kitten – Nick Grant

Nick Grant

Tag: kitten

  • Companionship

    This is a story about cabin fever…

    Cat friends

    Getting a hybrid cat, only 4 or 5 generations from a wild cat breed, was a mistake. The main mistake was that – something that nobody tells you about – that hybrid cats which are so few generations into their domestication journey, are not only different in incredibly entertaining and interesting ways, but also, incompatible ways with domestic life.

    I really did completely adapt my house. I was prepared to do that. I accepted that I would have to make alterations to my home, so that I could have such a ‘wild’ cat.

    The kinds of alterations I made, would be ‘child locks’ on cupboard doors, extra latches on every door, or even screwing doors shut, having to put away just about everything in a cupboard or one of the few rooms where I had to store everything, safely away from my cat. I couldn’t open my windows. I couldn’t put any clothing item on the floor. I couldn’t leave the cat unattended anywhere near a bed, or bedding, or anything else poros or otherwise absorbant.

    Then, there were the huge lengths I went to, in order to provide a stimulating environment. Huge cat ‘trees’ or ‘towers’ with lots of different levels to climb up, ledges, hammocks, hidey holes. Endless cat tunnels. Tons of interactive cat toys. Tons of regular cat toys. Laser pens. Fishing rods with feather teaser things on the end. Life-size fish which waggle their tails. So many mice and other little soft toys, which rattled or had some other audio/visual/textural interest for the cat.

    Also, there were the things that the cat just loved playing with, just because: picking the sealant out of my UPVC windows. Digging holes in the plaster of the walls. Tearing holes in the carpet. Shredding every piece of mail I got, the moment it hit the doormat.

    Despite all my attempts to create a lovely fun, stimulating, relaxing environment for my hybrid cat, including special pheromone stuff which was supposed to calm her down and make her less anxious, she was still stressed out about having to share a massive 4 bedroom, 2 reception room house, split over 3 floors… absolutely tons of space for both of us, but she was still stressed about it – I guess – and her response was to piss on my bed. She pissed on my bed 3 times a week. I was running my washing machine and tumble dryer continuously, just to not have to sleep in a cat-pissed bed.

    Don’t get a hybrid cat, unless you can give your cat a whole wing of the house all to his or herself. I mean, I pretty much did that, but she still wanted to be in the bedroom with me, and would destroy the carpet outside trying to get into the bedroom… so I’d let her in, then later, she’d piss on the bed.

    Since my hybrid cat escaped and either ran away, was killed (and not reported) or was stolen, I was distraught without any company; living all alone. I was grief-stricken to lose my companion, who I loved with all my heart. I live my life dangerously close to suicide at pretty much all times anyway, and to lose my beloved cat was too much to bear.

    As luck would have it, I adopted the most beautiful bengal kitten. She’s stunning. She’s so perfect. I love her so much.

    We’ve lived together, now, for the best part of 6 months, and she’s a brilliant companion. She wakes me up every morning at 4am, wanting to play – bored – but I put up with it, because she’s so adorable and I don’t want to miss out on a single moment when she wants to interact with me. Recently, she’s gotten into the habit of destroying stuff, presumably out of boredom and frustration, but we work our way round those problems: she’s just as smart as my hybrid cat, but also not so stubborn. She knows she’ll get squirted with water if she starts destroying the walls, so she stops doing it. If she’s annoying me, opening drawers and wardrobes in my bedroom and pulling all the stuff out, I can just shut the door and she doesn’t totally destroy the carpet, trying to dig her way back in.

    I probably got an average of 1.5 sweet lovely moments with my hybrid cat per day, 5 incidents which were extremely annoying/costly, and another 3 which caused a major inconvenience – most of my day was spent stopping my hybrid cat from destroying or at least ruining everything I own; my entire life was spent on elaborate systems, to thwart the hybrid cat, but eventually, with enough persistence, she would literally batter her way through any obstacle.

    Compare that with my ragdoll. Every morning, for hours, she won’t leave me alone. It’s not a hunger thing… she just loves interacting with me. Then, when I get up, she goes bananas: running round the house, making noises I’ve never heard a cat make before; like nothing I’ve ever heard before. Then, some days she meows constantly, telling me to come downstairs from my office, and I stubbornly stand at the top of the stairs meowing back at her to come upstairs. Then, she alternates between wanting to be sat on my desk with me, or sometimes wanting more cuddles and attention: head bumps and stuff, versus going off and lounging around somewhere nearby… not too near, but not too far… usually just in the room next to my office, or the corridor. Whenever I move around the house, she gets super excited and runs around, leaping over stuff, and skidding around, trying to second-guess where I’m going, and why. I do spoil her, with treats and stuff, but I make sure she’s not overeating, but there’s nothing more enjoyable than feeding her bits of ham by hand. At night-time, we play fetch, which my hybrid cat was really really good at, but my ragdoll is just as good at… only I guess I have to initiate the games of fetch, whereas it was always the hybrid cat’s idea to play fetch and she’d keep poking me with her paw and putting the toy in my hand until I threw it for her.

