My cute little one

This morning, I hope, was the peak of the existence of crazy cat. I have just dropped him off at the new nice vet, to have him fixed. Un-crazed. Emasculated. Nutered. Turned back into my beloved cute cat. I wonder if that's how you would spell nutered, I must admit it's a word I rarely use. Yesterday we became best friends again. I was home all day with him, playing, cuddling, relaxing. He wasn't crazy cat even once. Until this morning.

At 6 AM he woke me up. This I hope, is a very temporary trend that'll wear off really really soon. He was in pursuit of Putte, a neighbour's cat. Putte is a very relaxed, and calm old cat. He knows his way around the block, and ignores cute cat completely, as long as he does not attack Putte in crazy cat mode of course. This morning Putte was standing on the plastic tractor located outside my bedroom window, looking as relaxed as ever. Last night I prepared by not shutting the curtains entirely, so cute cat would be able to look outside without breaking through the glass (i.e. waking me up, how simple-minded of me) . Even when Putte saw cute cat in the window (now slowly switching to crazy cat) , he didn't seem to mind. He stood on the tractor, as if posing for a very serious photo shoot. If there had been a Dolce Gabbana collection for cats (and maybe they doon the japanese market), that was what he was sporting. Occasionally scouting for a predator attack. Occasionally to have a sip of water, from the puddle collected on the tractor stool.

Crazy cat was inflated it seemed, his back and tail now at least three times the original size. I got up to see what was going on outside. If Cujo was attacking my building, or if a bird flu infected pigeon was slowly pecking its way through the wall. By looking at crazy cat, anything really could be taking place outside. But as you know, it was only Putte. When Putte saw me in the window though, he started to look a bit frighened. Before, I used to scare him off. Maybe this is what he suddenly remembered when I came into view. Why I scared him, you ask? Well, when cute cat was baby cat, he did his very best to scare Putte off what baby cat wanted to claim as his territory. I could see Putte laughing viciously inside, looking at baby cat with a smug smirk on his face. He didn't budge. He looked the other way. Baby cat was by no means what you would call scary. But I didn't want my little baby cat to feel small and, well, like a pussy. So I used to scare Putte off, behind baby cat's back. Only to let baby cat think that he was actually the one, cool enough to scare off that huge experienced street cat. There wasn't anything I wouldn't do for baby cat, and this still goes now that he has become cute cat. I spent a weekend building him a climbing post. We go out walking half an hour every day. I buy him gourmet food, and a wealth of toys to play with. I posted personal adds for him, to fix him up with a couple of hot she-cats. Recently, I also added some shelfs to my wall, and connected them with a small wooden bridge. All in order for the cutest cat ever to be able to freely walk around the rooms, high up under the celing. He is a very spoiled cat, but look how cute he is on that little bridge! Can you really blame me?

The lights were on, but no-one to answer the door bell

Did you know there are 24 different measurements you need, if you want to sew something properly for you? I wasn't aware of that my body even had 24 measurements, less that they would ever actually be relevant for me to know. I recently started taking a course in pattern design, and it has so far been very interesting. It is tricky though. You have to think for yourself, and make a lot of calculations. Especially, you need to divide things by 6. Don't ask me why. So I find it quite tricky, eventhough I would say I am of average intelligence. Previously, Strangelady was the weirdest one there, but today she had to resign from trgfgy (eeh, crazy cat sends his regards) her title. She will from now on be referred to as Quite Strangelady, cause today actual Strangelady arrived. But first, let me tell you about Quite Strangelady, and how she came to deserve that name.

Quite Strangelady last was late for the first course session, confused, and repeated herself over and over (I'll admit, I have a serious problem with people repeating themselves). We were asked to bring a scale ruler 1:400 to class. Within two hours, she had said four times that she didn't quite understand what a scale ruler was (well neither did I, but I caught on when I saw one). But she didn't stop there, she thereafter (all four times) went on to share with the group that her husband had a logarithmic ruler at home, if that was what a scale ruler was (Teacher explained (also four times) that by no means is a logarithmic ruler the same as a scale ruler).

For today's session, Strangelady joined the group. She was about 25 minutes late for our 2 h session, but did not seem to bother (or know). Neither was she aware of that this was actually the second time class met, not the first. I will try to describe Strangelady to you all, without hiding my prejudices, cause why? Strangelady looks like your regular bag lady. She lacked a couple of teeth, and spoke with a very broad south swedish-accent. Well let's say, it won't make you come of very smart. She reeked a mix of old and new tobacco, and looked like she had been on drugs for the better part of her at least 55 year long life. She was asked by Teacher to do the task the others did last time, and try to catch up with the rest of us. The teacher explained her what to do, but it didn't seem to get through. She started drawing the 1:400 mm scale pattern of a dress, but was actually unable to draw a straight line even when using a ruler. I felt sorry for her, and tried to help her by explaining, showing and actually laying out the ruler for her. But I guess you can't help someone by drawing their lines for them. Poor woman, I can't help but empathetically wonder when it went wrong for her.

