Fish

Quand les mouettes suivent un chalutier

~ iamthesunking ~ 16 Comments

I have just been screamed at whilst making, and eating, a tuna mayonnaise sandwich.

I don’t know where Louis Catorze was when I started making it but, as soon as I opened the can of tuna, it flushed him out of his mystery hiding place place and the noise started. And it went on. And on. AND ON.

If you have ever had a cat, known a cat or even glimpsed one from a distance, you will know that they like tuna. But this is Catorze, and Catorze is not interested in food for humans. I have opened cans of tuna at least 8,063 times since he was crowned Roi du Château, and he has either shown mild interest, only to refuse any scraps offered, or not shown any interest at all.

I tried to fob him off with some Orijen, but he wasn’t having any of it, clearly knowing that the tantalising aroma swirling through the air was something else. He wanted tuna. But, after The Great Salmon Grab and the highly stressful two-day hunger strike that ensued, I had learned my lesson; this time, I wouldn’t be offering him any scraps.

Finally, when I had finished, it dawned on him that he wasn’t going to get any tuna. So he settled on my lap, had a good wash and went to sleep. But it was a bitter wash, and a nap oozing with resentment.

What is HAPPENING? And what kind of a state of affairs is it when I don’t even blink at the more sinister, occultist Catorzian capers, yet him wanting tuna makes me question life, the universe and everything?

In his happy place with Cat Daddy.

Ni manger, ni vivre (Partie 2)

~ iamthesunking ~ 44 Comments

Although The Great Salmon Grab was ages ago, its effects have been hard-hitting and far-reaching.

Louis Catorze is eating, but there is something strange about the way he’s doing it. I once described it as “reluctant”, but that implies a certain – albeit very low – level of cooperation, and this isn’t really what’s happening. It’s more “resentful” than “reluctant”. Maybe even “bitter”. Can one eat a meal “bitterly”? Well, Catorze can and does, presumably to protest about the fact that no further Michelin-starred hot-smoked salmon has been forthcoming.

“Feed moi. With saumon fumé.”

Whilst he can take or leave his own food, he’s obsessed with ours. Since The Great Salmon Grab, he has lunged for the following:

⁃ Avocado

⁃ Peanuts

⁃ Salmon pâté (ok, I guess I was asking for trouble with this one)

⁃ Blueberries and kefir

⁃ Home-made salted caramel sauce

⁃ A cup of silver tip white tea

It’s over, isn’t it? The joyous, golden époque when we were able to eat whatever we wanted without incident, and even leave food unattended, is no more. We are now forced to deal with bullying and intimidation at the hands of this tiny, toothy despot.

Coincidentally, Catorze’s cat-cousin Otis seems to have received the same food memo: my sister caught him on the kitchen worktop the other day, tucking into the leftover apple pie. The bastards are all at it.

Every time I prepare a meal, I look for Catorze to try to determine whether I’ll be eating in peace or batting him away like an annoying wasp who’s after my orange juice. And my mind drifts to how those few careless seconds have permanently altered our existence. Oh, and Cat Daddy still blames me. In fact, if I appear annoyed with him about anything, he retorts, “Just because YOUR dinner got stolen by a cat, don’t have a go at me.”

Catorze has ruined everything and, furthermore, he’s made it all look like my fault. What a horrid beast he is.

Ni manger, ni vivre

~ iamthesunking ~ 22 Comments

If you could un-invent something, what would it be?

Hot-smoked salmon. I’m not joking.

We have had a trying few days here at Le Château. Since The Great Salmon Grab, every time I headed for the kitchen, Louis Catorze would pitter-patter after me and sit expectantly by his bowl, hoping beyond hope that some hot-smoked salmon would appear in it, or that Marcus Wareing would knock at the door and serve something fit for a Sun King.

Neither of these things happened.

The abject disappointment that ensued triggered the most mournful and gut-wrenching whining I had ever heard. When I filled his bowl with food, and he saw that it was disgusting Orijen slop and not Michelin-starred hot-smoked salmon, he would walk away.

On one occasion, when I filled his bowl, I said, “You’d better not just walk away.”

