cat

La maison des mille cris

~ iamthesunking ~ 14 Comments

Great news: the beautician is back! 

She peered around cautiously as she entered Le Château, as one would if forced to enter an abandoned asylum where a chainsaw massacre had taken place. “Is Lewis around?” she asked. (Yes, she pronounces his name “Lewis”, but I don’t expect he will care about this at all. Plus he has been called much worse things by Cat Daddy.) I replied that he was outside, but that he would probably come and say hello soon. 

At this point she said either “Oh good” or “Oh God”. I’m pretty sure it must have been the former. 

Anyway, one eyebrow was successfully threaded without mishap. When she started on the other one we heard the ominous sound of pitter-pattering, then screaming. The beautician then lost her grip on the thread because she was laughing so much. 

Little sod jumped up onto the bed and stared at her, then decided that he would settle down, eyes wide, and stay for a chat.

“Hello, Lewis!” 

“Mwah!”

“How are you?”

“Mwah!”

“Oh, that’s good.”

“Mwah!”

“Yes, I’m fine too.”

And, curiously, after that little exchange, any suspicion (on his part) and abject terror (on her part) swiftly dissolved, and the two of them became friends. That was it. No more screaming. And they even had a little cuddle after the treatment.

“You know me now, don’t you, Lewis?” the beautician said, as she left. “So you’ll be a good boy from now on?”

I think Catorze’s last “Mwah” meant “Je ne sais pas: I’ll get back to you on that one.”

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Une chance pour tous

~ iamthesunking ~ 1 Comment

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It is said to be bad luck when a black cat crosses your path. So what can it mean when one runs at you, screaming, and tries to trip you up as you retreat?

This is what happened to the Conservative party candidate when he came canvassing today. And Cat Daddy is punch-proud that his boy “has finally done something productive”.

Could this be a bad omen for the Conservative party? I will let you know as soon as the results are in on 3rd May.

*EDITED AFTER THE RESULTS CAME IN: the Conservative party were well and truly spanked.

L’amour et le parfum se trahissent toujours

~ iamthesunking ~ 8 Comments

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It had to happen sooner or later, Mesdames et Messieurs, and today is the day: Louis Catorze has pitter-pattered in smelling of man-perfume. And it’s not Cat Daddy’s, because he only wears man-perfume very rarely. LITTLE SOD HAS BEEN SNUGGLING ANOTHER MAN.

Cat Daddy: “You mean he’s been snuggling at least one other man, as far as we are aware. It’s like serial killers. There are always more victims than it would initially seem.” Merci.

Whilst this discovery is, in itself, not wholly surprising, what’s bizarre is that Catorze smells of man-perfume RIGHT TO THE TIP OF HIS TAIL. So it seems that Le Snuggleur Mystérieux has been getting quite intense with Catorze, leaving no inch of his fur, erm, unloved.

There is also the possibility that Catorze broke into someone’s house, knocked the bottle of man-perfume to the floor and had a good old roll around in it. So, at some point today, one of our neighbours will, at best, discover a ruined bottle of man-perfume and be quite cross, or, at worst, step in the broken bits of glass and slowly bleed to death.

So, once again, we have that awkward dilemma of whether to ‘fess up or shut up. Do we casually enquire among our neighbours with a view to offloading our guilt quickly? Or do we wait until someone mentions spending their Easter Sunday having their feet stitched up in Accident and Emergency, and then sheepishly offer our apologies?

I don’t think even 40 days of prayer and penance are going to fix this one for us.

 

Le plastique défigure le monde

~ iamthesunking ~ 11 Comments

Cat Daddy is waging a war on plastic, after finding out just how much of it ends up in seas and landfill. He doesn’t have quite such a problem with the hard plastic that can be recycled, such as bottles, although he is pretty cross with Easter eggs for all their unnecessary packaging and relative lack of chocolate. The main target of his rage is the floppy, filmy plastic that our local council used to recycle but now won’t.

I have been clobbered by Cat Daddy for buying from mail-order companies whose goods arrive in bubble wrap. I have also been clobbered for my use of ladies’ sanitary items because of their plastic content, although Cat Daddy has helpfully reminded me that I “probably won’t need them for much longer”. Even Louis Catorze didn’t escape a clobbering for his Acana Pacifica, which comes in one of those non-recyclable foil-plastic hybrid things.

