christmas

Entre le diable et la mer bleue profonde

~ iamthesunking ~ 30 Comments

Louis Catorze has barely budged from the living room recently. Every time we wonder whether he’s ill, we check on him and see that he’s perfectly fine. Then it dawned on Cat Daddy that his poor boy is probably taking refuge from the dreaded guitar.

Yes, Cat Daddy is still practising for several hours a day in the kitchen. And, yes, Catorze is still hating it with every grain of his being.

I came home from work the other night and was greeted by an incensed Catorze. The reason for his outrage? The cleaner was vacuuming, and Cat Daddy was playing the guitar. Yes, his two least favourite things in the world, in his Château, AT THE SAME TIME.

The little sod followed me upstairs and circled me as I changed my clothes, screaming absolute bloody murder. The only way of calming him down was to cuddle him on the bed and do his favourite thing: squeeze and rub his belly flesh quite firmly (sounds cruel but, trust me, he loves this).

By early evening I thought he would have recovered from his double-trauma. However, although he wasn’t angry anymore, he was alternating between creepy-staring and whimpering like a needy child, and I’m ashamed to say that I buckled under the pressure of his sinister intimidation-guilt combo. I took down the tree decorations with one hand whilst cradling Catorze over my shoulder, like a baby, with the other. It was just as absurd as it sounds and 986 times more difficult; unwinding lights from a tree whose Blood-Letting Needles of Death slash you with every movement is quite the Herculean labour even with two hands, let alone with one.

Anyway, our house is clean, the living room deYuled and Catorze back where he belongs, in his happy place. Cat Daddy, however, has a dead arm after having to watch television like this, which is a whole new way of being TUC:

Cat Daddy, don’t move a muscle!

Catorze loves his papa. But he still wishes he would stop playing the guitar.

Noël, que du bonheur

~ iamthesunking ~ 32 Comments

I don’t have many memories of childhood Christmas celebrations, but the one thing that stands out is the time when cat shenanigans caused utter chaos.

My aunt had just made the brandy butter to accompany our Christmas pudding, not imagining that it would have the slightest cat appeal. She left it unguarded for 0.3 seconds and, when she looked back again, our cat, Misha, was on the worktop with his head in the bowl, eyeball-deep in that heady mixture of everything that was bad for him: dairy, sugar and alcohol.

Clearly time passes differently on Planet Chat because that fraction of a second, although short to us humans, gave Misha all the time he needed to get absolutely wasted. My aunt carried him back to the living room, his limbs all splayed and floppy, and dumped him into his cat bed to sleep it off.

After his nap, Misha was fine. And I have an awful feeling that the cat-tainted brandy butter was not thrown away but simply, erm, “rearranged” (don’t ask).

Back in the 1980s, we all thought this was funny. These days, of course, such an incident would constitute a vet emergency of epic proportions, since cat-freakishness has escalated over the years. Not only do we whisk our furry overlords off to the vet at the slightest sniff, but we monitor what makes it onto their plates in the same way that sports coaches monitor elite athletes in the weeks leading up to a big competition. This is especially the case if they have allergies; eating the wrong thing, at a time when every vet is closed, could be catastrophic.

Louis Catorze’s festive treats have, therefore, been limited to the following:

1. His usual Orijen Six Fish.

2. A teeny fingernail-sized scoop of, erm, Fortnum and Mason salmon pâté. (Cat Daddy was, and still is, absolutely livid that I did this.)

Not cat food. (Well, ok, today it was.)

There would also have been some organic aged Comté and some jambon de Bayonne but, for the former, I missed the ordering deadline from the cheese deli. (There was Marks and Spencer Comté available but, as you know, Sa Maj won’t eat that.) As for the latter, there appears to be a general dearth on Ocado, but Catorze has been so busy attacking magpies and thrashing around in our box of presents that he doesn’t seem to have noticed yet.

Christmas is ruined.

I hope you and your furry overlords have a wonderful day. And, even if you think you can trust your cat, have a look here just to remind yourself of some of the ways that the little sods can ruin our festivities.

Planning his next piece of bullshittery.

À l’aube d’une nouvelle année

~ iamthesunking ~ 37 Comments
At the top of the tree, where he belongs.

The winter solstice is here. A brand new journey around the sun starts today.

