Recently in Cat-a-Plex Category

I've been living alone now for some weeks.  I won't lie, it took some getting used to.  Chino was a massive vibrant element of this household and not having him to come home to (as much as it makes me sound like a sad act) has been rough.  Rough enough to still reduce me to tears on rare occasions.

I've had every intention of getting myself a successor to his Lordship but have been biding my time for several reasons. One was the extreme busyness of the intervening weeks, two was the expense,  three was to give myself time to decide whether I wanted to go with another Burmese, four, the choice between an adult or a kit and finally, five, to give myself time to get over the trauma.

So I'd been saying, "I'll look at getting another cat once May 10th (party) has been and gone" because there was just too much going on before then... In truth, there really was no question I'd get another Burmie, I was just so completely charmed by Chino that I wasn't able to look past them.  Which of course, introduces the issue of the expense.  A kitten would cost $500 or more, completely unjustifiable so soon after having spent that to get Chino so the next logical step was to look at getting an adult.

It seemed a female might be good, maybe a girl would be a little less likely to wander, an adult because she'd be cheaper, and maybe used to living inside. I'm not wholly keen to allow a new pet to have such free reign as Chi did, so after some bulletin board hopping it seemed that a breeding female who was a couple of years old and no longer required by the breeder and who had not lived outside might be the answer to my cat shaped vacuum.

Once our major conference had been and gone I was browsing the web, as is my habit, and thought to put in the search string 'adult rehome burmese' and stumbled across a forum offering "Princess Lulubelle" as free to a good home. I dropped the owner a line, hardly expecting a free Pedigree Burmese to be still available and to my great delight, she was!

After long introductions, the exchange of photos and stories of Chino and Lulu, and the satisfaction both that I'd be a suitable family for Lulu (on their part) and that transporting such precious cargo from Queensland to New South Wales was affordable (on my part) the process of adoption was begun.  As it happens, she's only a year old, younger than Chino was and was a precious family pet who needed a new home as her 'Mum' turned out to be serverly allergic to her.  After a little under a year of trying to moderate the symptoms it really just needed to be that Lulu went live with someone else.  So sad for Lulu's best little girl friend Jade(4) but very, very happy for me.

For various reasons it wasn't until this week that it was possible to get her here, which in the grand scheme was just perfect timing.  I've let out little squeaks around the internet that I was going to be getting a new cat but just didn't want to make it 'official' until she was actually here... not that I'm a great believer in fate or Murphy's Law... but more as a disappointment preventative if anything did go horribly wrong...

So finally, here we are, it's Wednesday May 14th and Lulu has weathered the long trek from the Sunshine Coast to the Big Smoke, still smelling of the straw used to line her travelling cage (poor little blossom must be well pleased to be out of that) and she's found the sun spot on my living room floor to have a snooze in.

She's given the flat the once over, found and used the litter tray, found the food and had a bit of a 'nom, nom, nom' snuggled me a few times and by and large made herself right at home! 

If, as I am, you're a bit of a believer in a benevolent deity, you look at situations like this and think there are just too many perfect elements to this story not to think He understands how important having a puss is to me and that all the little dreams in my heart in regards to my next puss have been neatly put in to place.

You can't ask for more than that.

(as I write this closing she's trying to climb the louvre windows... can anyone say 'deja vu'?!)

Deeleea & Lulubelle

Hey, you guys are awesome... unbelievable. So much internet love and sympathy. Even the real life sympathy has been amazing... given the state of me one might well have thought I'd lost a family member. I won't lie, it totally feels like I did.

This is the last Chino post, and it's simply because I want to remember all the cool stuff, not because I'm seeking any further sympathies or warm fuzzies, I've so appreciated those I received. Really.

Remembering Chino

I delay going to bed till very late and when I get there I take drugs to sleep because Chino used to snuggle up under my chin and in the crook of my shoulder and stay there all night. Sleeping is not the same on my own.

It's a lot easier to blog, because there isn't a cat between the mac and my belly. He used to squirrel his way onto my lap regardless of the computer. I had to get used to typing with a somnolent cat's face pressed into the crook of my elbow. It made typing a bit slower... a bit less comfortable... but it was well cute.

I still turn every time the wind chimes in the garden go off because they sound like the bell on his collar. The one that's lying on my sideboard, the one that doesn't ring any more.

I expect him to come running to the sound of my keys as I get out of my car at the end of a day at the office. If he didn't come straight away it was usually because he was sacked out on the sofa after a day's adventuring...

I really miss him running up the bench and fridge and skidding to a halt on the top of the dresser when he heard those same keys and knew he was about to get a treat as I made my way out the door. (He hadn't cottoned on to the fact that he was getting the treat to prevent a fight at the doorway while he tried to get OUT... hah-haaaa suckkah!).

