Je crie, donc je suis
Interview someone — a friend, another blogger, your mother, the postman — and write a post based on their responses.
We approached Ocado for their comments on life servicing the household of Louis Catorze, but they’re not replying to our emails.
I wonder why? Could the reason be this?
Or possibly this?
Perhaps I’m overthinking the whole thing, and it’s simply an especially busy time for Ocado.
I’ll wait.
For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com
A couple of days ago I saw Louis Catorze sitting at the back door, screaming, because he couldn’t get in. And, when I say, “couldn’t get in”, I mean that the cleaner had just mopped the floor and he didn’t want to get his feet wet.
I know.
So he just sat at the back door, screaming himself senseless, presumably until either the floor dried or someone picked him up and brought him in, whichever came first. I would have videoed it had I not been mortally embarrassed because the cleaner was there. (And no, I refused to pick him up.)
No less than twenty minutes later, Cat Daddy cleared some fox poo from the garden, then poured water on the area so that we would know not to tread there. (It’s just non-stop glamour here at Le Château.)
You know where this is going, don’t you?
Oh yes: Catorze happily walked through the fox-shitty water without even flicking a whisker. He then tried to settle first on my lap (denied), then on Cat Daddy’s (also denied), and finally had to make do with here:
So, a clean-but-damp floor: non.
Fox-shitty water: OUAIS.
The thought of Catorze in my bed with those gross feet makes me want to die. Not as much, however, as the thought of the YEARS he’s already spent in my bed with those gross feet. But what can we do about it, other than investing in a cat-sized one of those germ-zapping foot baths that you walk through before getting into the main swimming pool?
For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com
In today’s edition of Things We Used To Be Able To Eat But Now Can’t: sea bass rillettes.
I thought I was so clever, waiting until Louis Catorze had gone outside before deciding to have sea bass rillettes for lunch. But, as soon as I opened the jar, I heard the telltale click of the cat flap and the little sod was at my feet, screaming and screaming. It was then a race against time to dollop the rillettes onto some bread and then dart into the living room ahead of Catorze.
If you’ve ever been in the presence of a cat who wants a closed door opened, you will know how torturous it is. The sound of his screaming grated on my soul like metal scraping against metal. All the while I was hurriedly shovelling down my lunch, knowing that I would end up with indigestion yet preferring that to even another a second of screaming.
Then, the screaming stopped. I didn’t know why, nor did I care. I was just grateful to be able to eat my lunch in peace.
When I went into the kitchen to put my plate into the dishwasher I found him there, eagerly licking something on the floor. In my haste to dollop the rillettes onto my bread, I had dropped some on the floor … and Sa Maj had found it.
This was absolutely the worst outcome imaginable, because then Catorze knew exactly what he was missing and wasn’t satisfied with just that tiny morsel. Cue headbutting, manic sweeping of every last centimetre of the floor in case another stray blob had escaped, and, of course, more screaming. Oh dear God, the screaming.
The worst part of the story is that the rillettes weren’t even that nice. So I have stirred up an already-psychotic cat, all for the sake of something that wasn’t really worth it.
What next? Will we only be able to eat fish in peace at restaurants or at friends’ houses?
For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com
You know this already, but I had to post about it again because it never fails to blow my mind. And I’m sure this won’t be the last time. Louis Catorze will do it again and make it even weirder, I’m sure of it.
We’ve had a lot of rain this weekend. In fact, yesterday morning I came down to a lake of water all over the kitchen floor because the windows had been left open all night. Most cats don’t like rain. Catorze, however, begs to differ.
Catorze was on his papa’s lap, ready to watch Aston Villa v Arsenal, when we were struck by a particularly heavy deluge that battered down on the skylight and the Velux windows. Catorze’s ears pricked up at the sound, and Cat Daddy said, “Do you want to go out, Louis?”
What happened next was quite strange.
Catorze replied to his papa with a “Mwah!”, jumped down from his lap and RACED outside as if the devil were chasing him (not the best analogy, since we all know that the devil is already inside him and residing there quite happily, but you know what I mean).
We have always known how much he loves the rain, but we have never seen the little sod so instantly responsive to it. It’s both cute and utterly freakish.
Here he is, sitting in his favourite place and loving every minute of it:
For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com
Tell us about the last thing you got excited about
PART SIX. WHAT IS HAPPENING?
Well, this prompt is easy for Louis Catorze for answer: it was salmon. Yes, again.
Remember when I told you that we could no longer eat smoked salmon in this house ever again? Well, it seems that not even bog-standard canned salmon is safe; I have just been subjected to the most terrifying screaming and physical assault because Catorze wanted my dinner and I wasn’t giving in.