Over the last twelve months or so, Louis Catorze has sadly lost some of his (younger) amis: his cat-cousin King Ghidorah left us last December, as did Shadow the black Labrador at the end of April, and Merlyn, the daddy of the Northern tuxedo cat gang, in September.

King Ghidorah, who transitioned from stray cat to pampered house pet.
Shadow, having fun in the snow.
Merlyn, drawing our attention to his heartbreakingly empty bowl.

It’s made us realise how lucky we are to still have Catorze around at all, let alone him being in such good form. He is miraculous and creepy in equal measure, an impish mix of Dorian Gray, Peter Pan and all the Twilight vampires, and I will probably spend the rest of my life, long after he is gone, trying to understand why he was put on this earth (apart from to annoy the merde out of us).

Whatever you and your furry overlords are planning over the next few days, and however you choose to celebrate (or not), we hope you have a wonderful time. Thank you for supporting us and Catorze, and may everything good about the season come your way.

Catorzian feet.

Il est ici pour gâcher la fête

~ iamthesunking ~ 42 Comments

BASTARD CAT.

Just as I had finished drafting a blog post about how well-behaved he is with Yule trees, Louis Catorze decided to prove to me that KramPuss the Yuletide demon is no myth.

The little sod had been poking around among his presents under the tree, and he somehow managed to wedge this one – sent by one of his pilgrims – into the tray of muddy, sappy tree water. Because he shoved it towards the back of the tray and not the front, it’s taken me some time to notice … and, in the meantime, the present has sucked up water like a thirsty sponge.

Ugh.

We have never had to deal with him breaking decorations, drinking the sappy water (highly toxic, just so you know) or using the pot as his own personal toilettes royales. So why this, and why now?

UGH.

I have just squeezed out as much water as possible and left the toy drying on the radiator. So, pretty soon, the whole house will be smelling of catnip. It’ll be just like that time when one of the students at my school had a cheeky puff of something naughty in the toilets and, somehow, the heating system blasted out the, erm, herbal fumes throughout the whole ground floor. Luckily we didn’t have inspectors in at the time, although maybe it would have put them in a good mood.

At the time of writing this I’m home alone with Catorze, too, with Cat Daddy not returning until late tonight.

I don’t know why I ever thought my holidays would be peaceful and relaxing. They’ve only just begun, and already I’ve had enough.

What a shite.

Le froid est un état d’esprit

~ iamthesunking ~ 36 Comments

What’s your favourite month of the year? Why?

October, October, October, morning, noon and night. But, since Le Blog is already quite October-centric, I thought I’d make a change and write about December, which is my second favourite.

I love the frost, the dark mornings, the Yuletide decorations, the snow-set horror films, the seasonal ghost stories and the two glorious weeks off work. And I love the food. Oh God, I love the food. December is the one month of the year when I can buy a whole salmon terrine which serves six to eight people, and eat it all by myself.

If you know any Brits and plan to meet us this month, we will probably greet you by saying, “Oof! Bit chilly out!” and then doing a theatrical little shiver. It’s practically the law for us to say that to people as soon as December hits.

My workplace conversations often start (and end) like this:

Colleague: “Oof! Bit chilly out!” [Theatrical little shiver.]

Me: “I like it when it’s like this.”

Them: “…”

Me: “I know. I’m weird.”

Them: “Anyway, have a good day.”

In December, Louis Catorze is permanently attached to my lap in the daytime but leaves me the hell alone at night, preferring either his igloo or the fluffy brown blanket. If he chooses the latter, by the time I wrap myself in the blanket for my morning tea ritual, he has warmed it for me. And, once I do so, he hops onto my lap and we warm each other. So everyone’s warm and happy.

TUC is the best way to be.

Maybe Catorze has finally started to act his age (and his species)? Erm … if that’s what you’re thinking, let me stop you there. And, whilst most normal, older cats are shifting into hibernation mode, Catorze still finds the time and the energy to do this:

Right. I see.

I hope that the beauty of my second favourite month is bringing you as much joy as it is to Catorze. Are your furry overlords members of Team Sleeping-On-Fluffy-Blankets, Team Jumping-On-Shutters or, like our little sod, do they flit between both?

Des amis pour faire la fête, on en trouve des milliers

~ iamthesunking ~ 27 Comments

It’s 1st December or, as I like to call it, the first day of Psychological Winter.