    My ragdoll has a habit of running out of the door, when I open it, but she never goes very far: usually just hides under my car. Mercifully, I can open the windows and she doesn’t try to climb out. Also, when I try to get her back inside, that’s usually pretty easy too. She will come to me on command, pretty much any time I want: I just make a noise to get her attention, and she’ll come right over to see what’s up. Of course, being a ragdoll, she’s so easy to pick up and hold; she’s so placid and laid back, in my arms.

    I’m not sure why I’m telling you all this, but I thought it’d been a while since I had written about my beloved ragdoll (and indeed, my still-absent hybrid cat, who must surely by now be lost forever… but I do still live in eternal hope). My ragdoll cat is a very special companion: such a big personality; so unusual and interesting, but still everything you’d want from a domestic cat, in terms of being well behaved, but also playful of course, in a natural catlike way. She’s also HUGE. I mean MAN she’s only 7 months old and she’s a BIG cat. I don’t mean fat I mean BIG. That’s great… I love that. You really can give her a proper good cuddle. It’s so great that she’s so relaxed and placid about being picked up and fussed, although I do try to give her plenty of space, and her independence: 4 paws on the floor, as much as possible, but sometimes she makes it pretty clear, I think, that she’s OK with being scooped up and held.

    All in all, I made a really bad cat breed decision, getting a hybrid, but I love her so much, I’d give anything to get her back… but she’s got. I had just about learned to live with the huge life sacrifices. I certainly only ever blamed myself, and never the cat. In the end though, I’ve ended up with the most perfect beautiful ragdoll, who I’m so totally attached to; bonded. We have been under virtual house arrest together, alone, for 6 months, and I couldn’t imagine life without her. So many times during the day I think “where’s the cat?” and I call her name, and she comes running. I couldn’t imagine life without my special fur baby.

    Anyway, I thought you should know that, as a slight change from my usual dreary moaning about feeling suicidal.

     

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  • Cone of Shame

    This is a story about being mute…

    Kitten

    I suppose my beautiful baby girl is not mute, per se, because she’s actually a very vocal cat; she makes a much bigger variety of cat noises than I’ve ever heard – everything from growling deeply, like a big wild cat, to sweetly mewing like a tiny kitten.

    I often play a game when I’m making myself a sandwich at lunchtime, where I will say to her “meow if you would like some ham”, to which she always replies with a meow, indicating that, yes, she would very much like a little ham.

    My bengal – heartbreakingly still missing after 3+ months – didn’t really have manners, shall we say. If she wanted something she would grab it, and if I didn’t let go, she would have a tug-of-war competition with me. Of course, that kind of behaviour is intrinsic to the bengal breed, and part of the appeal: they are incredibly intelligent and determined animals, who will always do what they want; get what they want.

    My ragdoll – pictured – had to wear the cone of shame for a couple of weeks. It’s a common misconception that bengals are smart and ragdolls aren’t. In fact, my ragdoll will play fetch, open doors and copy other stuff she sees me doing, or just figure things out for herself because she’s smart. She is, however, a lot less prone to getting bored and becoming destructive. My house is in need of a number of bengal-related repairs, and that’s even after cat-proofing my entire home.

    I used to have to wash my duvet and bed linen at least 3 times a week, because my bengal would get into my bedroom and urinate on my bed. If she couldn’t get in my bedroom, she’d urinate on anything of mine she could find: clothes, bags, blankets, tea towels, bath mats… whatever. She had no fewer than *FIVE* litter trays to choose from, and I used the special pheromone spray to try to help calm her down, but she basically was on a one-cat mission to urinate on everything I own.

    I would not get another bengal, although of course I am desperate to be re-united with my poor lost baby.

    My ragdoll is the perfect cat: she’s very entertaining, just like a bengal, because she’s smart and wants to play fetch and other games; she can be trained to do stuff. But, the main thing is, she doesn’t urinate on any of my stuff. Well, actually, there was one time, which is the point of this essay.

    Every time I go in the bathroom, my cats have always wanted to be in there with me, playing. I got into the habit of shutting the door with my bengal, otherwise she would shred all the toilet rolls, pull all the towels and bath mats onto the floor and urinate on everything. So, I kept the door shut. However, the cats love being in there with me, for some reason.

    With my ragdoll, whenever I’m in the bathroom, she wants to be in the bath for some reason. I suppose it’s like a hidey-hole or something for her. We even play a game where she thinks I can’t see her, as she’s poking her head over the edge of the bath. When she notices I’m looking at her, she ducks her head down, but her ears are still poking up. If I peer over the edge, she ducks even lower.

    My ragdoll’s love of the bath is immense, it would seem. So much so, that when I picked her up, because – instinctively – I didn’t want to leave her in the bathroom, given the habit I’d gotten into with my bengal – when I carried her through to the bedroom and put her down on the bed, she urinated on it… first time and last time she’s ever done that.

    I guess it must be hard, not being able to communicate effectively. I try my best to figure out what’s going on in my cats’ head, but – as all cat owners will tell you – the mind of a cat is quite impenetrable. However, I let my ragdoll play in the bath whenever she wants now. In fact, I pretty much let her do whatever she wants, because she’s such a gorgeous affectionate loving creature, who just wants to eat, sleep and snuggle, with the occasional mad moment where she wants to play rough, or just run around like a lunatic.

