The Secret Life of Cats

I do sometimes wonder what the cats get up to when I’m not home. Take Rosie for instance – we just went out for nearly 4hrs and she was sitting in the exact same spot as she was when we left. Mojo on the other hand was doing the usual prowl around the perimeter of the house, ensuring that there are no intrusions from the outside world – not so much as a whisp of air gets past him.

Sometimes, when my imagination takes me, I wonder whether they are secretly plotting. There COULD be some secret tunnel into my house whereby hundreds of cats gather in my house to plot the demise of the human race. After all, they already have us under the paw and they know which side their milk bowl gets placed. You might think I’m crazy and if I was actually serious about this, you’d probably be right.

But there are things I can’t explain.

Like at least 4 to 5 neighbourhood moggies who have taken to hanging out around our house. They don’t fight, they don’t cause a fuss. They just sit and well, they wait. A few of them have even waltzed right on into the garage of our house – almost as if they think they live here. I can’t explain why my house has suddenly become a magnet for moggies.

Has the word gotten out about the plush pet beds? Or maybe the cat park and promises of a bigger, better one at our new house? Or maybe Mojo’s boasting about how he gets roo meat at least two times a day and more if he asks for it? Hmmm….

I swear, if I see a white fluffy persian start frequenting my turf and he just happens to answer to Mr Tinkles, it may seriously do my head in.

( Yes, Cats & Dogs is one of my favourite movies of all time – maybe I’ve just watched it too much lately. )

Hey buddy - this is a two cat household ONLY!

Peak hour traffic – not fun!

And it’s even less fun with a hysterically wailing moggie in the back who does not understand what exactly a car is and more to the point, why she has to even be in it in the first place. Mojo is a seasoned traveller, having been up and down the east coast of Queensland so many times before that he just curls up and goes to sleep. Getting him to go in the carrier in the first place is always a bit of a hassle….more often than not involving a fair bit of chasing until I can get him in a confined spot from which he can’t escape. Hey, at least that’s my exercise done for the day! But at least once he’s in there, it’s no drama.

Rosie on the other hand is easy enough to catch to put in there but once she’s in, the wailing doesn’t stop. And that’s before we even get out of the house! For the duration of the trip and until she’s allowed to get out at the other end, there is this continuous siren of hysterical wailing. Consequently, we don’t just go for drives for the hell of it and keep it to times when she absolutely has to go somewhere….usually the vet. Hmm….maybe the association of carrier + car = vet is the reason for her hysteria but honestly, where else would we go? It’s not like you pop your cat in the car to go to the beach or the park like you would a dog.

But I digress. It seems that both the cats are well with no apparent issues which is always good to know. Mojo is extra unimpressed this visit – being over 10yo, he was up for a senior health check, comprising of his vaccination, blood tests, urine sample and having his blood pressure taken. If you’re wondering how they get the urine – they stick a needle straight into the bladder. So you can see why he would be extra shitty with the vet but fortunately she clipped his claws before she took him in for the rest of it…smart woman. He’s a tad on the scrawny side again but otherwise good as gold. Rosie on the other hand has found his missing weight plus a bit more. So she’s off to a weight management clinic the Wednesday after Easter. It’s a free service The Cat Clinic runs (sponsored by Hills) because there’s been a bit of an influx of overweight kitties….they talk about portion control, best food mixes and trying to get them more active. Sounds a lot like going to a human dietitian….if it’s good enough for me, it’s good enough for her too I think!

Are we there yet???

Macro madness

I was a bit bored while waiting in the hairdresser’s this morning for my new colour to set and so I had a quick flick through Flickr on my mobile. And what should I see but Leigh giving me a dig about how she hadn’t seen any evidence of me using my new macro lens. Well I could hardly disappoint her could I?

