Cat Tree came yesterday! I spent most of the evening building it, so I shall regale you with pictures 😀
It has lots of parts…
Halfway done, and done! Monkey and Milo approve. Captain was off elsewhere, sleeping.
Daytime pics from today for good measure
And a sleepy cat from two days ago to close 🙂
Nienke sent me these the other day, this is what happens when Milo is whining to go outside, then is allowed to go out but notices the door gets closed behind him. He immediately turns around and wants to come back in 😀
And then after he is back inside, this happens 🙂
So, while we’re on cats, here’s some more pics from this month:
Milo likes the laundry basket.
Captain is learning how to sit on a lap… It’s a work in progress…
This is my staircase, you cannot have it.
It’s been six months since Murphy died, and I started missing a third cat in this big house. Nienke herself doesn’t (yet) want a new cat, so a little while ago she asked what I thought of a cat for my birthday. Needless to say, I was rather happy 🙂 We then involved my Mom to join in, as sheltercats are still fairly pricey. Since I have a week off now, we decided to go to the shelter on Monday. We could pick out a cat, and he could get used to stuff with me being around for those first few days.
I had in mind a young cat, two or younger. Figured it would be easier to introduce that into the pack.
At the shelter there were a bunch of more special needs cats out and about in one part of the building, and two more, a red and a black one, in a smaller room. The rest were in the cages waiting. After chatting with one of the workers, about the cats present it turned out that basically all young cats are fostered and the ones here are regular adults. I understand that fostering is good for the cats, but it is also hella inconvenient as a lot of foster addresses are in the city or elsewhere and then you have to go there to see the cat. So I figured I check out the ones present, after all, adult cats are fun, too, as evidenced by Monkey who was four when I got him.
One of them was still young, about three, and had just come back from fostering. The worker released that one from the cage so I could watch and interact. I liked her a lot, she was a slinky thing, and seemed interested in the room. She didn’t mind the other cat, the black one, walking around and being interested in her. She didn’t really seem interested in the people, though.
After she was put back in her cage, I checked out the others in the cages. All the while, the black one was calmly moving about, eating, or asking for attention. The red one was sleeping on top of a cat tree and didn’t really seem to care we were there. While checking out the cats, I kept going back to the black one. He was quite calm and loved the attention. His behaviour while the slinky cat was out seemed to indicate he was fine with other cats. He had a bit of a hissy when red cat came down from the tree and got too close (by then it also wanted attention) but otherwise was fine.
Slinky cat, according to the worker, had some notes that she wasn’t always very friendly towards other cats in her foster home, and with the head bumps the black one kept giving me, I chose him.
We took him home, and I put him up in my bedroom. I’d put a litter box there and some food and water, so he had a private place to get used to things. He first spent some time under the bed. I installed myself on the bed to read and get him used to my sounds. He came out for a wee bit to eat and sniff things, then went back under. Later he moved to on top of the bed and he checked out the view from the window sill.
After thinking about it for some time, I named him Captain Blackbeard. Or, in full: Captain Edward “Blackbeard” Teach 🙂
In the evening, I started opening the door a wee bit. Captain was carefully curious from the inside. Monkey ignored it. Milo was carefully curious, and hissy, from the outside. After Monkey and Milo were gone again, I opened the door further and, with a bit of coaxing, he explored the hallway.
At night, he slept on my bed mostly. In the morning, he let me know quite clearly that he was awake, and that he was hungy, and that I should feed him like NOW. Then, I opened the door again, and this time he went out to check on his own.
A little later, I let Monkey and Milo outside for a bit and brough Captain down stairs so he could explore there and get a feel for the scents and the layout. He was a bit apprehensive, but calm and seemed to like it 🙂
Went to see Guardians for the third time, with Kim, Nico and Jeroen. I love that movie more every time I see it.
Monkey today, and Milo a few days ago.
I had a fun weird dream last night 😀
There was a war going on, and I was the general of one of the sides. I don’t know who we were fighting, or even why. I just knew, my side was the French Horde. I can understand where the Horde came from, as I have been playing a fair amount of Warcraft, but why they were French, I haven’t the slightest idea 😀
Anyway, we had to assault the enemy base, which was on the other end of a large pass. The pass was generally straight, but twisty because of rock outcroppings and other nature things sticking out. Added to that, there were many, many gates in the pass. For the WoW players among us, it was basically a version of the Dragonmaw pass leading to Grim Batol, except straight.
The gates were very, very tall; easily 8-10 meters high. And every gate was swarming with defenders. We couldn’t get too close, because they had archers and would throw all kinds of crap down on us. Boiling oil, pitch, rocks, etc… All the while yelling insults at us, Monty Python and the Holy Grail style.