He didn’t; he RAN away. And I mean raced off at top speed, as if I had served him live scorpions.

Cat Daddy: “He’s a ****. He won’t ****ing eat any of it. He wants salmon. And, God, that noise. That stupid ****ing whining noise.”

Catorze, very quietly and sadly, and with the pitch starting high and finishing low: “Maooooou!”

Cat Daddy, animatedly, pointing at Catorze: “Yes, THAT noise! I’m ****ing sick of it.”

Friends even suggested just giving him the salmon, but I didn’t dare; Cat Daddy was already blaming me for this whole thing, firstly for “giving him the salmon in the first place” (this wasn’t quite how it happened, but tant pis) and then for not grabbing the plate away quickly enough and therefore “letting him think that the salmon was for him”, so it was probably best not to make things worse. However, he later added that, gram for gram, the salmon was probably still cheaper than the Orijen.

After two days of hunger strike I was almost ready to take Catorze to the vet and beg for help, even though we had only recently been and the vet had confirmed that there was nothing wrong and he was just taking the piss*.

*Not the actual words used by the vet.

Then, suddenly and inexplicably, either the gods relented and decided to stop torturing us, or the planets shifted into a more auspicious alignment, or Catorze simply couldn’t be bothered to keep up the drama anymore, and SOMETHING happened. He just ate. Merci à Dieu: he ate. He didn’t eat much but, at this point, we didn’t care about quantity and were grateful for anything at all.

So now we no longer have an anorexic cat, and Cat Daddy is about 0.1% less cross with me and Catorze. All is not quite fully well with the world, but this is better than the torment of the last few days.

Communing with Satan to say, “How did I do, mon pote?”

Des reflets d’égoïsme

~ iamthesunking ~ 13 Comments

There aren’t many things that can drag Louis Catorze’s lazy arse from his igloo, once he’s decided to stay put. However, Reflets de France tuna rillettes is/are (I’m still not sure which is correct; native Frenchies, is it a singular or a plural noun?) one of those precious few things.

After ignoring me for much of Monday, as if by magic he decided to be my friend when I sat down to eat some tuna rillettes on oatcakes. After much creepy staring, aggressive headbutting and general bullying and intimidation, I acquiesced and offered him a few morsels. He gleefully hoovered them down, unable to believe his luck, then settled on my lap, purring so hard that his ears shuddered.

Maybe ear-shuddering during hard purring is a known thing, but it’s not something I have observed before. It’s subtle but nonetheless present, and you can see it in the right ear:

Check out the shudder on those bald, piggy ears.

Sadly an unwanted side effect of this whole escapade is that, in his haste to eat his precious tuna rillettes, Catorze inadvertently shoved one piece with his snout through the gap between the floorboards. Even freshly-opened tuna rillettes smell(s?) like rotting corpses from hell, so I daren’t even think about what it/they might smell like in a week, a year or even longer.

I now have visions of the next occupant of this house, whoever they may be, taking up the floorboards expecting to find evidence of a gruesome murder. If only they knew that it is, in fact, evidence of the life of a greedy, selfish cat and a pathetic human who gave in.

He has the audacity to look at me as if I caused the smell under the floorboards.

Nourris-moi, Maman!

~ iamthesunking ~ 17 Comments

Merci à Dieu et à tous ses anges! We have renewed our subscription to the Cool Cat Club, and our order has arrived:

“Finalement!”

We had a brief fallow period of a day and a half before its arrival, after Louis Catorze had finished the last pack in the taster hamper. I had nothing to give him on Monday morning, and Pets at Home didn’t open until 9am. I thought I could stand strong for those couple of hours but little sod was an absolute hell-beast, creepy-staring, screaming, demanding play, thrashing around in the plastics recycling and generally scaring me witless, so I had to hold him off with some Reflets de France tuna rillettes. Obviously, at £3.70 a pop, this was never going to be a permanent solution. But you, too, would do anything to make it stop if you were faced with this look:

Saint Jésus.

I think back to all those cartoons I used to watch as a child, when the pursued would throw a string of sausages at the pack of pursuing beasts to keep them at bay, and now I know that it wasn’t just a dramatic effect for entertainment.

