Category: Cat

Past conversations with my cat – 69

This is Chester. He’s looking for a cool spot to lie down.

We’ve been having something of a heat wave for the last few days, temperatures soaring above the mid-thirties, and nearly as high as forty degrees centigrade.

So, this morning we watched the ice hockey, and even Chester stayed the distance, not so he could smirk when the Maple Leafs lost, but to channel the idea it was cold somewhere else in the world.

And it worked for a while. Having been to the ice hockey in Toronto in person, I know just how cold it was.

After that, it was a matter of leaving the doors opens to let what breeze there was flow through the house, so Chester first sat by the front door, then the back door, then came out to see me.

Time for the air conditioner.

Yes, we have air conditioning, and yes, the cost of electricity in this country is horrendous.  It was why we had solar panels put in.

I just leave it as long as possible before turning it on.

I thought about toying with him, but he’s sitting on the keyboard looking angry.

Now was the right time.

Past conversations with my cat – 68

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This is Chester.  We’re both a little tired this morning.

I spent a little too much time on the next few chapters of my NaNoWriMo project and lost track of time.  It was going so well, I thought it best not to interrupt the flow of words.

But…

This morning, after getting to bed about 2:30 am, I found it hard to get out of bed.

Fortunately, as usual, I had the cat alarm clock wake me out of deep sleep to be informed that it was breakfast.

I looked at the clock and saw it was 6:30 am.

I mean to say, Chester was with me at 2:30 when I was writing, and he didn’t tell me that it was time to go to bed, much earlier than I did.

I think he enjoys torturing me like this.

So…

I get up, get him breakfast, some smelly fish food that even he turns his nose up at, and go out to the writing room with the intention of getting on with the story.

Next thing I know, there’s a gentle tapping on my forehead,

I wake up and it’s Chester.

What? I ask.  You can’t possibly want more food.

No.  I thought you were dead.

That’s amusing, he sees me asleep in bed and doesn’t think I’m dead.

How could you think that?

There are only two reasons why people become inanimate in their chair, they have suffered a heart attack or stroke, or they’re dead.

What about simply falling asleep because they’re too tired, and their faithful assistant didn’t tell them to go to bed earlier?

Look, let’s not make a beak deal out of this.  I was concerned.  Perhaps I won’t be next time.  A final glare and he jumps down off the keyboard, which left a page of endless d’s on the page I had been working on.

Perhaps he’s getting old and forgetful, or, suddenly he realises I mean more to him than just giving him food and cleaning the litter.  No, stop deluding yourself.  You’re his friend, he’s not your friend.

Oh, well, for a moment there…

Past conversations with my cat – 67

This is Chester. He’s come down from his bed in our bedroom to see what the commotion is about.

He stops at the top of the stairs down into the lounge room and sees the TV.

I might have guessed, the Maple Leafs are playing, he says.

Yep, I say, gleefully, and they’re winning.

Its not over until you know what…

Way to be a spoilsport. Stop complaining and take a seat. It’s a new day, a new coach, and a new invigoration in the team.

He sits and does that wrap around thing with his tail that indicates irritability.

Don’t get your hopes up, he says. And shouldn’t you be out in the office working on your NaNoWriMo project.

Under control I say. It’s practically writing itself.

Is that a shake of his head?

Past conversations with my cat – 66

This is Chester. He’s feeling very smug.

Our focus has mainly centred on getting the NaNoWriMo project done each day, but in between all of this, a number of issues have arisen.

The first, the Maple Leads, and what Chester calls my obsession with ice hockey.

He doesn’t get it. No one plays ice hockey in this country at the same level, and you can never find it mentioned anywhere, so why bother.

Besides he adds in his most cutting tone, they’re a bunch of losers.

So they’ve lost six games in a row and sacked the 50 million dollar coach, but…

To him it’s but nothing. Chester now refuses to watch the ice hockey with me, not until they win again. That 6-1 drubbing two games back was the start of the slide.

I tell him that we’re missing key players and with the newish lineup it takes time to work as a team.

Right.

So we move to God Friended Me.

What the hell is going on there. Miles and Cara are stumbling, with doubts seeded, Rakesh has just had his heart torn to shreds and the incoming Bishop is at a crossroads.

So, for a little early advice…

What’s going to happen to Miles and Cara?

