his procedure.

Here he is in his pod, just before we left for his appointment. You may wish to turn the volume down:

Saint Jésus et tous ses apôtres.

Le mot du jour

Feb 9, 2022Feb 9, 2022 ~ iamthesunking ~ 26 Comments

In my eight years of writing Le Blog, never have I ever posted twice in one day. So, if you are a regular follower, you will know that this is a TRÈS big deal indeed.

If you’re into Wordle, please give the French equivalent, Le Mot, a go today. Even if you don’t think you know any French, please trust me and try it just for this one day. I promise you will not be disappointed.

Ne déconnez pas avec les chats

Feb 9, 2022Feb 8, 2022 ~ iamthesunking ~ 35 Comments

West Ham footballer Kurt Zouma has been cruel to his cat, and everyone in the U.K. is rightly livid about it.

This was bad timing as I had just moved him into my Fantasy Football team for the new game week. There is a video online showing what happened, but I haven’t posted a copy here as I am sure most of us can imagine what it’s like. We don’t need to see it.

For those who may not be familiar with Fantasy Football and its ways, having chosen our team at the start of the season, every week we are allowed to move one player out and one in. I cannot believe that, of the five hundred or so players available, I happened to choose Zouma, just as he did this.

Once you have transferred your one player in, you’re not supposed to transfer them – or anyone – out again until the next game week. If you do, you forfeit four points. But I would rather do that than have an animal abuser in my team, so Zouma is now gone.

To cheer us up after this awful story, here are some footballers who are nice to their cats (taken from their Twitter pages). I have no idea what the cats’ names are, so I’ve just made them up:

*Mohamed Salah (Liverpool) with Babs and Pat.*

*Aymeric Laporte (Manchester City) with Fermez.*

*Kevin De Bruyne (Manchester City) with Reverend Sparkle-Pops.*

*Bernd Leno (Arsenal) with Baba Ganoush. Come on, this one looks like a Baba Ganoush, non?*

Le Roi Blanc

Feb 7, 2022Mar 28, 2022 ~ iamthesunking ~ 17 Comments

Cat Daddy: “Oh my God. What’s happened to Louis’s fur?”

Me, imagining the horror of a Code Brun situation: “Erm, why? What’s wrong with it?”

Him: “It’s gone all weird.”

Me: “???”

Him: “Like tiger bread.”

Me: “???”

Him: “Come and look.”

It turned out that the cause of Cat Daddy’s alarm was Louis Catorze’s fur cracks. Now, they’re nothing new, and we are frequently marvelling at the weirdness of the tail ones, in particular. However, what struck me about this particular set was how pale Catorze’s skin is; underneath all that black fur, the little sod is white. Not nature-white which, in fact, is not white at all but more like an off-white. Sa Maj is bright paper-white.

*Bright white skin peeking out from under that fur.*

This makes him the, erm, polar opposite of polar bears, who have black skin under their white fur. (Thank you, Lizzi, for telling me about this and sending me down a Google Image rabbit hole from which I can never climb out.)

I expect that the white skin is something I knew anyway, on some level, but now I can’t stop thinking about and am unhealthily obsessed with exactly what we’d be left with if Catorze had no fur. I imagine it would be something like this, but whiter and with much larger fangs:

And, when the little sod sleeps on my lap, I can’t resist parting his fur to peek at the paper-whiteness. (He is not a fan of this, as it’s also what I do just before giving him his flea treatment.)

We are shocked, but not surprised, to STILL be discovering weird things about him, all these years after he first came to ~~torment~~ live with us. Life with Catorze truly is beset with labyrinthine twists and turns.

L’ambroisie du Roi

Feb 5, 2022Feb 4, 2022 ~ iamthesunking ~ 22 Comments

Merci à Dieu et à tous ses anges: after a few months of being out of stock, Louis Catorze’s Orijen is back.

Cat Daddy opened a new pack the other day and, for the first time in ages, the little sod wolfed down a whole scoop, without leaving a single crumb. Cat Daddy, assuming I hadn’t fed him that morning (I had), served two more scoops, which were promptly eaten. Later that evening Cat Daddy put down an extra generous scoop to keep Catorze going whilst we were out for dinner, and he wolfed that down, too.