Anyway, having been successfully tided over with a combination of tuna rillettes, dampened Orijen and the ONE grain-free, fish-only wet food I could lay my desperate hands on at Pets at Home (which, luckily, he ate), Catorze now has his first choice food, in the following variants:

⁃ Deluxe tuna with shrimp

⁃ Deluxe fish medley

⁃ Ocean fish

⁃ Cod and salmon pâté

The little sod has his mojo back. Let’s hope he will snap back from his dental procedure just as quickly.

Un cadeau pour le roi des rois

~ iamthesunking ~ 29 Comments

What a lucky boy Louis Catorze is. When our friends at the Cool Cat Club* found out about his Orijen predicament, their CEO – a fellow Chat Noir by the name of Morris – instructed his human subordinates to send us a pescatarian hamper full of their delicious fish variants.

Oh. Mon. Dieu! Merci beaucoup!

On the day that the hamper arrived, poor Catorze was in an especially low mood, barely eating and spending much of the day sleeping. I must confess that, since he doesn’t like wet food, nor will he settle for any old food even if hungry/desperate, my expectations were low.

However, in a shock twist to this tale, the little sod actually ate an ocean fish pouch. Not only that but, as I was serving it, he screamed and screamed at me to hurry up.

I know. I’ll just give you a few seconds to absorb that unprecedented news.

That isn’t the end of it: the next morning, he ate half a cod and salmon pâté tray, again screaming impatiently because my serving speed was not up to the required standard. Cat Daddy gave him an accidental bonus tuna and shrimp can when he came home drunk at 1:30am (Cat Daddy came home drunk, I mean, not Catorze) and the report via WhatsApp was, “He’s polished off a whole tin of one of those foods since I got back. He loves it.”

He has now scoffed his way through all the wet food in the hamper.

I cannot describe what an incredible relief this is. Given that the little sod has, in the past, chosen to starve for reasons such as unsatisfactory** food, good food served in an unsatisfactory manner and good food served on an unsatisfactory plate, I was very concerned indeed about what would happen to him in the run-up to his dental surgery and during the recovery time afterwards. Now I don’t need to worry.

**His “unsatisfactory” is not like most people’s “unsatisfactory”. This is, after all, the cat who eats organic, aged Comté from the cheese deli but refuses Marks and Spencer Comté.

Catorze now has a full belly, so he is back to being an annoying shite again. No doubt Morris knew perfectly well that this would happen, and it’s all part of the Chats Noirs’ quest to wear us down so that they can overthrow us.

“Maurice! 3am tomorrow … you know what to do, mon pote.”

*If you would like to try out the Cool Cat Club, have a look here. Catorze highly recommends them for their top-notch food and amazing service. He follows a mainly pescatarian diet, but the Cool Cat Club caters for a wide variety of demands requirements.

Si on donne un poisson à un chat …

~ iamthesunking ~ 35 Comments

If you are British, over a certain age and a follower of this blog, you will, no doubt, have spent New Year’s Eve exactly as we did: at home, TUC, watching the London fireworks on television and muttering things like, “What a waste of money” or “I bet Sydney’s were better”.

Louis Catorze ended last year, and began this one, doing what he does best:

1. Hunting*.

2. Playing with the motion-activated catnip fish that the Dog Family gave him for Christmas. He absolutely loves it.

When in motion, the fish’s tail makes a kind of yappy-slappy sound. This doesn’t bother us in the slightest when we know that Catorze is playing with his fish. After all, if he weren’t, he would be demanding play from us. And, when you’re still seeping flu from the eyeballs, a cat wanting relentless play is like watching a performing artist who requests audience participation.

However, if we happen to be walking past the fish and glance it very slightly with half a toe, that’s enough to set it off. And don’t even get me started on how scary it is when you’re home alone and the yappy-slappy sound starts up from another room. I daren’t even go and check whether it’s Catorze or a poltergeist, although there are times when I wonder if the latter would be less stressful than the former.

If we try to take the fish from him, he hangs on with his claws and not even an atomic bomb would shift him. Let’s hope that le poisson will make a dent in his excess energy, and give us all at least a few minutes of peace in 2023.