Chester: I’m cynical, their the heart of the show, they won’t be forced apart. It’s all about the ratings.

What’s going to happen to Rakesh?

Chester: Draw out the angst for another 14 episodes, we’ll have to keep tuning on to see what happens.

And the bishop and his girlfriend?

Chester: Send them to another parish, they’re just a distraction we don’t need.

I’m inclined to agree with him.

Except about the Maple Leafs. They’re in Pheonix tomorrow, maybe with a new head coach they might pull off a miracle.

Past conversations with my cat – 65

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This is Chester.  We both agree that summer has come early.

But that’s about all we can agree on.   I’m going to start calling him a cranky cat.

For the last week or so the temperature has been hovering in the low 30-degree Celcius mark, and we have been subjected to the constant aroma of smoke from bushfires raging north and south of us.

Normally, the hot weather doesn’t arrive until after the middle of November, and then the temperatures are around 30 degrees with moderate humidity.

Now, it is hot, with Sunday being about 36 degrees Celcius, and not a day to venture outside the airconditioning.

And, that’s where the cranky cat and I disagree.

He likes to sit at the back door and collect the breeze that flows from the front door to the back door and hates it when I run the airconditioning because I have the doors closed.

When that happens, he comes into the office and sits on the table next to the printer with his angry face on.

I figure using the printer might disturb his protest, but it doesn’t.

And to ignore him is at your own peril because, after a few minutes of silent protest, he comes over and starts pushing keys on the keyboard.

One day I expect he will type ‘you are a very bad servant’ for that I am.

Now, where’s the food he really hates!

Past conversations with my cat – 64

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This is Chester.  He’s decided to look the other way.

We are not on very good terms.  Three times in a row he’s decided to wake me at some ungodly hour of the morning on the pretence that he needs feeding, and three times he’s sniffed it and walked haughtily away.

If that was not bad enough, he’s now barracking for any other team than the Maple Leafs.  And to make matters worse, he’s now calling them losers, which technically is correct, but we are missing Marner, and Tavares needs more time to get back into it, and I can’t tell you where Mathews is, but he needs to come back real soon.

On top of this, I’m starting to feel for Anderson because they got rid of Hutchinson as a backup goalie and I didn’t think he was that bad.

Trust Chester to say that Hutchinson hadn’t been in a winning side for a while.  Obviously, he’s a keen observer of the game, or he’s figured out how to use my phone and the NHL / Maple Leafs apps.

OK, enough of the boring stuff.

I’m in need of some mood music so I put on Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.  Yes, it’s definitely annoying Chester.

Karma!

 

Damn and blast those interruptions

I can see how it is that a writer’s life is one that, at times, has to be shut off from the outside world.

It’s a bit hard to keep a stream of thoughts going when in one ear is some banal detective show, and in the other, a conversation that you have to keep up with.  I know how hard it is because I’ve tried doing three things at once, and failed miserably in all three.

So, out I slink to the writing room and start by re-reading the previous chapters, to get back into the plot.  I should remember where I am, and get straight to it, but the devil is in the detail.

Going back, quite often I revise, and a plotline is tweaked, and a whole new window is opened.  God, I wish I didn’t do that!

Then I get to the blank page, ready to go, and…

The phone rings.

Damn.  Damn.  Damn.

Phone answered, back to the blank page, no, it’s gone, got yo go back, blast, another revision, and back to the blank page.

Half an hour shot to pieces.

The phone rings again.

Blast scam callers.  I nearly rip the cord out of the wall.

All through this the cat just watches, and, is that a knowing smile?

It can’t be, I’ve just learned that cats can’t smile, or make any sort of face.

I’m sure his thoughts are not a vague or scrambled, or wrestling with the ploys of several stories on the go, getting locations right, getting characters to think and do their thing with a fair degree of continuity.

The cat’s world is one of which chair to lie on, where is that elusive mouse be it real or otherwise, and is this fool going to feed me, and please, please, don’t let it be the lasagna.  I am not that cat!

Unlike other professions, it’s a steady, sometimes frustrating, slog where you can’t just walk away, have a great time, and come back and pick up where you left off.  Stories have to be written from beginning to end, not a bit here and a bit there.