Cat Daddy: “I think he likes it better when it’s a freshly-opened pack. Maybe we should buy smaller packs more often? This one is designed for people who have, like, ten cats.”

This probably makes sense; anything that results in fewer Catorzian rejections, and therefore less food waste, is fine by me. However – and you knew that there would be a “however”, didn’t you? – the smaller pack isn’t such good value for money. At a nose-bleeding £20.55 per kg, the 340g pack costs almost £4 per kg more than our already-expensive regular 1.8kg pack.

Cat Daddy: “[Unrepeatable Expletives of the Worst Kind]”

I once said that the only thing more expensive than Orijen was more Orijen. I was wrong: the only thing more expensive than Orijen is LESS Orijen. But as long as the Dark King is happy, we should be able to hold off the apocalypse for a short while longer.

Les causes de la douleur

Feb 3, 2022Feb 2, 2022 ~ iamthesunking ~ 14 Comments

Louis Catorze has been an utter pest for the last few days, and he has neither the moon (nowhere near full) nor the steroid shot (hasn’t taken place yet) as an excuse this time.

By day he annoys the merde out of Cat Daddy, headbutting his laptop and screaming, and by night he annoys me by walking all over me, settling on my stomach so that I can’t breathe, doing that head shake thing and showering me with spit, and whining like a dying dog. There is nothing whatsoever wrong with him. He’s just being an idiot.

In other news, in today’s episode of Stupid Places That My Cat Chooses To Rest, I give you … a blister pack of painkillers. And this wasn’t an absentminded flop; this was very careful and deliberate placing, with the little sod lowering his body and tucking in his paws in slow motion.

Disadvantages:

1. Peculiar, slippy texture of foil

2. Sharp edge

3. Crunches every time he moves

4. Doesn’t even go underneath whole body

5. Just makes no sense whatsoever

Advantages:

1. Erm …

My fluffy-blanketed lap was available at the time. It was declined. (This seems to be becoming a pattern when it comes to Catorze.)

Cat Daddy: “…”

Me: “…”

Please feel free to add to our insightful conclusions as necessary.

Le Premier Chat

Feb 1, 2022Jan 31, 2022 ~ iamthesunking ~ 19 Comments

Louis Catorze is delighted that one of his comrades has ~~infiltrated~~ moved into the White House. And he is not remotely surprised to learn that the cat chose them, and not vice versa, when she decided to join Dr Biden on stage during her husband’s presidential campaign.

I imagined that Catorze would be somewhat affronted that the cat’s name is Willow (sweet and delicate) whereas the Bidens’ dog is called Commander (authoritative and strong). After all, it will be a cold day in hell before any self-respecting cat allows themselves to be commanded by a dog. However, don’t be fooled. This is clearly a ruse on Willow’s part, to trick us with her dainty, pretty name before unleashing her malevolence onto the world.

I’ve seen this kind of thing before. The most evil cat I have ever known was Missy, one of my childhood/early adulthood cats: prissy name, minuscule size (smaller than Catorze, which takes some doing) and a barely-audible, breathy squeak of a meow, yet with the kind of psychopathic mind that would make most serial killers shudder. I still have the remains of a scar on my wrist that I repeatedly had to explain throughout my late teens because it looked like a self-harm mark.

Missy also used her nefarious ways to brainwash her feline counterparts. Her long-term consort, Rambo (younger followers: ask your parents), was a docile cuddlebug and a non-hunter when he first arrived but, after Missy’s Mansonesque indoctrination, he changed. My sister once caught him on our upper floor landing, crunching the headless corpse of a huge rabbit twice the size of Missy and which she would never have been able to drag through the cat flap alone. Had they been humans, she would have been the criminal mastermind and he, the brainless muscle who dutifully buried the bodies and scrubbed down the crime scene.

*Rambo (tuxedo) and Missy (tortie cult leader), pictured in July 1994.*

Commander the dog may be commanding in name, but Willow the cat is the one we need to watch. Would you trust a cat who had access to both The Mothership AND the nuclear launch codes?

jesuisleroisoleil

Je crie, donc je suis

Month: Feb 2022