“MON poisson.”

*Oh yes, we had another mouse on New Year’s Day morning, and this time Catorze was sitting proudly by his victim, tail swishing menacingly, looking thoroughly pleased with himself. And, would you believe, on that day, of all days, the park bin was overflowing. So I had to tip Mousey into the park’s undergrowth and hope not only that Foxy Loxy would get it, but also that none of the neighbours’ Ring doorbell cameras caught me. The last thing I want is That Neighbour and the rest of the Neighbourhood Activist Committee admonishing me for dumping random shite in the park.

Se faire posséder par une sirène

~ iamthesunking ~ 16 Comments

It’s turning out to be quite an eventful week at Le Château, with one member of the household suddenly and inexplicably growing a fish tail. I expect you can guess which individual that was.

Responses from others have been as follows:

A friend: “Haha! Coincidentally I am watching Splash right now!”

My niece, aged six: “He looks like a MerKitty!”

Cat Daddy, visibly flinching: “Oh my God. What the bloody hell?”

Interestingly/worryingly, Louis Catorze shares many characteristics with mermaids: magical powers, a love of singing (whether or not we wish to hear it), the absence of a soul and erm, luring hapless men to their doom. However, there are so many freakish things about him that, although far from normal by most cats’ standards, sprouting fins would still be one of the less weird ones.

For the non-believers among you, here is photographic proof. I know. We have no idea what to make of it, either. Although, if it means not having to deal with the feline rear end and all its associated problems, I’ll gladly take the fish tail.

“Under the sea …”

L’alpha et l’oméga (Plan B Partie 2)

~ iamthesunking ~ 6 Comments

Since that time Louis Catorze came home caked in dust, his fur has been unbelievably soft and beautiful. Even Cat Daddy has noticed and commented.

In seemingly-related but, in fact, completely separate news, we decided, a few weeks ago, to ditch Catorze’s beauty oil.

The reasons for this were as follows:

1. We couldn’t cope with the smell; although the new product was moderately less pungent than the previous one, it was still pretty awful.

2. Because he was so useless at grooming it off, all manner of crud stuck to the residue, making him permanently gross to look at and to touch.

3. The stickiness meant that, when we brushed him, the excess fur wouldn’t come off.

So, all in all, not really enough net gains to make it worthwhile.

It’s a bit of a shame as we had just discovered an improved application technique: piercing the capsule with a cocktail stick, waiting with Satan’s lollipop (see below) within easy reach, then whipping out the stick and pouncing as soon as Catorze approached. The stick served the dual purpose of reminding me where the hole was and also preventing him from smelling it too quickly and then doing a runner.

Mmm … fish!

However, all this is irrelevant now, since we know that we can achieve the desired effect by letting him hang out with builders and roll around in their dust.

In fact, if they were to use him as both the dustpan and the brush at the end of their working day, it could be a win-win for all, non?

He’s a creep. He’s a weirdo.

Les rillettes de thon blanc

~ iamthesunking ~ 18 Comments

I have settled into a rather pleasant summer holiday routine, as follows:

1. Wake up when I want.

2. Bid good morning to Louis Catorze who, more often than not, is lying at my feet.

3. Make a pot of green tea.

4. Fashion a Trojan Horse amuse-bouche consisting of tuna rillettes surrounding a steroid pill, and watch with pure joy as greedy Catorze gobbles it up.

5. Watch horror movies or read books with the little sod on my lap until Cat Daddy wakes up.

Regretfully, Reflets de France tuna rillettes contain three huge baddies: wheat, sugar and butter. I know. However, anyone who has ever tried to Greco a writhing, yowling, hostile shite of a cat will understand. We would happily feed the little sods molten lava and strychnine if it meant they would just eat the pill and not give us any grief.

What’s more, getting one over on Catorze and having him think I’m giving him a treat when, in fact, it’s a pill, brightens my day more than I ever thought possible. Every time he eats one, an angel gets his wings.

Bon appétit, mon Roi.

Maybe I’ll wrap the next pill in grass, for a Cornish Yarg effect.