I miss opening the bathroom door and nearly tripping over him on my way out of the shower... he couldn't bear a closed door...

I miss that he'd come running whenever he heard me pulling out a length of dental floss... it really was his favourite toy! Those crazy contorted pix I took of him some time ago were all about the floss... It go so I had to pull double the length I really needed to accommodate his need to try and attack the end...

I miss the hide and seek... a sure fire way to get him to come to you was to tease him by hiding, or pretending to hide behind a bush in the garden... or behind a door... if you kept peeking out at him and teasing him thus he was guaranteed to come running right back to get me... it was utterly irresistible to him!

I actually miss hearing him trying to break into my bedroom...

I miss rubbing my face in his belly... softer than rabbit fur...

That being said, I actually don't miss the 6am starts.

The window climbing.

The anxious moments when he didn't come when he was called.

The lizard presents.

But they're small potatoes in comparison to missing the unconditional love. I could shut that cat out of my room, leave him on his own for the weekend (which I only did once, mind) spray the living daylights out of him at 2am and throw him off the bed when he was pissing me off.. and he'd STILL come running when he saw me at the end of the day... he'd still snuggle under my chin come bed time. He'd still throw himself at my feet and roll over for a belly rub.

When there ain't anyone else in your house giving you that kind of loving it's a pretty tough thing to let go.

After about 14 months of cutting it fine on the street outside my place Chino met his match with a car this morning.

Chino had one huge personality and was the best roommate I've ever had. I'm embarrassed at how cut up about his death I am but I'm not embarrassed to admit I loved him something fierce.

I'm going to miss him.

Well, yesterday came and went without a post. Pfff. To be frank I'm too sleep deprived to care.

If you were the new tenant upstairs you could be forgiven for thinking I had a newborn at the breast given the number of times I've been getting woken up by wailing and crying in the middle of the night. The attention seeking behaviour however, belongs to the cat. And hear (see?) me out before you accuse me of being too soft...

I have louvre windows in my bedroom, an unusual choice perhaps, but as they are immediately next to the stairs that are the exit and egress for the upstairs units, the windows needed to be space conscious... They're old, crappy steel framed panels that are rusted to all billy-o. I took advantage of this decrepitude (ace word, that) in the early summer and wedged the top pane open to allow some fresh air to circulate... I really do prefer to sleep with a window open.

I have also begun to leave them open during the day to give the cat access to the house as I do not have a cat door and I also figured that should a burglar have a go louvres would be harder to break into than the other solid pane window I used to leave open for him.

Anyway the cat has got a bit used to going in and out the windows and at night time while I sleep he feels as though he should be allowed to get outside through the narrow opening left by the open pane regardless of the time of day or the fact that he's NEVER been allowed outside at night...

The thing is, he won't fit through the gap and while he shows particular intelligence in attaining the top window by climbing up the louvres paw over paw he hasn't figured out that no matter how often he attempts it he WILL NOT be able to get himself out. Neither has he got the message that no amount of attempting this feat has made me yield and open the window... (the phrase dumbass springs to mind).

Last night he tried it 4 times. If he could try it quietly I would sleep through... but the glass moves noisily in its frames and the cat bleats (as it were) in frustration and as you know, orientals are not the most meek of miaou-ers...

Now, gentle reader, you may make such a rational suggestion as 'just shut the cat out of your bedroom at night' to which I reply... I try this repeatedly... I get up, shut the door, wedge 1, 2 and sometimes even 3 shoes under the door... and the little bugger is so persistent he leaps at the door handle until the door unlatches and he pokes at the shoes and throws himself at the door until he gets enough of a gap thorough which he can wedge himself and he happily says hello. This is not a quiet business...

And then the process starts all over again.

You may then suggest that some behavioural modification ought to be undertaken... and I concur; the outworking of which has seen me go to bed with a water sprayer nestled on the window ledge which I discharge in his direction (and which he hates) whenever he tries it on. Again, he is so determined that this really only inhibits him briefly and he will watch me, waiting to see if I'm going to move towards the bottle and sometimes, even while I'm spraying the living daylights out of him, he'll still give it a good go...

SO - and this is where the D is for Do comes in...

Today I decided enough was enough and that I was going to have to forego sleeping with the window cracked so I went to restore the window to its natural state -however, the window frame had got used to its new place and would not return to it's former full upright position...

Oh BOTHER!

Now, if I were a soft, girly girl I might have despaired or prevailed upon VB man to apply some brute strength to my problem... But I'm a strong capable farmer's daughter who doesn't let a bit of dirt or brute force get in the way of her and a good night's sleep.