“Can’t we just give him canned cat food?” asked Cat Daddy. Given that at least 50% of last year’s Le Blog was about trying to make Catorze consume things that he didn’t want to consume, I’d say that were a firm NON. Cat food tins seem to be the most environmentally-friendly option by far but, if your selfish, awkward crotte of a cat won’t eat wet food, there’s not much you can do … apart from put pressure on the supplier to find alternative packaging. Or find a supplier who is doing it properly and just hope and pray that the aforementioned selfish, awkward crotte will eat their food instead.

The makers of Acana Pacifica say this about their packaging:

“At present, our packaging is not recyclable in most areas. While there are lots of recycled bags, none of them are appropriate for our products. This is due to the fact that we do not use chemical preservatives, so our bags need to form a complete barrier to protect your pet’s food from the outside environment.

We would prefer to reduce our impact on the environment, but the technology just doesn’t yet exist for a product like ours. That will change as more and more pressure is placed on packaging producers, and we will continue to explore these opportunities.”

This doesn’t really help us much, but at least they replied promptly. I have sent similar enquiries to many other companies and have discovered that they fall into one of two camps: those who are happy to answer your questions and those who really don’t want to at all.

Lily’s Kitchen, par contre, claim that their dry pet food packaging is fully compostable. (And, yes, I wish I had found that out BEFORE I reordered the massive sack of Acana Pacifica which will last the little sod a good 6+ months.) In terms of quality of ingredients Lily’s Kitchen seems to tick the same boxes as Acana Pacifica, so I am going to give it a try when his existing food runs down.

Changing the food of a cat who doesn’t like food is a bigger pain in the derrière than one can possibly imagine. But worth a shot, oui?

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Une vision de la beauté

~ iamthesunking ~ 19 Comments

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When my local beauty salon closed down due to dodgy unlicensed dealings, I found a local freelance beautician who visits clients’ houses for treatments. Monday was her first visit to Le Château and, thanks to Louis Catorze, it is likely to be her last.

Because she is a woman and not a man, I imagined that we would have minimal Catorze disturbance and be left in peace. Pas du tout. When she arrived he pitter-pattered after us, screaming, then knocked her waxing strips onto the floor and rolled all over them. During my eyebrow shaping he lay on my stomach with his head on my chest, staring unblinkingly at the beautician as she carried out the treatment.

Now, as most women – and an increasing number of men – will be aware, having the hairs on your face ripped off isn’t the greatest fun. So having a purring cat lying on you throughout the experience is rather pleasant and comforting. However, from the point of view of beautician carrying out the treatment, being stared down by a vampire-toothed devil-beast when you’re trying to work is utterly terrifying.

When she finished my eyebrows and began my shoulder massage, the screaming resumed. Catorze jumped on and off the bed, pitter-pattered in and out of the room, delicately picked his way up my legs and back down again, all the while screaming himself senseless. I was about to call time on the massage as the beautician was laughing so much that she wasn’t able to apply pressure properly, and, just as she said, “He’s wondering what’s happening to you!” the screaming stopped.

“Oh!” she gasped. “Maybe he thought I had killed you? And, now that he knows you are ok, he’s happy again?” As the conversation continued, the little sod seemed to feel more at ease and he went back to the unnerving silent glaring.

“Erm, so I expect your clients’ pets do this sort of thing all the time, don’t they?” I asked hopefully, praying that this sort of thing might be normal.

Apparently it’s not.

So, the big question: will she be back? Or would she sooner accept a job tweezing Donald Trump’s nose hair than set foot here again?

L’homme au masque de fer

~ iamthesunking ~ 3 Comments

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*SPOILER ALERT: THIS BLOG ENTRY REVEALS THE ENDING OF “THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK”*

Someone once told me that my naming of Louis Catorze had “forever ruined French history for her”. So what better way to empathise with her concerns, and to give le royal nod to the recent Oscar winners, than to watch a historically-questionable Hollywood adaptation of an acclaimed Alexandre Dumas novel, giggling like a little child every time Louis XIV is mentioned?