Le cheval de Troie (Partie 2)

~ iamthesunking ~ 39 Comments

I had my second vaccine a couple of days ago and have been hovering between life and death ever since. (Cat Daddy’s Helpful Comment of the Day: “Just think positive.”) Although the unpleasantness is less severe than that of my first vaccine, it is certainly longer-lasting. Louis Catorze’s response has been to mostly ignore me during the day but to be an utter pest at night, leaping all over me, screaming and whining. In fact, he is probably why the pain is so enduring, but that’s just what he does.

The disappointment continues: a week after tapering him off his pills, he was scratching again and the skin around his eyes started to swell and split. I cannot express how disheartening this is, given that the summer used to be his time of peak health. The one small positive in this situation is that, as ever, his mood is unaffected.

Having been through this many times, we know to deploy the pills as soon as we see the first signs. However, Catorze used to eat Pill Pockets with no problem, and now he doesn’t. We imagine that this is because he loves Orijen so much that he can no longer be bothered with the second best thing on his plate – and, to be fair, I understand where he’s coming from. Who wants moderately acceptable food when they can have great food?

So now we have had to resume our quest for a Trojan Horse-style pill conduit. This is our progress to date:

⁃ Jambon de Bayonne: has a very short shelf life and Catorze won’t eat it if it’s been frozen and thawed, so we are paying £3.99 per 70g for something of which he will only eat 10g

⁃ Organic aged Comté: can sometimes work if room temperature, but is rejected if straight from the fridge

⁃ Every other food known to humankind and catkind: rejected

I have had a few lucky strikes with the one weapon left in my arsenal – Reflets de France tuna rillettes – but, knowing Catorze, the moment that this goes live, he will have changed his mind about that, too.

Meanwhile, we are considering reverting back to the less-troublesome steroid injections. We are also slowly coming to terms with the fact that the little sod may have reached the point where he needs medication for life.

We can’t say they didn’t warn us.

Bit rough around the edges but still loving himself.

L’alpha et l’oméga (Partie 4)

~ iamthesunking ~ 21 Comments

My school holidays are here. (Yes, U.K. teachers, I break up much earlier than the rest of you.)

My holiday time so far has consisted of the following:

1. Writing a list of the books I want to read this summer.

2. Writing a list of the cocktails I want to make, and spending inordinate amounts of money on random, niche ingredients that I will most likely use just one time, for one drink. (Mezcal, anyone? A bit of Fernet-Branca?)

3. Watching football.

4. Reading the comments on Matt Hancock’s Instagram and laughing so much that I almost need to be sedated. (If you have not done this, please try it even if only for a few minutes. It will brighten your day more than you ever thought possible.)

So, in all, I have been pretty productive, even if I do say so myself.

In other news, we know that the Omega 3 oil wasn’t supposed to have so many Parties. However, we have hit upon a huge deal-breaker of a stumbling block: the supplements make Louis Catorze stink like a rotting corpse.

It’s very unfortunate because his dandruff is hugely improved, and we are sure that further use would have continued to show positive results. But, given the choice, I’m pretty sure most people would choose a cat who didn’t stink like a rotting corpse over one who did.

Honestly, it’s not a mild smell that can be disguised by room spray, scented candles or suchlike, not that we use any of that kind of thing anymore on account of our sensitive mutual friend. It’s a truly gut-wrenching stench, just awful.

Cat Daddy’s Helpful Comment of the Day: “I’d actually rather have the dandruff.” (Regretfully, I am inclined to agree.)

Anyway, the vet has never heard of this side effect before – the fact that it’s only ever happened to Catorze will, of course, surprise nobody – but she has suggested some other brands to try, and I am hoping that one of them will make him smell better. They certainly can’t make him smell any worse.

When you don’t need to set an alarm, because the smell wakes you.

De l’Orijen des espèces

~ iamthesunking ~ 26 Comments

It’s official: Louis Catorze is no longer on the steroid pills. And thank goodness for that because, after I came home from hospital, he decided to be extra difficult about eating his Pill Pockets, meaning that every pill has had to be a Greco job. This was how I found his Pill Pocket yesterday, on the floor next to his empty bowl:

For goodness’ sake.