    So, I’m sure you didn’t come here for cat breed advice, or indeed an essay on the subject of my hit-and-miss experiences of cats who like to urinate on everything – bengals – versus the “perfect” domestic cat – my gorgeous ragdoll girl.

    No matter how much I might moan and complain about how miserable and pointless life is, cats are the best.

     

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  • Electronicat

    This is a story about technical stuff…

    Electronics

    Of all the hobbies I thought about getting into, most of them were sedentary; indoors. I thought about getting some kind of retro games console. I thought about getting a new games console. I thought about getting a gaming PC. Then, I thought about maybe doing something really geeky. I started looking into software-defined radio, with the intention of making a home-made radar, perhaps, or doing my own mobile phone base station. All of this, I decided, was expensive and wouldn’t help me with my need to get outside and exercise.

    I did some of the projects on the cheap. I managed to turn my 5 year old laptop into a pretty decent retro console, with nothing more than a cheap game controller pad. I got a whole buttload of electronics experiments I could do with a super cheap tiny little computer (pictured). I managed to make a home-made sonar. Not quite radar, but not too bad for a bodger.

    Still, I found myself spending most of my time looking at a screen, indoors.

    Also, although the projects have provided some intellectual challenge, they haven’t really opened up any social avenues. I’m sure that if I got really involved in – for example – the software defined radio community, online, then I would kinda get ‘social’ contact out of that, but I already get more than enough online social contact. The thing I’m missing is real world social contact.

    I know from past experience that when I’ve done something ridiculous, like suddenly deciding to get into kitesurfing, it’s taken my life in a brilliant direction. I’ve travelled the world, in search of the best wind and waves, and made lifelong friends along the way.

    My life is very nice – enviable – in a lot of ways. My beautiful cat keeps me company, and she likes company too; always wants to be nearby, getting involved with everything I’m doing, which is not always ideal when working on a microelectronics project, for example. For sure, I have options and opportunities which a lot of people can only dream of.

    However.

    I am also more socially isolated than you can possibly imagine. Estranged from my family, far from friends, without a support network. The litmus test is this: if you’re hospitalised for a major medical emergency, who’s there for you? I can answer that question. I can answer that question very well, and the answer is not good, although mercifully I did have a work colleague and a friend who happened to be visiting from abroad, who were kind enough to visit me, hooked up to a dialysis machine for 4 hours a day; a hospital stay of more than 2 weeks; a medical emergency that pretty much nearly killed me.

    That’s not a dig at my friends, of course. They’ve become used to leaving me sleeping rough or otherwise homeless. They’ve become used to leaving me in hospital, dying, alone. That’s fine. I’ve come to terms with that.

    I do have some VERY good friends. I am lucky enough to have one or two friends who would help me, if I asked. The rest… I’m not sure if I can even call them friends… more just people who I used to know, but now they’re just strangers who I happen to see updates from on Facebook. They might as well be celebrities who I read about in tabloid newspapers or gossip magazines.

    This wasn’t supposed to be a dig at my acquaintances [former friends]. This is about what I’m doing to sort my life out, to make it bearable.

    Possibly, by getting back into mountain biking, I have opened up the possibility of making some friends and building a support network; having a social life. We’ll have to see. “Social life” might just be something which I’ll never regain; I’m too old to be able to [re]build one now, having lost my old one. Anyway, I remain optimistic.

    For the first time in forever, I felt motivated to start to plan for the future, in a way that’s not just planning for my suicide. I’ve been planning what to do when my backside isn’t so sore, and I can ride my new mountain bike again – where am I going to go?

    Suddenly, winter doesn’t look quite so bleak. I have good winter clothes and a reason to be outdoors, in the wind, the rain, and the mud. Not many people have the strange twisted kind of brain that I do, where I love extreme weather: keeps the fair-weather tourists away. On the bike ride I went on, on Saturday, there was not a single other soul on the mountain. I’d hardly describe it as “perfect conditions” but in the forests around the summit of the mountain, I hardly noticed the rain; I was going to get covered in mud anyway. It was delightful; ecstatic; euphoric… to be hammering down deserted mountain tracks, without having to worry about crashing into anybody. A far cry from the queues to get into shops, which seems to be something that the ordinary folks are spending their time doing.

    Of course, everything’s more fun when there’s a social aspect, so I’m hoping to find some people to go mountain biking with, but people are already contacting me (which is unheard of) to arrange some biking trips, which is a good sign; a sign that I might get the healthy habits which I need in my life, along with a truckload of fun and adventure.

     

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  • Betrayal

    This is a story about the saddest girl in the world…

    Cone of shame

    My beautiful, gentle, little baby girl, has suffered a dreadful betrayal. I can’t tell you exactly what the first 12 weeks of her life were like. I know that she had to contend with a house full of small children, dogs and other cats, which can’t have been easy. When I got her home, she explored the whole house very cautiously, as if expecting that the place would be stuffed full of creatures which would manhandle her; a tiny placid little kitten, picked up like a toy, or jostled by the over-excited play of bigger animals. I don’t think she was abused but she certainly wasn’t used to being her own self, unmolested.