The Sun King is played by a man from Los Angeles, D’Artagnan is from Dublin, and two of the three musketeers are from Illinois and the Isle of Wight. But, as someone who has convinced half the world that my cat from a North London rescue is a French monarch, I practically invented the suspension of disbelief. So this was no problem to me.

The similarities between Louis XIV and Louis Catorze are staggering, the main one being that both are tyrannical despots who live in luxury as the peasants, who are forced to fund their lavish lifestyles, languish in poverty. And the single, minor difference is that Louis XIV, according to musketeer Athos, “is cold and cruel, and cares only for himself” … which is not strictly true of our little sod as he also cares for Cat Daddy and male friends/neighbours/tradesmen/trick or treaters/Ocado delivery drivers.

The end of the film shows the human Louis clapped in irons and locked up in the dankest, most squalid part of the Bastille prison, which is not a million miles from what Cat Daddy has threatened when Louis Catorze has woken us in the night with his whining/scampering/rodent-bringing/bubble-wrap-popping. And the positive and uplifting conclusion of the film, apparently showing the Sun King bringing prosperity and peace to the citizens of France, was actually down to the actions of his (much nicer) impostor twin brother, Philippe.

Cat Daddy: “You see? I think we ended up with the wrong cat. I want to adopt Philippe. There has to be a Philippe out there for us.”

Maybe, but not quite yet … after all, the human Louis reigned for over 72 years.

What’s that in cat years?

Les merveilles de l’hiver

~ iamthesunking ~ 6 Comments

There are many fun things that can be done in the snow, but I don’t suppose schlepping to the vet to pick up Louis Catorze’s Broadline is one of them.

Cat Daddy came with me but he wasn’t the best company, complaining all the way about Catorze and his inconvenient, money-haemorrhaging connerie. And, because the walk took us a few minutes longer than usual due to slipping and sliding on the ice and snow, that meant I had to listen to more complaining.

When we got there and were told how much it was, Cat Daddy swept his contactless card across the scanner thing but it was declined.

Vet: “I’m afraid you can only use contactless for payments under £30.”
Cat Daddy. “Oh. Did you not say it was £14?”
Vet: “Erm, no. £44.”

Silence, tumbleweed, crickets. And, after we had paid and left, Cat Daddy complained about Catorze and his money-haemorrhaging connerie all the way home again. Sa Majesté, meanwhile, had been out enjoying some snow play and hadn’t even noticed we had gone.

It’s a good thing we have Le Royal Sick Fund. And it’s a good thing we love the little sod.

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Le Roi de Neige

~ iamthesunking ~ 2 Comments

Snowmageddon has hit London! For those who are outside the UK, this is something that happens when snow is forecast: schools close, the transport system grinds to a halt and nobody dares to travel anywhere without carrying a spade and a torch. Yet, when the time comes, it’s just a light, feeble, anti-climactic dusting far from the apocalyptic blizzard we expected, and countries such as Canada and Sweden laugh at us for being so pathetic.

When it comes to snow, cats tend to fall into one of two camps:

1. YOUPI!
2. NON

Louis Catorze, of course, does both. At 7a.m. I was greeted by clear evidence of his nocturnal gaddings-about, as shown below … but, when we came home from work, the whole lot was covered by a perfect, pristine layer of new snow, showing that he had promptly switched to NON mode and not moved his lazy arse all day.

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He was, however, soon back to YOUPI! and slipped out for more wintry frolics at The Front when Cat Daddy was putting out the rubbish this evening. We had no idea he was there until Bert the dog’s daddy knocked to tell us, adding that he could hear the screaming from his front room. You cannot IMAGINE our deep, deep shame.

“Apparently there’s more chaos forecast for later this week,” Cat Daddy said just now. I hope he means the snow.

Longue vie et prosperité

~ iamthesunking ~ 6 Comments

Since Valentine’s Day there have been no further sightings of Le Rat. Nor have there been any sightings of its much larger parents, whom my mum has convinced me are out there somewhere.

For a bit of fun, and in the hope that our collective mind over matter might speed things along a little, I started a sweepstake among my fellow cat freaks, with a small prize going to the person who correctly predicted the day that Louis Catorze eventually caught Le Rat. But, unfortunately, it has backfired catastrophically: whilst Le Château remains a rodent-free zone, the cats of some of the sweepstake entrants have had a right old hunting hootenanny. And one or two of the humans aren’t very happy and hold me responsible.

