cat food

Le chat vit pour manger

~ iamthesunking ~ 11 Comments

Someone appears to have stolen Louis Catorze – quite why anyone would do this is beyond me – and replaced him with a similar-looking changeling cat who actually likes food.

For the first time EVER, this morning he pulled the Second Breakfast trick on Cat Daddy, who fell for it completely. When I got home I was berated for “forgetting” to feed Catorze before going to work when I knew full well that I had done it, and it was then that the little sod was rumbled.

This has never happened before. Quite the opposite, in fact: Le Roi’s plate is usually never empty.

His big brother, Luther, was different. When it came to the Second Dinner trick, he would have beaten Leonardo di Caprio to that Best Actor Oscar, without a doubt; too often I would be scrabbling through bins, accompanied by the sound of Luther’s “I’m starving to death” song, counting the empty food cans to work out whether I’d fed him 20 minutes previously or whether I’d dreamt the whole episode. And he once did such a number on Cat Daddy that he said, in all seriousness, “Maybe we didn’t feed him after all. Maybe we just THINK we did.”

Luther’s pièce de résistance was this:

1. Luther refuses the food that Cat Daddy puts down
2. Cat Daddy puts down another variant on the same plate (the single action that proved to be his undoing)
3. Luther eats Variant 2
4. After Cat Daddy leaves for work, Luther also eats Variant 1
5. Cat Daddy returns home, sees the empty plate and assumes I must have thrown away the uneaten food

We have no idea how many times he did this. It could have been hundreds.

I can’t see Louis Catorze suddenly sprouting a brain and being as wily as his brother, but, to be honest, given that November is usually the month that his health hits the skids, we’re delighted that he’s eating firsts, never mind seconds.

And the lime scent is back with a vengeance, affirming Cat Daddy’s belief that it’s “just a healthy cat smell”. Again, it could be so much worse, so we’re just going to enjoy it.

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Papa est déçu

~ iamthesunking ~ 7 Comments

Last week Cat Daddy ordered a trendy little drinks trolley from a swish furniture website, and, ever since, he has been going on and on about it to anyone who cares (and a few people who don’t).

This morning he had to pop into work for a bit, and he came home with a huge package in his arms. “It’s here!” he cried, unable to contain his joy. “And, would you believe, the delivery driver arrived at work just as I was leaving! How about that for good timing?” He grabbed a pair of sharp scissors, sliced deftly through the sticky tape and pulled the lid open.

Inside the box was not a drinks trolley, but an enormous sack of Acana Pacifica cat biscuits.

Cat Daddy’s face crumpled and dropped. “What?” he faltered. “This?”

“Erm, didn’t you wonder why it was rattling so much when you were carrying it home?” I asked, pretending to wipe my nose with a big tissue to hide my laughter.

“Well, yes,” he replied, “but I thought it was just the polystyrene packaging Wotsits shaking around. I can’t believe I just carried THIS all the way home!” He sank onto the sofa, still in disbelief at the magnitude of this disappointment; never have I seen such utter heartbreak on his face.

And Louis Catorze couldn’t have chosen a better/worse moment to pitter-patter into the kitchen, tail aloft, sniff the sack of food and promptly pitter-patter out again, as if to say, “Merci pour l’effort, Papa, but you needn’t have bothered.”

I wanted to take a picture of the parcel and post it here, but Cat Daddy got all cross when I suggested it and I wasn’t allowed. But, before he was able to chuck the packaging out, I caught Le Roi exploring it:

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No doubt when the trolley arrives – date to be confirmed – there will be further photos, this time with Catorze perched elegantly on top. (Cat Daddy got cross when I said that, too.)

La lune bleue

~ iamthesunking ~ 2 Comments

Ugh. Another night of my cat, who typically just shuts up and cuddles quietly in bed, padding up and down my body, purring, clambering over packing cases and popping bubble wrap (!) in the room next door, all the while singing the anthem of his forefathers. A couple of threads on a Facebook cat forum revealed that many of the members’ cats have also been behaving in a similar loopy fashion lately, and someone had suggested that it could be linked to tomorrow’s Blue Moon.

Also, Louis Catorze somehow managed to fashion E.T.’s face out of his food last night (see below – no Photoshop or fakery used here), which is conclusive proof of something spooky in the air. Is there a mysterious alien mothership somewhere, silently commanding all our furry overlords to simultaneously annoy the crap out of us? Could the moon BE that very mothership?  For those who aren’t familiar with the moon and its workings, a full moon is (obviously) when the moon appears as a whole disc in the sky, and a Blue Moon is when this happens for the second time within a calendar month. And, because a Blue Moon doesn’t happen very often (hence the expression “Once in a blue moon”), it’s regarded as an especially enchanted time. Accidents, criminal behaviour and hospital admissions (for humans) are said to be more numerous during a full moon; could something similar be true for cats, too?

I consulted our good friend Google for advice, and discovered a wealth of information confirming that the full moon was, indeed, responsible for nutso behaviour among both humans and animals. For instance, the word “lunatic” originates from the belief that the moon’s changes cause insanity. And, on an unrelated note, be very afraid, men of the world: apparently women are programmed to menstruate during the full moon, all at the same time, but the only reason we don’t is because artificial stimulation from electric lights, computers etc. has overridden nature. I told this to Cat Daddy and he sort of pretended not to hear me, muttering something about chocolate and asking God to help him.

Anyway, the one piece of information that really stood out was this: “It’s not the full moon, it’s the night. Night people are a whole subset of the population, and the lore includes night beings such as vampires and werewolves.” Seriously? I’m to expect potential sleep deprivation at the paws of Louis Catorze EVERY SINGLE NIGHT? I was so shocked that it put me off Google for a whole hour.

So it seems I shall never sleep again, but Cat Daddy can’t help but feel slightly intrigued about our boy being some sort of otherworldly monstre. I guess we kind of suspected it anyway as he’s black with vampire teeth and a bit of a weirdo, so Cat Daddy reckons we need to encourage the flourishing of this intrinsic penchant for the night, rather than pushing him off us and swearing at him. Will his nocturnal annoyances escalate at Halloween? What about the winter solstice, when 18 hours out of 24 are in darkness? Cat Daddy is quite excited about finding out. I myself think I can live without it.