    I can tell you exactly what every single day of her life has been like since July 3rd, 2020, because we have been inseparable. I’ve hardly left the house. Wherever I’ve been – in bed, in the bathroom, in the kitchen, in my office, in my lounge – she’s been right there, next to me. We’ve been two peas in a pod. We’ve been constant companions for each other.

    Ragdoll cats are very placid. They are famous for going limp when you pick them up. Obviously, I’ve wanted to fuss and cuddle my gorgeous fur baby all the time, but I try to respect her independence too. I tried, from the very moment I got her home, to give her space to do whatever she wants to do, whenever she wants to do it: she’s the queen of the castle, and she’s got the run of the place; she can go wherever she wants, whenever she wants, and I try not to interfere.

    Over the course of us bonding, her trust has grown. To begin with, she always quietly tolerated my desire to pick her up and stroke her. She always wanted to be nearby, but never obviously sought affection. Slowly, more and more, she will decide that she wants attention and affection, and she will stand on my chest and headbutt my head, or rub herself on me. She drapes herself across me and ‘makes biscuits’ – kneading me and suckling on me, in a very relaxed and kittenish way. She’s clearly been very fond of her human.

    Now I have betrayed her.

    She’s so trusting that this third visit to the vet, she didn’t make much effort to hide when I got her cat carrier out. She didn’t put up much of a protest about me putting her into her cat carrier. She didn’t make a sound when I drove her to the vet. Apparently, she was very friendly, playful and relaxed before her operation.

    Her trust has been broken.

    She woke up from her operation, and she was upset with the vet’s assistant, because of the betrayal. My poor little baby was trembling when I picked her up.

    I had to put her ‘cone of shame’ on when I got her home, to stop her from licking her stitches, so that the wound heals well and doesn’t get infected. She’s really had a very bad day, because of me and other humans, who’ve betrayed her trust.

    I really hope she gets over it, in time, and will trust me again. It’s really sad, because I think she’d been having a really nice life up until this point, and she really thought that her human was a super nice person who she could trust.

    Now she’s trying to figure out how to eat with her cone on. She’s got the frustration of having to wear it for weeks, and I have to be the cruel human who forces her to keep it on. I’m the cruel human who put it on her.

     

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  • Lockdown Improvements

    This is a story about the Coronavirus pandemic…

    Lighthouse

    Many people planned to come out of lockdown with new hobbies, fitter, healthier, happier and myriad other unachievable unrealistic things. I think that we have mostly come out of lockdown fatter, more unfit, poorer, more insecure, lonely, isolated, bored and generally worse off.

    I started the lockdown drinking very heavily and eating McDonald’s breakfast every morning. I decided that if we were going to be suffering the misery of being under house arrest, then I would treat myself. Quickly I realised that I was going to end up with clogged arteries and morbidly obese. I was eating takeaway several nights a week and not doing any exercise.

    I started the lockdown physically dependent on sleeping pills to get to sleep, and using two different tranquillising sedatives to cope with unbearable anxiety. I decided it was too much hassle to try to keep stocked up with the medications I needed during the lockdown, and I calculated that I have enough left to be able to taper myself off. I didn’t want to run out of medication suddenly in the middle of a pandemic.

    I started the lockdown working on my sofa, fully reclined. I realised that my posture and back would be ruined by working in such a position for 8 hours a day, followed by many more hours on the sofa after finishing work.

    Things had to change.

    I thought the lockdown would last a month or two, but I must admit that I didn’t think it would drag on beyond a quarter of the year. I tried my best to psychologically prepare myself for the lockdown lasting for months, but I was hopeful it’d be all over after 6 to 8 weeks.

    I bought a desk and an office chair.

    I weaned myself off the sleeping pills and tranquillisers.

    I cut down my drinking, and even went teetotal for 6 or 7 weeks.

    I started exercising. Not, like, exercising exercising. Just going for a 10km walk every day. Enough to keep me a little bit active, but nothing crazy.

    I stopped getting takeaways. All those takeaways were costing quite a lot of money, when they were all added up. Sure, I felt like I could justify spending the money to enjoy some nice food, as compensation for the doom and gloom of the hundreds of thousands of people dying all over the world, and the restrictions to our freedom… but it wasn’t healthy and it was costing a packet.

    I paid off all my debt. This wasn’t so much a planned thing. It was something that just happened to co-incide with the lockdown. However, it feels pretty damn good to have some savings now. I have a net worth again, which feels good. I have some financial security, even if it is pretty negligible. It had been a very long time which I’d been struggling to get my finances sorted, and it’s a big relief to be back in the black.

    My life is extremely austere and simple. I have my house, my job, my cat, my car; that’s it. My health is probably OK. My weight is OK, although I am carrying some extra weight I’d like to shift, as a consequence of lockdown. My finances are OK. My job seems OK. My housing situation is sort of OK. My kitten is great, although my cat is lost… overall OK. My car has a big dent where an idiot crashed into it during lockdown, in a virtually empty car park, but there are more important things in life than having a shiny perfect car.