Although we are very much a nature-minded household – well, it’s hard not to be when we live with a black vampire cat who informs us via his naughty behaviour when there’s a Bad Moon Rising – the date switching from November to December means it’s no longer autumn. My heart wants to believe that winter starts on the winter solstice, but my brain won’t let it; if I’m opening windows on my advent calendar and scraping ice off my car, then it’s not autumn.

Autumn, winter, whatever. Couldn’t give a merde.

Cat Daddy and I are having a competition to see which of us can attend more festive lunches than the other. So far, I’m winning with four versus Cat Daddy’s two, and he’s not happy about it. And he still maintains the idea that I cheated by starting mine in late November, whereas I just call that being organised.

So Cat Daddy threatened to have a Boys’ Club Christmas party, just him and Louis Catorze, to enable him to add one more to his tally. However, when I held him to his threat and even offered to make them some jambon de Bayonne and Comté canapés for the party, he started to backtrack.

Him: “I can’t have a Christmas party with just my cat. That’s the kind of thing some weird loner would do.”

Me: “I’d totally do it, if I could.”

Him: “So why don’t you?”

Erm, because the cat would decline my invitation, that’s why.

I am hoping that if I continue to bully encourage Cat Daddy, he will change his mind. Catorze would love nothing more than some festive fun with his papa but, in the meantime, he has other friends with whom to hang out.

Here he is, pictured at a previous Yuletide soirée, most likely laughing at one of his own jokes:

Krampus and Krampuss.

La seule chose qui peut rendre la vie moderne mystérieuse ou merveilleuse

~ iamthesunking ~ 26 Comments

It’s been two months since Louis Catorze’s last steroid shot. He’s only allowed a maximum of one per month, and there have been times when I’ve anxiously checked my calendar, desperate to take him for the next one, to find that it’s only been three weeks and we somehow have to hang on for a little longer. So to reach the two-month milestone, at a time of year which usually sees the return of his problems, is quite something.

That said, I might book him in soon, to keep him nicely ticking over through December and to avoid the festive rush for the vet.

Cat Daddy: “Is there a festive rush for the vet?”

Well, not in the same way that there’s a rush for sliced white bread every December* but, knowing our luck, Catorze will hit us with some dire emergency five minutes after the vet closes for the holidays.

*It’s true: in the few days leading up to Christmas, there’s no shortage of turkeys or puddings; however, sliced white bread disappears from the shelves of every supermarket in West London, and nobody knows why. I don’t believe for a second that everyone suddenly has a burning need to make bread sauce from scratch. So who’s buying it? And what are they doing with it?

Catorze is wide-eyed, swishy-tailed, and his screaming is beyond belief. Even Puppy Mamma – who was a cat person until she betrayed the cause and defected to the other side – told me how curious and otherworldly he was, with his alien eyes and the body which remains kitten-like and petite despite his advancing years and lifelong drug use.

I have often said that he is the Dorian Gray of cats, and that has never been more true than now.

Nothing to declare except his creepiness.

Roi pour toujours, éternellement

~ iamthesunking ~ 29 Comments

“It’s Christmas time. There’s no need to be afraid.”

Clearly Bob Geldof and Midge Ure had never met Louis Catorze; the last few days have been awful because of my flu, and the little sod has been nothing short of merciless in his demands for play. If I ignore him, he either chases his tail or attacks my blister packs of painkillers.

He is especially bad when Cat Daddy is out, snarling at his manly pink butterfly on a string the way vampires snarl when shown a crucifix. Then, when Cat Daddy comes home, he is either sound asleep or sitting in perfect porcelain cat pose, tail tucked around his neat paws, all cutesy-eyed and innocent.

He shouldn’t even be out at the moment. Black cats are for Hallowe’en and not for Christmas, right? Well, so I thought, too, until Cat Daddy and I went for our annual festive meal at our local pub (before I fell ill), and two of these were on our table:

I now realise that this was a warning.

The landlord and landlady are cat people, and they know that we are, too, so they had done this just for us. At the end of our meal, our server asked us whether the management had supplied the cats or whether they were ours. Oui, Mesdames et Messieurs: she thought we looked like the kind of people who would bring our own black cat decorations to a festive meal. (And, to be honest, the only reason I haven’t so far is because I didn’t think of it.)