A devil at rest?

This morning cute cat woke me up. Now, being woken up isn't always so pleasant, but sometimes it can make you quite happy. Can't it?

Maybe when you are being woken up by a cute cat purring next to you in bed? But this is not what happened.

When you wake up, feeling quite fresh. But this is not what happened.

When someone you love brings you breakfast in bed? But this obviously not what cute cat did.

I'll tell you what happened this morning. Cute cat switched on crazy cat-mode around 6 AM, by meowing hysterically, and trying to get a glimpse of possible outdoors-activity going on. This was hard for him, since the curtains were shut, and it was dark outside. But this did of course not stop him. He tried to look hard at the curtains to make them move, when this didn't help, he tried to break out through the windows by scratching the glass and the window frames. And he did this to every window in sequence, repeatedly. I put a pillow over my head, trying to continue sleeping. Naïve, I must say.

He then started walking all over me, trying to bite my toes and catch my fingers (I was NOT trying to play with him, no matter what his version of the story might be). I removed the pillow, and tried to pet him. He was reluctant. He tried the windows again. Without positive outcome from this second attempt, he again walked over to me. I was snoozing in my bed, trying my absolute best to ignore him. What happened next is the following; he places himself next to my face, aims his cat arse towards the wall in front of me, and sprays. I tell you, if you're not awake before, this will really get you started.

I did real good today.

Until today I was under the impression that the days were getting ever shorter here in Sweden, as we slowly approach the winter solstice. I thought that it was a very stable process, devoid of lapses. I now know better. Today was the slowest day I have probably ever experienced. Longer than Midsummer Day, which is otherwise quite popularly referred to in context of any day length records. And today was also worse than Christmas Day, a very local swedish expression. You see, on Christmas Day you realise that all the fun associated with the winter has passed (i.e. Christmas Eve), and all you are bloody stuck with now is crap for the next couple of months. Slushy weather, darkness, coldness, greyness, a bit more darkness, wind, wet mittens, and slipping incidents. Today was a day back at school, for a mandatory PhD course in information retrieval.

I have today learnt to search for scientific papers in a database called PubMed. For six hours. Could have been very useful for me, had it not been that I have searched this database on a quasi-daily basis for the last three years. Even a slug would have caught on by now. But mandatory is mandatory. Now I have only one 'day-course' left, apart from the 4 'whole-week-courses'. I hope these courses will be something else than a tribute to talking very slowly, about quite obvious things, putting an 'eeh' or 'uhm' between most of the sentences, sometimes also between the individual words of that sentence. I guess these librarians teaching today had seen the expression 'rhetorical pause' somewhere, and today decided to take the thing to the next level.

To top this day of, I needed to shop for groceries (which I loathe completely!), and on my way back, my rear tire (with all the cogs for my 21 gears) dediced to deflate after wheeling over some stupid thorn.

But one should always try to find the bright parts, and desperately grip on to them, continuously repeat them as some kind of mantra (my cognitive psychotherapist taught me this). So here goes:
'I did real good, sitting in class for 6 hours, maintaining focus for major part of this time, I was so good going to the stupid grocery store, picking up lots of stuff so I don't have to return for maybe another week, I am so proud of myself for going to the tyre-pumping place after I noticed my flat tyre, (eventhough my blood glucose levels were real low, and I was quite annoyed from the grocery-thing) to make sure the tube was actually totally broken, I did real good today!'

What's cooler than cold?

Diagnosis: Catlover
And believe you me, I wanted him to jump. Maybe I could also let him catch that poor dragonfly in front of him. And maybe could I also be as kind, as to let the cat enjoy the victory he would definitely feel, just before splashing into the pond. He might be the cutest cat (and he is), but at the moment we are not the best of friends. He is trying to provoke the majority of the vessels in my brain disrupt, by continuously emitting very loud 'meaaaaoooows'. If they'd only been regular, and/or similar, then I'm sure my brain would be able to find a mechanism block them out.

Cute cat recently made a very clear leap from nice baby cat to convincingly adolescent cat. He started shaking his tail at, for me, random bushes in our garden. In his view though, most likely extremely well planned spray-attacks at local strategically placed shrubberies, to ensure that all passing cats would instantly be aware of that this here was NOT their territory, so sod! This morning he also wanted convince me, having my innocent muesli breakfast in front of the telly, that the wall and my sofa was NOT my territory, so sod! For the first time during this last week, I am actually thankful for having my nose completely clogged with icky infected stuff. Truely thankful for being unable to smell anything, including the otherwise quite distinct smell of adolescent/adult male feline urine currently filling my apartment. Thankful for my viruses multiplying, thankful!

Apart from the meows, and the sprayings in my general direction, I also found out today from my insurance company that I will be kindly allowed to pay 300 euro myself for cute cats recent visits to the doctor's. So you can maybe see why we are not the very best of friends at the moment, but I'll let you in on my secret. I have the upper hand. Cute cat is now resting on my bed, calmly unaware of that he has only until friday morning to enjoy the presence of selected male private parts.