    All things considered, I think I’m one of the lockdown winners – I’m emerging in far better shape than I went into lockdown. Some people have lost their job, or are about to lose their job. Some people have struggled with alcohol and food. Some people have struggled with mental health. In almost every area of my life, things have improved; I look reasonably well positioned to weather a difficult autumn and winter.

    Although losing my cat was the worst thing that happened, it has forced me to connect with my neighbours and the wider community, so I have even managed to live a far less isolated and lonely existence under lockdown, than I was living before – I speak to far more people; I’m more connected and socially engaged.

    I thought that if I retreated inwards, living and communicating through my blog and social media, then I would find it impossible to get through the lockdown. It looks like a reasonably good decision, to have taken a break.

    It helps that it’s summer – of course – which lifts my mood and generally creates a more pleasant and favourable backdrop for life, but I feel hopeful that I’ve got a decent position of health and financial stability to fight through the autumn and winter. I just need to book some holidays now… I’ve worked non-stop since early January, when I was discharged from hospital.

     

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  • Positive Spin

    This is a story about bereavement…

    Kitten in a box

    You can order anything on Amazon dot com these days. I needed a new kitten; same-day delivery. Prime membership equals free shipping too – bonus!

    My cat has been missing for two weeks. Was it premature to get a new kitten? Who sets the rules on how long we have to live in cat-free torment, alone with our sadness and grief? Who decides how long is the authorised, legal, respectable amount of time which somebody has to suffer without a feline friend for company? When were these things decided? Why were these rules and regulations put in place? Who benefits from these draconian laws?

    Anyway, I broke the rules.

    I got a new kitten.

    Of course I miss my cat and I desperately want to know what’s happened to her, but perhaps I never will. She’s microchipped, so I have a better chance of being reunited, but it’s perfectly possible that it will always remain a mystery, sadly and frustratingly.

    I don’t think it would be a good idea to be grief-stricken, heartbroken and isolated all alone, without a furry feline friend. I got a new kitten. Sue me.

    It’s hard to put into words the sheer joy of unboxing my little bundle of fluff. Seeing her gorgeous blue eyes, soft white fur and that greyish smokey point colouration on her nose, ears, paws and tail, is a joy. She’s the living embodiment of adorable cuteness.

    Obviously I don’t know the fate of my cat, so I can’t really grieve. I’m trapped, not knowing whether she’s alive or dead. I’ve been trapped for two weeks. I could be trapped for two months, two years, or the rest of my life. I strongly suspect the latter. Obviously I hope that she’s reunited with me alive and well, but nobody has spotted her; she’s disappeared without a trace. It’s quite possible that she’s alive and well somewhere, but nobody’s coming forward to tell me that, and they might keep her away from me for the rest of our lives, and I’ll never know her fate.

    Yes, I have a new kitten and she’s gorgeous. Yes, I’m happy to have a new kitten. Yes, having a furry feline friend is important to me. Yes, it makes my life better; more bearable; happier. Yes, my life is better now I have a cat in my home; in my life.

    Sorry. Was I supposed to be miserable and suicidal?

    Was I supposed to be suffering?

    I’m still suffering. I’ve lost a cat which I love very dearly.

    Sorry not sorry. I do what’s right for me. I do whatever it takes to cling onto life.

    So sue me.

    Another way to look at it might be to consider how long you deliberately made yourself miserable for, and to ask yourself why you put yourself through that. If you needed a kitten but you didn’t get one, then you got one after a long wait, ask yourself why you waited. Wasn’t it unnecessary to wait? Wasn’t it unnecessary to suffer? Why would you deliberately make yourself suffer?

    I’m finished with unnecessary waits. Pointless. Waste of time.

    I needed and wanted a kitten, so I ordered one on Amazon dot com same day Prime delivery.

    True story.

     

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  • Cat Fancier

    This is a story about my fur baby…

    Cone of shame

    My job is incredibly intense at the moment and I’m at risk of becoming excessively obsessive, but when I see my cat’s cute face greeting me when I get home from the office, I’m able to switch off and relax a little. There are things which are causing me a lot of stress at the moment, like an uncertain financial and housing situation, but it’s all a little easier to bear in the company of my lovely cat.

    I wondered whether I had made a big mistake, getting a very intelligent breed of cat, because her personality is so different to the moggy I had before. Repeatedly wetting the bed as well as being relentlessly hyperactive, I felt that I was getting far more of the downsides of pet ownership, with only a very limited amount of upsides: it seemed very rare that she wanted to sit and be stroked. I wondered whether I had taken on a bigger responsibility than I had expected – and been used to in the past with cats – with none of the rewards that I was used to from my previous cat.

    She is very annoying.

    However, I have gotten used to how annoying she is. Now I have begun to enjoy her character.