Then Cat Daddy bought me this:

I will be wearing this today.

So, even at this time of year which is supposed be all Joy to the World and Peace on Earth, it’s all about Le Chat Noir. And not only do I suspect that that is exactly how Catorze planned it, but I’d go as far as to say it’s probably Phase 3 of the Chat Noir Plan for World Domination. Phases 1 and 2 are, of course, infiltrating our houses (CHECK) and mind-controlling us to do all manner of things for them (HELL, CHECK).

If Noël is your thing, I hope it’s a Joyeux one. We wish you and your furry psychopaths a wonderful day.

Happily making a nest on the present bag given to us by the Dog Family.

Que Dieu vous garde en joie, Messieurs

~ iamthesunking ~ 23 Comments

Merde, merde and thrice merde: I have the flu. And I don’t mean a bad cold which I’m calling “the flu” just to feel sorry for myself. I mean proper, checked-the-symptoms, can’t-sit-upright flu. I even had to cancel a pre-booked and much-needed physio appointment, although I sounded so pathetic on the phone that they took pity on me and only charged me half the cancellation fee.

Mum, if you’re reading this, no, I hadn’t got around to organising my flu vaccine. And, yes, I have learned my lesson.

Just to make things extra merdique, my flu started on the day of the winter solstice. So my party plans fell by the wayside somewhat and, instead, I spent the day TUC in the living room and drinking tea.

Louis Catorze has not left my side since I fell ill. However, he has somehow learned to emotionally blackmail me into giving him play upon demand, and he is making the most of my illness to wear me down and get what he wants.

I only found this out through a process of elimination, when I offered all the other things in response to his creepy stare – food, water, a different room, The Front, the moon on a stick, whatever – and the little sod didn’t budge, remaining statue-still and glassy-eyed throughout. I then reached for his manly pink butterfly on a string, not quite knowing what else to do, and he lost his shit, leaping a good metre in the air, baring his fangs and snarling at the toy.

Wait for it …
“Rawrrr!”
“RAWRRR!”

We play like this for about twenty minutes every day and, at the end of each session, I am more worn out than he is. And he knows full well that I will always give in, not only because the creepy staring makes me feel so uncomfortable, but also because – and this is where the blackmail part comes in – if I ignore him, he starts to play with his tail.

If you weren’t a follower of Le Blog six years ago and you have time on your hands, have a look through the archives from around November 2016 onwards, to find out why this is such bad news. Be warned, it’s not pretty reading. We want to draw attention away from Catorze’s tail at all costs.

It looks as if Catorze will have a very merry Yuletide season indeed. However, I don’t suppose we will have a single silent night.

“Papa! Play with moi.”

Préparer Noël, Préparer Noël

~ iamthesunking ~ 21 Comments

You know that part in Tim Burton’s “The Nightmare Before Christmas” when the kids’ presents turn into hideous, nightmarish monsters?

Yeah, well:

“Boys and men of ever-y age, do you want to see something strange?”

Oui, Mesdames et Messieurs: Louis Catorze has claimed, as his new bed, my nieces’ and nephews’ presents bag. Luckily each item is individually bagged, keeping them safe from the horrors of cat hair, flea poo and whatever else (I daren’t even think too hard about it). But that’s not the point. He has 9,062 other beds. He doesn’t need more beds. And he certainly doesn’t need something that was never designed to be a bed, as his bed.

Part of me has a good mind to wrap him up and send him along with the other parcels. But that would be too cruel, even to the ones who have been naughty (YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE).

It’s a good thing we are happy to have him as our gift this festive season. I guess someone has to.

Louis, il fait froid dehors

~ iamthesunking ~ 22 Comments

Louis Catorze is ready for the festive season. Now, you wouldn’t expect this of a black cat with vampire fangs, but we know it to be true because, when we invited Family Next Door over for a pre-Noël lunch at the weekend, the little sod pitter-pattered into the dining room and let out the maman of all screams.

Baby Next Door: [Lots of delighted shrieking, bouncing and arm-waving in her high chair when she caught sight of Sa Maj]

Daughter Next Door: “Louis!”

Cat Daddy: “Oh, was that him? I thought it was part of the music.”