It’s a bit like running a marathon.  You are in a zone, the first few miles are the hardest, the middle is just getting the rhythm and breathing under control, and then you hope you get to the end because it can seem that you’ve been going forever and the end is never in sight.

But, when you reach the end, oh, isn’t the feeling one of pure joy and relief.

Sorry, not there yet.

And no comment is required from the cat gallery, thankyou!

 

Past conversations with my cat – 63

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This is Chester.  He’s decided to be my personal alarm clock this morning.

It was a two-pronged attack.

First, he jumps from his bed, which, in our room, is a pile of blankets on a massage chair, on to our bed just about where my pillows are, regardless of the fact I might be lying there.

It can be quite disconcerting, as he decided to go for a walk across the back of the bed.

Even more so if he decided to let us know he’s not happy.

Come to think of it, when is he ever happy?

Second, he wanders down the end of the bed and lies down on your feet.  Being a Tonkinese, he’s a lot heavier than he looks.

If you decide to gently ease him off with a few subtle foot movements, he then starts attacking your feet.  This can be a painful exercise in summer if all that covers your feet is a sheet.

So, this morning…

We stayed up late to watch the last four episodes of Jack Ryan series 2.  It’s one of those things where you get hooked, and don’t realise the passing of time.

Consequently this morning I’m tired, and it’s past cat feeding time.

I should know better than to ignore him.

When the first two wake up calls fail, he goes to a third, comes right up in my face and taps me on the shoulder, then lets me know just how unhappy he is with me.

Oh well, sleeping in is over.

 

 

So far this has been an interesting month

Aside from the fact we seem to be emerging on the other side of the COVID 19 pandemic, we are constantly reminded that this could very well be the calm before the second storm.

Or as one person described it, we’re in the eye of a cyclone, having gone through one destructive phase, and now are awaiting the next.

It seems to have a degree of inevitability about it.  No cure, a virus loves cold weather, and people who forget very easily the things they should be doing, like distancing, and not spreading germs.

And will we learn from our mistakes?

It seems to me not.

I went to a hardware store the other day to get a latch for the gate, and, yes, they have the markings on the floor, directions for foot traffic, signs in the aisles saying there should be a maximum of four, and to stay one and a half meters apart.

Tell that to the couple who continually pushed in at the shelves, completely oblivious of the fact they should be social distancing.  I guess the fact they were wearing masks meant that they didn’t have to abide by the other rules.

Fools like this are why we’re going to finish up being locked back up again, and, worst of all, they’ll be the ones yelling the loudest how unfair it is.

Honestly, unless people can physically see something, it doesn’t exist in their eyes.  You can bet if a mad man with an automatic weapon walked in and started shooting randomly their distancing would be the first thing on their minds.

Sorry, I’m just angry at the many thoughtless morons I see every day.  The trouble is, they were probably thoughtless morons before all this, and this had just brought it to everyone’s attention.

Now that I’ve got off my soapbox, I find it a little more difficult these days, not having my constant companion, sometimes smirking, sometimes talkative, sometimes a right royal pain in the backside, but, nevertheless, always there.

It’s not the same talking to myself.

Now it really does feel like the first sign of madness.

Especially so since we still, as older and more vulnerable people, self isolate as much as possible.

Past conversations with my cat – 62

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This is Chester.  You wouldn’t think he would have an interest in horse racing.

But…

He does.  Today, in Australia, is the day the Melbourne Cup is run.  It seems to be the biggest thing on the racing calendar, not only in Melbourne but the rest of the country.

Chester, as usual, doesn’t seem to think it’s all that great.

He wants to know why the cat races are not televised.

What cat races?

It seems he had been watching Fox Sports, and there’s dog races, greyhounds he says.

I’ve heard of them, even went once or twice when we lived in Melbourne, where there was a dog race track.

\Well, he says, if they can race dogs, they can race cats.

I appear a little sceptical.  What are they going to chase?

Mice.

Isn’t that a little cruel, I mean, you’ll get the animal rights people up in arms.

Over mice, he snorts.  No one likes mice.  But if it’s a problem, why not rats?  Everyone hates rats.

So, I say, you’re up for it then.  We could make a killing.

A shake of the head, and nose in the air.  “Of course not, I’m a pedigree cat.  That’s for the alley cats.  I’ll be watching from the Royal box thankyou.”