    At least once a night, she will have a manic episode where she will decide that she’s going to attack me. For a period of 15 minutes to an hour, she will attack my hands, arms, feet or indeed anything that she fancies, such as my legs, knees, or simply my torso. She will bite, scratch and kick me. She will jump on me and wind me. However, it’s all rough play and she doesn’t mean to hurt me, although she does draw blood. If I want her to stop, she does… but not for long.

    Multiple times per day she will attack my houseplants and other fragile things, such as some tall lamps which have paper shades, now utterly destroyed. She does not attack these things when I’m not around. Not wanting to anthropomorphise, but she wants to provoke me: she annoys me for her own amusement. It’s a game to her. It used to stress me out but now it’s become kind of funny… since I’ve accepted that I can’t have nice things anymore and I’ve given up being precious about my stuff.

    She wants to be with my, wherever I am. It’s very nice having a little shadow, following me around. She meows and I meow back. Sometimes she wanders off and then feels lonely, so she meows and then comes rushing to find me when she hears me. She’s a very sociable animal.

    Since she’s been wearing her cone she’s not been able to scratch behind her ears, which is something she gets me to do for her. She has an insatiable appetite for behind-the-ears scratching.

    Once or twice a day she will have a period where she is desperate to be stroked, and she will force her head into my hand, whatever I’m doing. Typing becomes impossible. Resting comfortably becomes impossible. Sleep becomes impossible. If I sit or lie on my hands, she will burrow furiously in order to push her head repeatedly into my hand, urging me to stroke her. It’s so adorable and impossible to ignore.

    She has started to enjoy sitting on my lap, or otherwise lying peacefully in contact with me. She has started to have some calmer periods, which are of course blissful.

    Stroking her is immensely stress relieving. She also seems to know when I’m unhappy, and she cheers me up a lot. I think she’s responsible for helping me to avoid complete capitulation during some recent stressful events.

    In short: I’m really pleased I got her and I’m so happy she’s part of my life.

     

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  • Nurture

    This is a story about caring for living things…

    Castor oil plant

    My beloved castor oil plant is not doing very well. Really, I should re-pot my houseplants. I need to purchase some plant food and feed my houseplants. Two of my plants have been attacked by my kitten, leaving them pretty much destroyed, and one of them was knocked off a shelf by my kitten, and perished soon afterwards due to having no pot anymore.

    My kitten is not eating her food. She had a different brand of cat food while I was on holiday and now she doesn’t want to go back to eating the cheap supermarket own-brand stuff. I’m not trying to save money – I kept her on the same food that the breeder was feeding the cats, and the breeder was trying to save money. It’s a bad idea to change your pet’s food, because it can upset their stomach. I guess I will have to go and get some premium brand stuff now my kitten is used to the fancy stuff.

    I’m not doing great in terms of diet, exercise and alcohol. I thought I would feel rejuvenated enough after my holiday that I would start taking better care of myself, but I’ve needed a bit of booze to take the edge off the shock to the system of going back to work. Work is stressful.

    Things look better regarding the major things that were stressing me out. My contract is likely to be extended by a couple of months and the organisation I work for is chasing my security clearance, which is good. I feel happier about things.

    I’m not going to write much today because I’m about to go out for dinner and to the cinema. Also, I’m trying to write less – little and often, instead of gigantic brain-dumps which are far too much for anybody to enjoy reading.

    I drank far more than I intended to this week, which makes me feel bad about possible weight gain and the general health implications of drinking too much, but I must admit that it’s helped ease me back into the daily grind. However, I could easily end up being overly dependent on alcohol and drinking far too regularly, so I’d like to get things under control before they get out of hand.

    My kitten has been very sweet and playful at times and I’m really pleased to have a companion animal – a pet – to keep me company when I’m home alone. I was worried that she was too wild and destructive, and that I wasn’t able to cope with such an intelligent cat, but I seem to have found strategies for her behaviour to stop her peeing on everything and destroying stuff. Not an ordinary domestic cat at all, but she’s got bags of personality and she’s great entertainment.

    Today I felt for a moment like things were going OK. My income is slightly more secure, I’m good at my job, I’m in a good relationship, I like my house and my cat, my car is OK, my finances are OK, my health is OK… things are alright. I don’t see too many ways in which everything’s going to fall apart at the moment. If everything goes ahead as it should, then I don’t have any horrible unpleasantness to face for a couple of months, which is good. Some challenges on the horizon for the autumn, including the usual horrible situation where I’ll be needing a holiday but my income won’t be secure – it really spoils a holiday having uncertainty about employment and money.

    Lots of work to do at the moment, which is what I want because I like to keep my mind occupied, but I do want to keep myself on a sustainable and healthy footing. I don’t want to burn myself out, or indeed make myself redundant. I often blaze through all my work and am left with nothing to do, feeling horribly bored and dreading having to look busy.

    So, I have the opportunity to work and to live, but I need to look after myself.

    I’m off to do leisure activities now, which is very nice.