So of course, I went for my usual victim and I’ve started a new Macro Shots set on my Flickr stream. I took a fair few, love the rapid fire that I can do with the 40D. So if you’re bored, that’s where you’ll find the new macro stuff – the old stuff, well it’s just in the photostream somewhere to be sorted at a time to be arranged in the future. For the uninitiated, that means never.

Do you think she's flipping me the bird?

Talk to the paw!

It’s only when I go sifting through my hard drive that I realise just how many photos I’ve taken of the cats. Over the last 2yrs, I’ve accumulated around 1200 shots of passable quality. Thanks to the digital age, I’m not forced to choose one shot over another to put in an album. Now that I have a Flickr Pro account, I don’t even have to be selective with my uploads. Mojo has gotten to the stage where he will squint or close his eyes when he hears a beep or sees the start of the flash. He just has to see the DSLR now and he heads out through the cat flap. Rosie on the other hand remains willing to be my close up queen.

I took this one on my old Panasonic after about 50 shots in macro and to be honest, I can’t even remember what it was I was trying to capture. I guess I was feeling a bit fussy like Rah and wanted it to be just right. Regardless of what I was going for, Rosie demonstrated quite nicely that even a poser has her limits – no more photos today thank you!

And so this is Christmas…

And what have you done?

Well personally I’ve managed to:

• Wrap the few presents I’m getting people that require wrapping (thank Yoda for gift cards and third party gift services);
• Achieve my “miracle a week” at work in a record 3 day working week;
• Not gone completely mental at the supermarket while doing my grocery shopping, despite the pushing and shoving over the last 10 punnets of strawberries (all of which I decided were too inferior for a $6.95 per punnet price tag);
• Done a mad dash to the supermarket after work today to get enough meat for the cats over Christmas (they threatened to kill me in my sleep if they had to subsist on dry food alone);
• Vowed to never again agree to host Christmas at my house;
• Decided that it really does not matter if you don’t have matching table cloths, napkins and plastic plates and cutlery, only to find that virtually everyone else I know disagrees with this;
• Resolved that it’s my house and my rules so other people’s opinions on whether blue, purple and red plates are appropriately Christmassy really do not matter;
• Counselled my bestie who was having a pre-Christmas crisis of whether or not people should be allowed to socialise around her brand new lounge suite when food and beverages are close at hand;
• Prepared the fruit platter, peeled, chopped and washed vegies in preparation for burning murdering roasting tomorrow;
• Decided that 2kg of roast beef, a whole leg of ham, a stuffed turkey breast roll and several kilos of prawns is probably enough meat for 8 people and I do not need to cook a corned beef “just in case”.

Cats....they hate karaoke too!

Honestly, it’s a wonder anyone gets out of the Christmas season with their sanity still intact. The big day is tomorrow and no doubt you will be surrounded by family and/or friends (whether you like it or not) to mark its passing. No doubt you will get at least one gift that makes you scratch your head and wonder what on earth you’re going to do with it. And I strongly suspect, you’ll feel like going into the toilet or some other room where you pray no one can find you and quietly scream to yourself and wonder whether anyone will notice if you stay in there for the next 8hrs or however long it is until they all go home (or you can go home to yours).

Whatever Christmas holds for you tomorrow, have a fantastic day, enjoy it and be thankful that it comes but once a year. Merry Christmas folks!

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…

After last year’s success with the big Christmas tree, I decided that I would tempt fate and put it up in the lounge room this year where it is a little more visible. After all, last year both the cats pretty much ignored the big tree and were content with decimating the decorations on the tiny 2ft version I had near the front door. Occasionally I still find stray decorations from it floating around the place. The only thing is, I forgot to bring the 2ft one back out from storage.

Maybe Rosie thought that we had given her an upgrade this year but she started showing a lot of interest in it this time. Initially, she only pulled off part of the tinsel and a few baubles but shortly after I took this photo, I looked back to find her completely up the tree to about the third row of branches. I’ve since put out the 2ft tree and she’s content to knock it over and give it bunny kicks. Let’s just hope it sees the month out….it and our big tree!