First his head swivelled round and round like Regan from The Exorcist, trying to find the source of the irresistible smell. Then, when he realised it was me (well, not ME – you know what I mean), that was it: I was stomped upon, headbutted and screamed at. A couple of times, he took a break from his attack to go to his own bowl. But, when he realised that it only contained plebby Orijen, he came back to ambush me again.
Cat Daddy: “See what you’ve done?”
Me: “WHAT? I’m just sitting here trying to eat my dinner!”
Him: “You left that smoked salmon out. You put out a bowl for him, in his room*. You’ve created a monster.”
*This is the first time I’ve heard that the living room is Catorze’s room, but tant pis.
Saint Jésus et tous ses anges: smoked salmon and canned salmon are not REMOTELY the same thing! However, what matters is that nobody has told Catorze this. And, if we try, he just screams more loudly, in a “Laaa laaa, not listening!” kind of way.
I was able to get some small snippets of the drama on video (not an easy feat, when also trying to keep an irresistible plate away from the attacker):
And there was also this face:
I managed to eat my dinner – just about – but, in my haste to do so, I gave myself awful indigestion afterwards.
I shall say it again: this is our life now. And that’s a very scary thought indeed.
For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com
The night after his full moon shenanigans, Louis Catorze was a transformed cat: calm, relaxed and, dare I say it, quiet.
Cat Daddy: “Were you just showing off last night, Louis? Just because we had a friend round?”
Catorze: “Mwah!”
Just as a tree falling in a forest makes no sound if people aren’t around to witness it, Catorze, apparently, is, erm, 0.01% less embarrassing when it’s just us.
Whilst others are filming yet another glamorous video in the life of their Insta-perfect cat, I am sitting here trying to figure out the answers to the following questions:
Any suggestions will be received with more gratitude than you can ever imagine.
For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com
As you are aware, Louis Catorze is visibly more unhinged than usual when it’s a full moon, so much so that I don’t even need to check my moon phase app; his behaviour is enough of an indicator.
Last night we had a Blue Supermoon. I don’t understand what one is exactly, but that’s irrelevant; all that matters is that Catorze knew it was time to go apeshit. And the fact that we had a friend over for dinner made it even better/worse, depending on how you look at it; extra audience members only ramp up the embarrassment factor and make it more for fun (for him, not for us).
Catorze greeted my friend upon arrival, as every good host should.
Her: “Ahhh! Louis!”
Me: “He’s been annoying the shit out of me lately.”
Her: “Why, what’s he been doing?”
Catorze: “MWAAAAHHHHH!”
Her: “Oh.”
And that was it; the scream demon was unleashed. As my friend is also a teacher I asked her opinion on some work I’d prepared for a class next year, including listening to a recording, and Catorze screamed through that, too. Then, as we ate our dinner outside, he jumped onto the fence and onto That Neighbour’s roof, pitter-pattering across their skylight and screaming himself witless.
All the while I was eating furiously, thinking that the sooner we could finish, the sooner we could go indoors.
After tiring of trying to rouse That Neighbour, Catorze decided to start walking on our awning. He walked around and around in aimless circles, making the fabric bulge with paw-shaped indentations, and then it dawned on us that he was stuck and didn’t know how to get down.
Cat Daddy went the bathroom, with the intention of corralling the little sod through the open window. However, after a few minutes he returned, catless, and told us that Catorze had approached the window, almost come in, but then changed his mind and returned to walking aimless, screaming circles on the roof and awning again.
There was absolutely nothing we could do, so we just left him to it and hoped he would just figure out that the bathroom window was his only way in. However, when it was time for pudding, there was no sign of him at all. We called him, unable to hear a response or see him on the awning, but also not quite daring to retract the awning in case he ended up rolled up inside like a layer of jam inside a Swiss roll*.
*Younger followers: ask your British friends in their forties. Don’t ask your Swiss friends because they won’t know what you are talking about.
We came indoors to eat our pudding in the front room, as it had turned quite chilly outside. There we found Catorze, sitting happily, having heard us calling and searching yet not bothered to do anything about it.
Just before 11pm, I drove my friend to the station. As soon as I returned, Catorze escaped out at The Front.
Cat Daddy: “He’s all over the place. Do you think it’s the full moon?”
The moon is actually the least terrifying explanation. I dread to think that it’s alien intervention, demonic possession or, worst of all, that THIS IS JUST WHAT MY CAT IS LIKE.
For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com
We have a Code Rouge situation at Le Château: a mosquito in the room. It has dive-bombed and bitten me about 5,872 times in the last half hour but Louis Catorze, who is on my lap, is doing absolutely nothing about it.