This turn of events means one of two things has occurred:

1. The Mothership* has malfunctioned
2. The Mothership is functioning perfectly well, merci, and the universe is unfolding as it should

*You are all aware of The Mothership, oui? The mysterious alien craft responsible for beaming sinister commands to the feline population via their microchips? Yes, we’re all TOLD that microchipping is to track them if they get lost, et patati et patata, but we know better, don’t we?

Cat Daddy is highly amused by the nationwide rodent-killing spree. “They say that rodents are the only creatures which could survive an apocalypse,” he said, “but it sounds as if the cats belonging to the sweepstake people would be ok, too. Louis Catorze wouldn’t last a minute. In fact, if there were an apocalypse, the rodents would probably eat HIM.”

Let’s hope that the hunting hootenanny is just a temporary phase. Otherwise I fear that the apocalypse might happen sooner than we think.

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L’Année du Chien

~ iamthesunking ~ 3 Comments

Chinese New Year officially begins today and it’s the Year of the Dog, which will be rather displeasing to many of our feline overlords. However, Louis Catorze, being quite cordial towards dogs even if the feeling isn’t mutual, has both accepted this with good grace AND chosen to make a peace offering to his sparring partner next door:

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Whilst I am not a great believer in the western zodiac, nor in the characteristics attributed according to one’s date of birth, Chinese New Year made me curious about Louis Catorze’s corresponding Chinese horoscope animal. And, being born in 2010, it turns out that he is likely to be … a Tiger. No joke. (Cat Daddy spat his tea all over his laptop when I told him.)

This is what l’internet says about those born in the Year of the Tiger:

– Brave [Catorze takes on larger animals of any kind, without hesitation, so OUI]
– Competitive [although this rather depends on the nature of the competition; if it’s “Who can be the biggest and most annoying crotte de merde in the land?” then OUI]
– Self-confident [OUI]
– Charming [OUI]
– Well-liked by others [provided we don’t count dogs or Ocado delivery drivers among the “others”, then OUI]
– Impetuous [see “Brave” above: OUI]
– Over-indulged [I suppose having a house built and furnished to his specifications, food flown in from Canada and a savings account for his healthcare could possibly, by some people’s interpretation, be seen as “over-indulged”, so OUI]

Louis Catorze wishes everyone, especially all dogs, a joyous and prosperous year ahead. And he would love to know all about your feline overlords’ Chinese horoscope animals and whether the characteristics are a good match!

Beurk, le rat!

~ iamthesunking ~ 7 Comments

It’s Valentine’s Day, and many of us will have received gifts in honour of this auspicious Hallmark day. My gift, however, is delayed.

Here is a picture of it:

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Oui, Mesdames et Messieurs: here at Le Château, seeing a live rodent isn’t just seeing a live rodent. It’s Louis Catorze’s equivalent of those despatch confirmation emails, saying, “Your parcel is on its way.”

Responses to the photo of my impending delivery have been as follows:

Oscar the dog’s mamma: “A baby rat, I reckon. I think it’s rather cute. But I still wouldn’t want it in my house.”
Cat Daddy: “A RAT. Where the hell is HE when we need him?”
My mum: “They say that, in London, you’re never more than 3 feet away from a rat. You’d better keep your door shut when you go outside, even if it’s just for a few minutes.”

Super. Merci.

It’s not a question of WHETHER Louis Catorze will catch it – because we know that he will – but WHEN. And, unfortunately, there will be no way of tracking this package, and I guess I can forget about choosing a one-hour delivery slot. Knowing Catorze, Le Rat will be dropped onto my pillow in the dead of night, still squealing, with one or more limbs/organs hidden elsewhere in Le Château for me to find later.

Joyeuse Saint Valentin à tous!

Lancer un pavé dans la mare

~ iamthesunking ~ 8 Comments

If you have never seen those “Photos taken seconds before disaster struck” picture gallery things, this interpretation should be self-explanatory:

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I took this photo mainly because I never imagined Louis Catorze would take on an enormous beast of a wood pigeon the same size as him. And, in the unlikely event of him trying, I thought he would be far too slow to actually succeed. C’était faux: not long afterwards, despite le pigeon distancing itself by settling on a different part of the furniture, le petit voyou charged down the garden path and managed to get his paws to it.