     

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  • Proud Parent

    This is a story about vomit, excrement, snot, urine, blood and suchlike…

    Litter trays

    As a 39-year-old non-parent, I’ve had to suffer interminable anecdotes about the vile stuff that comes out of children, for over two decades, while working full-time in an office full of people who were incessantly breeding. I’ve heard everything that should never be uttered in a professional environment, where those who have decided not to completely dedicate their entire lives to their bestial destiny as preordained by their genes – those who have risen above the reproductive drive of a simple-minded animal – should not be subjected to interminable near-identical stories about babies and children.

    However.

    Now it’s time for me to get my revenge.

    My kitten likes to take a dump in the woodchips and she likes to urinate in the gravel. My kitten is extremely fussy about where she evacuates her bowel and bladder. Her absolute favourite thing to do is to urinate on my bed and defecate on my coat, but I banned her from both rooms where she was doing that.

    In my presence, my kitten must have urinated on the duvet on my bed at least 10 times now. I know that my washing machine has been very busy indeed. I know that many parents can relate to having their washing machines full of items which have been covered in pooh, sick, urine, snot and other horrible substances. My own parents decided not to use proper nappies so that they’d have more money to spend on drugs, alcohol and cigarettes, so I definitely know that they can relate to having to put stuff covered in bodily waste into the washing machine.

    Essentially, what I’m doing is potty training.

    When I see my kitten about to take a wee on my duvet, I pick her up and move her to her litter tray. I have 4 litter trays – two downstairs in the kitchen, and two upstairs in my bedroom, so that she can be quickly manoevered into the one she seems to prefer for urination.

    So far, I have managed to save my duvet from being soaked in kitten pee at least three times.

    The first time I managed to move my kitten into the litter tray and saved my duvet, I felt like such a proud parent. I was so pleased to see her going to the toilet in the place that she’s supposed to.

    Another time, she went for a wee in her litter tray all on her own.

    She’s a kitten who’s been raised in a good environment, and she has a very nice home where she’s stimulated and not stressed; she has a nice balance between lots of fuss and attention, and quiet cosy places for her to retreat to as well. She’s simply quite different from a regular domestic cat: she’s 5 generations from an Asian leopard cat, which means that she’s pretty wild. She deliberately saves up her pee as a scent marker, which is what many domestic tom cats do. She is also incredibly smart, so she pees to show her displeasure at any lack of fuss and attention from her humans. She expects things to be the way she wants them to be, or else she does a dirty protest.

    Mercifully, she doesn’t pee or poop anywhere she shouldn’t except the duvet… and only when she wants to get a reaction out of her cat parents. She has [almost] complete freedom in a very large house, and aside from some houseplants which have taken a beating, she’s been very well behaved.

    She is a fusspot. It’s taking a lot of effort to make sure her litter trays are in perfect and pristine conditions until she’s fully settled and ‘potty trained’. Of course – like all pet cats – she came from the breeder knowing how to take a poop in a litter tray, as well as knowing where to pee, but it was distressing for her to be adopted and taken away from her mother, brother and sisters, as well as all the other people and pets she knew in that house. I can be fully forgiving of the occasional dirty protest when she’s not got things just the way she wants them.

    So, hard work, but I’m still overjoyed to see her furry face, even if I just nip out to the shops for an hour and am pleasantly reminded that I have a beautiful kitten as a pet. She’s inseperabale from me. She’s sitting on my lap as I type this. She can’t bear to be in a different room from her humans.

    Probably pretty boring and gross stuff, but there we go – revenge for every story you ever told about dirty nappies and other childrearing anecdotes.

     

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  • Not Enough Hours in the Day

    This is a story about domestic bliss…

    Red light

    I enjoy a certain degree of freedom in my daily routine. I can arrive at work at any time between 8am and 10am. I can leave work at any time between 3:30pm and 5pm. I can work from home. I can take a half-day or a whole day off. I can take as much holiday as I want. It seems like my life is very flexible and I’m very time rich, as well as being handsomely remunerated for my efforts.

    I’m somewhat obsessed with the project I’m working on. I know that the project has hard deadlines and I know that I’m playing an influential role in making sure that the project is delivered on-time. It might sound arrogant, but I know that there’s a lot of cheap talk and the number of people who are “doers” is far fewer than the number of people on the payroll, who like to talk about doing stuff, but aren’t driven and determined enough to carry anything through to completion. I need to stop short of outright criticism of my colleagues, because everyone plays their part, even if the project would go more quickly and the work would be higher quality without a handful of low-performing individuals: not my circus, not my monkeys.

    I’m completely besotted with my girlfriend. I have a limitless desire to spend time with her. I think she’s wonderful; the best.

    The running of my home – the laundry, the cleaning, stocking the fridge and cupboards, taking out the trash – is relatively easy but I am quite house proud and the novelty of my relatively new house has not yet worn off. I would very much like to continue to add furniture and decorative items to make it a more and more lovely place to call home.