The little sod has been known to jump off my lap and run across the room, IN THE DARK, to eat poor, hapless bugs who are just silently minding their own business on the opposite wall and whom I didn’t even know were there. Yet he is sleeping through repeated attacks by an annoying, metallic-humming little shit of a beast, stirring only to meow disdainfully at my failed attempts to slap this creature dead.
Most irritatingly of all, the mosquito is making no attempt to bite Catorze. Perhaps having to penetrate a layer of manky fur to reach his drug-addled blood isn’t too appealing. Or – and this is far more likely – perhaps he commands the creatures of the night, and he’s already told this mosquito that he doesn’t want to be bitten, merci s’il vous plaît?
Does this face look as if he may be the master of all bloodsucking beasts? Erm …
For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com
At the start of the week, the chat-sitteur who looked after Louis Catorze whilst we were in Scotland, came round for dinner with her lovely family.
Catorze was happy to see her, but BESIDE HIMSELF to spend time with her brother (no great surprise there as he, erm, prefers the company of gentlemen). And, luckily, the feeling was mutual. Chat-Sitteur’s Brother cradled him like a baby and talked to him in his Cat Lady voice, telling him what a good boy he was (I know – we just went along with it) and how lovely his fangs were.
Chat-Sitteur: “He never lets me hold him like that.”
I hear you. Really, I do.
Every cat person (apart from Cat Daddy) knows that, when you have a cat on your lap, it’s against the law to move until the cat moves. So, if you want something, you have to ask for it to be brought to you, and in this household we call it being Trapped Under Cat, or TUC (although “Incatpacitated” is also rather good, if impossible to say).
Chat-Sitteur’s Brother has now introduced us to a twist to this sacred state, with the following words to his sister: “Could you please feed me my glass of wine, because I don’t have any hands free and don’t want to stop cuddling Louis?”
This is a new one for us. But, naturellement, his sister willingly obliged.
Here are Catorze and his new best friend, all loved up:
And, knowing that not much makes Cat Daddy more angry than me texting whilst TUC to request food and water, surely he should be relieved and grateful that I have never asked to be fed (yet)?
For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com
Oh. Mon. Dieu. I have just accidentally pocket-called Ocado whilst feeding Blue the Smoke Bengal (whose mamma is away). So one of their delivery drivers now has a six-minute message from me, telling him what a gorgeous, meaty boy he is.
Cat Daddy, when I told him later: “Can’t you just delete it?”
Oh my. How glorious life would be if this were a thing. Poor, clueless Cat Daddy.
Him: “Did you say anything else, apart from “You gorgeous, meaty boy”?”
Me: “Not really. It was pretty much just that.”
Him: “What, for six minutes?”
Me: “FOR SIX MINUTES.”
Him: “…”
Me: “I want to die.”
Him, without looking up from his phone: “Maybe you should.”
Me: “…”
Him: “There’s no way I can reframe this for you.”
Me: “…”
If you’re not a UK resident, you may not be aware that every Ocado delivery driver has the same phone number (in our area, at least). And I don’t think we’ve ever had the same driver twice. So having no idea which driver will have picked up the message makes the already-excruciating situation even worse.
Could it be Karanjeet driving the Plum van? Christopher driving the Cherry van? Or someone else entirely? Since it probably wouldn’t do to ask each driver who turns up, “Are YOU the gorgeous, meaty boy?”, I don’t suppose we will ever know.
Anyway, whilst I agonise over what I can do to recover from this – even though I know the answer is probably nothing – we can never order from Ocado again. Or, at least, I will have to hide whilst Cat Daddy accepts the delivery.
This is what Louis Catorze would look like sneering at my stupidity – if he actually cared:
For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com
What brings you peace?
Peace? In this house? You must be joking.
A few days ago, a video popped up on my social media feed entitled, “How to tell if your cat is spoilt”. Obviously I need to contact Meta and ask them to check their algorithms, because that couldn’t have been intended for me.
Because I read it in a hurry, I didn’t make a note of all the points mentioned. But these are the ones that I recall:
1. They meow a lot.
Oh dear. That DOES sound rather like a certain cat I know. According to the maker of the video, excessive meowing means the cat is used to getting his own way and knows all the buttons to press. However, what about the cat who just wanders from room to room, screaming, just for fun?
2. They are lazy.
Now, “lazy”, to me, either means lying around like a hairball doing nothing, or not doing your designated job to the best of your ability. Louis Catorze certainly sleeps a lot, but it seems to be with the purpose of powering up for mischief. Screaming, 3am parkour, bullying us and annoying the local wildlife are certainly not “doing nothing”; this is serious action, even if it’s not the kind of action we want.
As for not doing his job properly … what even is it that Catorze is supposed to do? Can he be accused of not doing his job properly, if he doesn’t actually have one (and never did)?