So I hauled tools and after some dogged determination of my own involving 2 sets of pliers, a screwdriver a hammer and a few liberal doses of WD40 my louvre windows are now restored to their normal state.

And if the cat tries it on he's bloody sleeping in the cat carrier tonight and I'm wearing earplugs so I can't hear him squeal.

There are few things that one may find fascinating about kitchen appliances. Surely. Even those fancy ass fridges with the internet on 'em.

Not fascinating.

However, cats apparently are fascinated by things other that those which captivate me. I know this because his nibs spent most of this afternoon and evening staring at the stove.

I'm not kidding. I mean, as I write it's 12.30am (yes innernet, I am addicted to you) and it's only in the last little while that the fascination has abated... I got home from church at 9.30pm that's 3 hours... who'd have thought he'd have such a long attention span?

I was fascinated by his fascination so I opened and closed the oven doors, pulled out all the utensils therein and found nothing of interest to me... but I figured that there must have been a roach or an errant lizard that he'd let get away indoors on one of the occasions where he'd been left with the run of the in and the outside of the flat last week.

Of course, if you're a cat owner yourself you'll realise that the fascinating thing about the stove was noteworthy and that patience such as Chino exhibited today is for far more interesting a prey than a common and garden variety lizard or roach.

This prey was warm blooded - mammalian - and no, it wasn't a mouse.

Mice are so last week.

Blow me down if as I was sitting here on my sofa tweaking my latest site two little beady eyes and half a dozen whiskers didn't appear, attached to a rodent doing a tightrope walk along the little shelf rails in the grill.

What the rat couldn't see (yes, a bloody rat) was that sitting on the bench to his left, looking into the top of the grill through the stove top was 'Chinois the Dogged' who was waiting him out.

The first time the rat had appeared I didn't see it but got the gist of events because the cat went nuts shoving is forepaw down between the elements. Beady the Rat having made good his escape didn't poke his nose out for another half an hour or so... I guess he didn't count on the cat's determination...

The 2nd time I he came out I saw it, but the cat must have made a noise (or I did) that scared the little bugger back down the stove so I caught no more than a glimpse... By this time I was actively encouraging the cat to sit on the bench... not usual behaviour...

Finally, persistence paid off... Beady emerged the 3rd and final time at around midnight. This time Chino was prepared and he knocked the rat onto the floor leaped from the great height of the benchtop and followed the rodent under the fridge, knocking its footplate off in the process...

Happily Beady wasn't quick enough off the mark and Chi got his jaws around him and brought him out into the light complete with Beady struggling for dear life...

I sure hope you're not squeamish or one of those 'animal loving' 'live and let live' kind of readers... if so look away now... or skip a paragraph...

Chi wasn't letting me near the rat. He growled and carried on and took the bloody thing into my bedroom. I personally wasn't taking any chances on him letting it go to get a better grip and having the blighter take off under my bed so I took my own turn at the rat and at an opportune moment I hit it over the head with my monopod...

Heh.. take that you little varmint...

Then, when the cat was distracted I picked it up by the tail and threw it into the bathroom where Chino proceeded to chase it down and attend to it like it was a tickle me Elmo or some such Top 10 Christmas Gift. (The bathroom's where all the live prey goes... I figure it's easier to clean up entrails off tiles..)

Happily, entrails are not currently an issue... the cat doesn't seem to have figured out that rats are edible.

Happy Birthday Little Fella Originally uploaded by deeleea
Who'd have thought a year could go so fast... admittedly he was 6 weeks old when I got him (crikey, that means Christmas isn't so far away...) so I haven't had him a year, but today is his Birthday. He's still great company, even if today it was me who got the presents... 2 massive roaches and a skink...

Gross.

Nothing to see here Ms Mac...

For everyone else...

And if you like this pic there's a set of them over here

I know that every mother thinks her child is just the cleverest prettiest/handsomest of all the children.And this is only right. There are some inherent difficulties in living with such clever individuals though. They are hard to keep up with.

My precious nemesis has been meditating on how to escape from the house. Be it when I am at home and am concerned about him being out in rabbit territory, or when I am at work and he has been left with the run of the apartment rather than placing his confident self in danger on the road.

So, when I arrived home on Wednesday after the conference you'll understand my surprise to find himself wending his way around my feet on the wrong side of the door! By all appearances he had snuck out of my bedroom from through my louvre windows.

I thought, at first that this was perhaps a fluke, maybe I'd left the window a bit open. This was not the case for the following afternoon there he was again... "Hi Mum, aren't I clever? What's for dinner?"

I have since discovered that the louvres do in fact have a locking mechanism and so I'm sure he was a bit disappointed this morning to find his hatch blocked up.

Yessir, that's my baby.