He has upped his Greco game, too, having learned (from where?) to do a fake-swallow, spitting out the pill when he’s released. Cat Daddy, incidentally, refuses to Greco, using this defence: “But he loves me! It should be you because he doesn’t like you as much.”

Luckily it’s all over and the little sod is on nothing but Orijen and beauty oil, which makes life much easier.

Orijen claims that their food “mimicks the diet your cat’s ancestors would have hunted and eaten in the wild”. Although there is no doubt that their ingredients read like the tasting menu of a Michelin-starred restaurant, I find it doubtful that most cats would have been able to source them of their own accord. Venison: nope. Wild boar: nope. Bison: HELL, nope.

SASKATOON berries?

Catorze is very much a fish gentleman and his food is called “Orijen Six Fish”. I imagine hell would freeze over long before he successfully caught even one fish, let alone six. I chatted a few months ago with one of Catorze’s lovely blog followers about the size of tuna, and the smallest species is twice his size at 7kg, with the largest weighing in at up to 250kg (!). So the more likely scenario would be him falling into the water and the fish grabbing him in its jaws, then promptly spitting him out again after realising that he wasn’t a worthwhile snack (being only just bigger than krill and nowhere near as nutritious).

A true ancestral diet would, surely, have been small birds and rodents, although the idea of buying them freeze-dried in foil somehow doesn’t appeal. I think what’s REALLY going on here is that the good folk at Orijen are just like us, i.e. complete suckers who want the little sods to have the best of everything. And they’ve made up all the stuff about ancestors to shut up those who accuse them of spoiling their pets. “But Alaskan cod, garnished with Saskatoon berries, is what cats have always eaten, ever since the dawn of time!”

Here is Catorze, with his eyes locked on the green parakeets. His chances of catching one are zéro, and the parakeets know this.

Dreaming of confit de perruche aux baies de Saskatoon …

We bought our first 1.8kg bag of Orijen from the manufacturer’s website but, since they don’t do a subscription service, we recommend this site: https://www.petscorner.co.uk/cats/orijen-six-fish-cat

They have a huge range of unusual brands and are carbon-neutral, packaging their deliveries in cardboard boxes with paper tape.

Le Grand Changement de Nourriture (La Fin)

~ iamthesunking ~ 17 Comments

Louis Catorze has now been eating Orijen Six Fish for a couple of weeks. I haven’t posted much about his daily progress because I haven’t dared to jinx it. But he’s eating it. And, luckily, despite disregarding all advice concerning gradually phasing in the new food, we don’t appear to have had any, erm, undesirable side effects of the digestive kind.

Since Le Grand Changement began, my conversations with Cat Daddy have consisted mainly of whether or not Louis Catorze has eaten and, if so, how much. Sometimes I have even asked Cat Daddy to send me photos of the little sod’s bowl during the day, so that I could compare them to the photos I’d taken earlier and see if he had eaten anything. I know. Truly living the dream.

Although he is happily eating, now that Catorze has acquired senior status he is becoming fussier and he no longer wishes to eat food that is even 0.001% stale (even though he’s the one who’s been leaving it to go stale in the first place). Refilling Catorze’s bowl little and often seems to resolve this and, since Cat Daddy is home all the time, he doesn’t mind doing it.

Cat Daddy’s Helpful Comment of the Day: “I do mind. I f***ing resent it.”

However, it might pose a problem if we have to go away and leave a chat-sitteur in charge of Sa Maj. My sister suggested an automated dispenser which releases one pellet every hour, and Cat Daddy and I are currently discussing whether it would be cheaper to ask someone to stop by sixteen times a day and serve a teaspoonful of food per visit, or sixteen people to each visit once a day and serve a teaspoonful of food.

Anyway, I am going to take a huge chance and tempt fate now, by bringing Le Grand Changement to a close and concluding that Orijen is Le Roi’s food of choice. “Cat puts humans through arduous food changeover and eventually chooses most spendy option” is a headline that will surprise absolutely nobody.

“I’ll have the most expensive dish on le menu, s’il vous plaît.”