    My kitten is amazing. Having a cute litte furry companion has exceeded my wildest expectations. My kitten plays “fetch” when she’s feeling active, or cuddles up when she wants a rest. She’s always entertaining, she’s so beautiful to look at and her fur is so soft to stroke. She does, however, urinate and defecate where she shouldn’t when I make a mistake like leaving her unattended with a laundry basket full of clean clothes for a few seconds, or not realising that her litter needed changing because it was clumpy beneath the surface. I’ve spent a lot of time washing duvets, bedding, clothes, and mopping the floor, as well as scooping up poop. I expected to have to make sure she was fed, entertained and had a clean litter tray to use, but there has been some extra stuff to deal with, like clearing my bedroom and dining room floor of anything she might urinate or defecate on.

    I was just about coping with a very simple life, where I was working, sleeping and eating. I was going to bed at 9pm. The highlight of my week consisted of a trip to the supermarket. My life was pretty barren and empty.

    Almost overnight, I have a girlfriend and a kitten. It made me feel very guilty that I got up and went to work at 7am and didn’t get home to see my kitten until almost 11pm, because my girlfriend and I had gone to the cinema after work and then eaten at a restaurant.

    FOR THE AVOIDANCE OF ANY DOUBT: MY KITTEN IS LOOKED AFTER DURING THE DAY EITHER BY ME, WORKING FROM HOME, OR BY MY GIRLFRIEND. MY KITTEN IS LEFT ALONE VERY INFREQUENTLY, AND ONLY FOR SHORT PERIODS OF TIME.

    I’m also having to re-adjust to a significantly reduced amount of sleep.

    I was sleeping from 9pm to 7am – 10 hours a night – and now I’m lucky if I get 6 hours a night on work-nights, which is a significant reduction. Assuming I needed just 8 hours sleep (but actually I need more) then I might lose as much as 6 hours total sleep during the working week. With only Saturday and Sunday available for catching up, and assuming that a 1am or 2am bedtime doesn’t seem unreasonable on a Friday and Saturday night, means I can catch up only as few as 4 hours, assuming that I went to bed at 2am and had a lie-in until midday (i.e. 10 hours sleep). Given that it takes 1.5 times as much sleep to catch up, I am running a major sleep deficit – I am never getting the chance to catch up on any sleep. It’s very simple mathematics to see that I am getting increasingly tired.

    My day should be quite easy to divide – 8 hours sleep, 8 hours leisure and 8 hours sleep, but that’s not possible if you have to get up and go to work at 7am, and you’re not able to go to sleep until past midnight on a work night. For those who are able to sleep as long as they want during the mornings, they can easily ensure that they don’t get too tired. For those who can have a nap during the day, they can catch up. I don’t have those luxuries, because I need to get up and go to work at 7am, even though I do have a lot of flexibility which I don’t use because of the demanding project I’m working on.

    Flexibility comes at a price.

    I’m dedicating myself to supporting my colleagues in delivering a very large and complicated project with a huge number of team members. It’s important that I’m able to get some work done in the morning – 8am to 9am – and in the evening – 4pm to 5pm – when there aren’t any meetings or interruptions.

    Sure, I’ve worked hard enough to be able to slack off a bit, but I really don’t want to decimate the reputation which has taken substantial effort to earn.

    I pretty much just need a holiday.

    Somehow I’m managing to stay functional and not lose my mind with exhaustion. Sleep deprivation will quickly erode your ability to think clearly, stay sane and be relaxed about life. Only those who have the luxury of being able to sleep as much as they want are able to not worry about bedtimes and the health and wellbeing consequences.

    I suppose I’ve worked hard enough and proven myself such that I could become an unreliable part-timer who nobody would rely upon, but I enjoy my role as somebody who’s been steady and dependable – ever-present – which is vitally important when you’re trying to help a large number of people to deliver a very complex set of objectives. Leadership could be seen as a job title which is awarded for long service, or help from your daddy, but most of the time leadership is a set of attitudes – qualities – which make your colleagues trust you and look to you for guidance; leadership is just something that some people can do when others aren’t interested, lack the aptitude, or lack the confidence and experience.

    In terms of eyes on the prize, I know that I will cut back on my hours in the office and give myself some days off, for the sake of my relationship, my mental health, my physical health and because there literally aren’t enough hours in the day. I have a pile of personal administrative tasks which I’ve ignored for a few months, costing me serious amounts of money.

    I’m desperate for a holiday.

    It’s been 6 months since I had a holiday.

    This is a recurring theme in my life: I work too hard and it makes me sick.

    I’m going to publish this now. As you might have been able to tell, my blogging has been an early casualty, as the demands on my time have increased and my waking day has stretched well beyond what I’m able to cope with, without losing more sleep than I’m possibly ever able to catch up on over the course of a weekend.

    It’s 8:30pm and I need to start thinking about getting ready for bed. I need to make sure my kitten has food, water and a clean litter tray. I need to make sure I have clean clothes for work tomorrow. I need to make sure the house is in good order, so my kitten can be left to her own devices while I’m at the office. It might sound unthinkable that my day has consisted of sleep, work, 10 minutes of TV and a short amount of writing, and now I’m about to start getting ready for bed, but when sleep gets borrowed it has to be paid back – I cannot go to bed at 1am on a Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday night, without having to reclaim 1.5 times what was lost, which is impossible when I’m working on such a high-profile and intensive project.

    A holiday is the solution. I need a holiday.

     

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