Here he is, not wanting anything, just liking the sound of his own voice. YOU try for peace, when you’re living with this:
For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com
*WARNING: CONTAINS UNPLEASANT REFERENCES TO PUKE*
We came home after a night out to find a nice pile of cat puke on the bed. Louis Catorze has never thrown up on a bed before, not once in ten years. And, because we didn’t know it had happened, it had seeped through the duvet cover and onto the actual duvet.
Oh, and of course it had to be the new, fancy eucalyptus silk bedding, and not the ancient polycotton shite that I’ve had for years.
When I went to fetch some cleaning products, I could hear Cat Daddy in the bedroom, crashing around and shouting, “What puke? I can’t see any.”
I yelled, “Noooo, don’t touch anything!” but I was too late. In his quest to find the puke – why he needed to see it for himself, I really don’t know – Cat Daddy had flipped the duvet, sending puke flying in all directions. He was several pints of beer under, plus wine and port, but making a bad situation worse is the kind of thing he would have done whilst sober anyway.
When I was at university, I would frequently do my washing in the early hours of the morning, often falling asleep drunk in the laundry room, because it was the only time of day when the two (2) washing machines, shared between three hundred (300) students, were free. I thought those days were behind me. Yet there I was, seemingly having travelled thirty years back in time, doing it again. Only this time I made Cat Daddy wait until the cycle was finished and hang it all up to dry, since he was the one who hadn’t believed me in the first place.
Having just a sheet over me doesn’t give me the protection from the cold and from parkouring paws, in the same way that a duvet does. So I had awful sleep, alternating between shivering and being stamped on/screamed at. And the next morning, the little sod was nowhere to be found. (I still don’t know where he went. Probably next door.)
So, total shits given by the perpetrator = < 0.
I guess I now need to worry about why he did this. Cats puke all the time, I know that. But perhaps he was just too slow to jump off the bed before it happened? And, if so, how is it that he still manages 3am parkour?
For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com
Describe your life in an alternate universe
Part 5. Holy hell.
In the 1998 film Sliding Doors, PR executive Helen misses a train; we see how her life unfolds after that, as well as seeing an alternate universe in which she DID catch the train. I look back upon The Great Salmon Grab and long for the life I would have had, had I not left my dinner unattended on that fateful night.
Louis Catorze is – how can I put this? – not the fizziest drink in the fridge. But, dammit, he remembers The Great Salmon Grab. And now it’s official: we can never eat smoked salmon of any sort in the house again, EVER.
Catorze was outside when I started preparing our smoked salmon salad dinner. Since it was regular smoked salmon rather than the hot-smoked variety, I thought this meant that he wasn’t interested. Or, perhaps, he was so engrossed in annoying the local wildlife that he didn’t know I was handling smoked salmon.
What a mistake this was.
As soon as we sat down to eat, he appeared, trying to stick his face into my plate and screaming bloody murder.
And, tempting though it is to throw him a sliver, the way characters in old cartoons used to throw strings of sausages to dogs to distract them, the short-term gain of being able to eat that one meal in peace would also be the beginning of the end.
Me: “We’ve created a monster, haven’t we?”
Cat Daddy: “What do you mean, “we”?”
Yes, Cat Daddy still blames me for the situation.
Look at Catorze bullying Cat Daddy for his salmon, having just finished screaming at me for mine. This is our life now.
For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com
I have just witnessed a squirrel screaming at Louis Catorze, and I think it might be the funniest thing I’ve ever heard.
Initially, when I heard the sound, I thought it was a magpie or a crow. I wouldn’t ordinarily bother to investigate such sounds, because I know that Catorze probably started it and that he can handle himself. But, when the noise didn’t stop, part of me wondered whether Catorze was being sick. His usual puke sounds aren’t quite this persistent or nasal, but I would have felt bad if he’d had something stuck in his throat and I hadn’t tried to help him.
I’m not sure I was even aware that squirrels could make sounds. Now, I am. And this isn’t a sound that I’ll forget in a hurry:
Although you can’t see Catorze fully, you can see his little feet a couple of seconds in, under the table, walking past. Yes, he walked away languidly and lazily, as if he thought, “I just can’t be bothered with this”.
The squirrel gave a few more seconds of, “Don’t walk away when I’m talking to you! Oy! OYYYY!” Then, as soon as Catorze was indoors, the noise stopped.
I don’t know what this means but, since the little sod’s relations with the squirrels haven’t exactly been positive over the years, what with attempted pursuits up telegraph poles even when Côned, lopped-off tails and all, I can’t imagine that anything good is about to happen.
Catorze knows where this is heading, but he has invoked his right to remain silent (for once).
For more Catorzian capers, please visit http://louiscatorze.com
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