Cat Daddy raced outside and grabbed a broom to try and separate the pair of them. He managed to poke le pigeon out of evil Catorze’s grasp, but the poor, traumatised bird flapped its way into a corner from where there was no escape … and Catorze, despite being thicker than a concrete milkshake, knew this, and circled like a hungry shark. I then had to go out to try and catch him but he refused to be caught, forever dancing tantalisingly out of my reach, but luckily this gave Cat Daddy enough time to trap le pigeon in a cardboard box and place it in the safety of the park opposite.

My best friend, who was over for lunch at the time, hooted with laughter at the whole spectacle. (She is a dog person, and this confirmed why.)

Cat Daddy and I may need to be more consistent in our approach to dealing with the little sod. Our mixed messages are probably WHY he’s such a little sod.

Me: “Bad kitty. That poor bird.”
Cat Daddy: “Call yourself a hunter? That was the most pathetic effort ever.”

Le crime de lèse-majesté

~ iamthesunking ~ 6 Comments

Cat Daddy and I decided not to bother with Dry January this year because, if you’re denying yourself something you like, January is just too difficult a month in which to attempt it. So we’re giving Dry February a go instead. February is just that little bit brighter and more hopeful, so embarking upon tough challenges somehow doesn’t seem quite so onerous. (Plus February is shorter.)

A friend recommended the “Dry January and Beyond” app to help track my progress, and it’s great apart from one thing: try as I might, I can’t enter my name into my profile. When I go into the settings and click on the name-changing bit, nothing happens. Now, this may not sound like la fin du monde, but I have selected one of my favourite Roi photos for my profile picture … and the generic default name alongside his photo is “null null null”. Which, unfortunately, is (pretty much) the French for “rubbish, rubbish, rubbish”.

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Cat Daddy thinks it’s the funniest thing ever to have the words “rubbish, rubbish, rubbish” next to a photo of Louis Catorze. “It’s what I’ve been telling you for ages!” he hooted. “But so what? It’s not as if he knows he’s being called rubbish.”

IT’S (KIND OF) FRENCH. HE’S FRENCH. OF COURSE HE WILL KNOW.

“Or,” Cat Daddy continued, “if YOU don’t care about being called rubbish, you could just upload a photo of yourself instead.”

[Silence, tumbleweed, crickets]

“Oh. My. God. You don’t HAVE any photos of yourself, do you? Your camera roll consists ENTIRELY of cat photos!”

Oh. Ahem.

Anyway, I have contacted the good citizens of Dry January and Beyond to ask them how to change the name, although, naturellement, I have pretended that it’s I who objects to being called rubbish. I couldn’t really say “My royal French cat, Sa Majesté Louis Catorze, Le Roi Soleil, is highly offended at the très mal-fortunate juxtaposition of le portrait royal et l’insulte” because that might have sounded silly.

As for Catorze, I am hoping that his spelling is better than his, erm, other intellectual capacities, and that the slightly offish orthographe* will delay his realisation somewhat. Calling a monarch “rubbish” – three times, no less – is surely an act of high treason, punishable only by the guillotine?

*nul = adjectif masculin
nulle = adjectif féminin

La mort sur un chat noir

~ iamthesunking ~ 4 Comments

I have a new phone, which, firstly, means better-quality Roi photos and more of them! Hurrah! But, more importantly, it shouldn’t overheat and then require refrigerating, as the old phone did. (No joke: this really did happen. It was Cocoa the babysit cat’s mamma who advised me to put it in the fridge, obviously empathising with the trauma of potentially losing 1,500+ precious cat photos and the 5 or 6 of one’s husband/family.)

It was initially cheering to see that the new phone was exactly the same size as the old one. But, naturellement, those wily tricksters at Apple have made subtle yet annoying changes which oblige us to grudgingly purchase brand new supporting paraphernalia. So I have had to buy a new phone case, as the old one obscures the camera.

LOOK AT MY NEW PHONE CASE, THOUGH!

I know. No more needs to be said.

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