Yup, Andy Williams or Dean Martin or whoever it was whose Christmas song we were listening to at the time, really missed a trick by not having screaming felines as backing vocalists.

In other news, it’s very cold now. I, of course, love this, because it feels like proper winter rather than our country’s usual tepid, damp-weather greyness, but I’m worried about Catorze and the heat escaping from his bald patch. Oui, Mesdames et Messieurs, it’s still here.

A few nights ago, when it was especially cold, Cat Daddy opened the front door to put some recycling out and, whereas Catorze’s usual trick is to bolt out, this time he bolted IN. Yes, he had been out there for a good couple of hours, with heat gushing from that spot like steam from a pie funnel (younger followers: ask your grandparents). No, we had no idea he was out at The Front.

Temperatures are set to drop even further this week, so it’s not a great time to be a cat with a hole in his fur. Let’s hope that it grows back soon, before we have to start considering a (very small) Christmas jumper for him.

Holey shit.

Hotel Diablo

~ 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:

For goodness’ sake.

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:

A cat-hairy towel. Lovely.

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.

Apprivoiser la faune sauvage

~ iamthesunking ~ 19 Comments

Joyeux Lendemain de Noël à tous!

Cat Daddy and I were lucky enough to make it to Christmas-by-the-sea, but hasn’t quite turned out quite as planned. I fell ill the day my last post went live, and I’m on monster antibiotics which are knocking me dead. (Mum, if you’re reading this, don’t worry; everything is under control.) So no drinks for me this festive period, and the drowsiness from the antibiotics means that I am even duller company than usual.

Although it’s been stressful, at least I don’t have Covid (again). And I would far rather be doing the pre-Christmas doctor and pharmacy relay for myself than for Louis Catorze.

The little sod is in fine form and having the time of his life with his chat-sitteur. He has been all over her ever since she arrived, following her around like a puppy, and there have been no rodents and no nocturnal misbehaviour. Apart from headbutting her laptop whilst she worked, and one minor incident when he jumped into a parcel that she was about to send and stomped around on the tissue paper, he has behaved impeccably.

Here he is (using stills from a video, since actual videos don’t seem to post properly here), excitedly opening his present from Disco the dog with the help of his chat-sitteur. No doubt he is saving up his psycho for when we get back.

“C’est pour moi?”
“Dépêche-toi!”

Les vacances de Noël

~ iamthesunking ~ 28 Comments

Last week Louis Catorze’s vet practice had to close suddenly due to staff shortages as a result of self-isolating, and they won’t be open again until the New Year. Thank goodness we organised the little sod’s medication and vaccinations beforehand, and thank goodness he is doing well at the moment, otherwise we would be well and truly dans la merde.

Catorze, Cat Daddy and I are double-, triple- and quadruple-jabbed respectively, as follows:

– Catorze: annual booster (eventually) and steroid

– Cat Daddy: double-Covid vaccine and booster (Original Trailblazing Pfizer for all)

– Me: double-Covid vaccine (Blood Clots ‘n’ Death AstraZeneca), booster (Cool ‘n’ Trendy Moderna) and flu jab

Now all we have to do is stay out of mischief until we head to the south coast for Christmas-by-the-sea. Surely not even I could be unlucky enough to test positive at Christmas AGAIN?

During our couple of days away, a friend will be coming to live with Catorze. Now, you might be forgiven for thinking that, perhaps, we haven’t told her the full truth about him. But she knows everything – yes, even about feeding him one teaspoon of boiling-watered Orijen 98 times a day – and, inexplicably, she wants to come anyway. There was once a time when we would have been very nervous about leaving anyone alone with Catorze. However, we have come to realise that, in actual fact, he behaves perfectly well for others. Apart from, erm, the rat he brought to one chat-sitteur, and the time he screamed at another through the skylight, leaving her turning the house upside-down trying to find the source of the sound.

Anyway, having let our gifts pile up in the dining room over a number of weeks, we are now sorting through it all so that I can wrap things properly. And, at one point, I really did hear Cat Daddy utter the words “No, don’t put the scented candles there! They might contaminate the chicken feet!” To Catorze, gift-wrapping is hugely exciting because it means COMMOTION and BOXES, two of his favourite things in the world.

Here he is, taking a brief break before the next round of pitter-pattering, screaming and attacking the packing tape:

Little sod.