Fortunately, we had trebuchets, and with the copious amounts of rocky outcroppings we had more than enough ammunition for them. And lucky for us, the gates were wood. So it took us a long time, but we managed to break down the various gates.
Unfortunately, I awoke before we reached the enemy stronghold 🙁
My companion yesterday morning
Friday I went to see Lucy with Gert and Nienke. It was an interesting film, exploring what might happen if we could use all of our brain at the same time. Even though it starts from the old, flawed, premise that we only use 10% of our brain, it is still entertaining to watch. It has some pacing issues where the first half goes fairly slow, and the second half fairly fast. I would have liked to see it the other way ’round as I found the first half, where Lucy delivers the drugs and ends up with it in her system, less interesting then the second half, where Lucy has figured out what the drugs do to her, and goes about trying to help herself before it kills her. The movie also has Morgan Freeman in it, which is always good.
After, we went to Starbucks and dropped Nienke off at the station.
Gert and I then went back to the cinema for Hercules. No deep thoughts necessary for this one, it was pure entertainment. I liked it a lot better than I had previously expected. It was a nice treatment where the myth really is larger than the man. Good to see how his friends help, and helped, him achieve the things he gets hired for, all the while using their tricks to bolster the myth.
I came home Tuesday to a new edition of Flow on the door mat as well as next season’s theater catalog. After the first run through, I was on 9 shows I wanted to see.
My Uncle’s birthday was Wednesday so went there in the afternoon.
Then Thursday I had planned to go see The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared after work, but it rained so much I decided against it. Instead I went to the Bruna at the train station and bought books (including The Ocean at the End of the Lane, by Neil Gaiman). Once home, I watched The Normal Heart (I had recorded it when it premiered on HBO Sunday).
It’s a movie, after the play of the same name, about the beginning of the AIDS crisis in New York City in the early 80’s. Main character is the, gay, writer Ned Weeks. As more and more people around him get ‘gay cancer’ and die from it, he notices that mainstream medicine and the government choose to look the other way. He and his friends form Gay Men’s Health Crisis, an advocacy group to raise awareness and money and help those affected and afflicted by the disease. Ned favours a more aggressive, vocal approach which conflicts with the more diplomatic way the rest of his friends choose. Meanwhile, in his personal life, he falls in love with journalist Felix. The two start a relationship, but then Felix gets AIDS as well.
It is a difficult movie to watch. It is raw and deep and open, quite literally like a festering wound. It is beautiful, intensely fragile and strong at the same time. Watching it left me devastated and in pieces. I will be watching it again, and I will definitely be buying the blu ray when it’s released. And I only buy blu rays of movies I really, really, love.
Saturday: Lounging on the bed with Milo 🙂
The Normal Heart stars Mark Ruffalo as Ned, Matt Bomer as Felix and has, among other, Jim Parsons, Julia Roberts, Jonathan Groff and Alfred Molina in it.
Friday I went to the cinema with Kim to see Maleficent. I liked the movie. The visuals were very pretty, and the back story they gave for Maleficent was nice. The acting was okay to good. Angelina Jolie was good, as was the guy playing her lackey. But the dude playing the king sported the most awful fake Scottish accent. And later on, in a scene at his castle, all of a sudden mid-scene half the men there acquired the same horrible accent… And the ending felt rather rushed.
Back home, I went through the the theater catalog again. Got it down to 7… But am talking with Mom about going to see War Horse in January…
Saturday I played a lot of Warcraft, and I read The Ocean at the End of the Lane. It’s a lovely, lovely book. It tells the story of a little boy who meets the people who live at the end of the lane, the Hempstocks. And there is something odd about this family. There are no men, and they have an ocean in the garden. And then an old evil manages to enter this world, and he needs the Hempstocks to survive. It has magic and supernatural stuff and all those things you find under the veneer of modern day life (well, modern day sixties life). It is definitely a recommended read.
Also, the new birthday calendar I ordered to hang in the downstairs toilet came. Unfortunately packed, but very, very, pretty 🙂
The new bed? It sleeps fantastically! 😀
Yesterday in the morning, after sleeping in and doing some laundry I put the closet back. That left the bed, and the sidetable I use as altar space.
In the afternoon, we celebrated Uncle Tammo’s birthday. Had a great time, nice to catch up with the cousins as I don’t see them as often. As expected Uncle Louw was also there, so I asked him if he would come home with me for a sec to help with the bed. I tried with Nienke earlier in the week, but that didn’t go very well. With Uncle Louw, it went much better and we got the thing upstairs in one piece 😀
In the evening, I put the bed together, and returned the Altar and rest of the things.
And! It started snowing! So this morning, I woke up gloriously on my new bed, and was greeted with a beautiful white world outside my window.
Was a bit tricky to get through to get to Pilates, but I made it. After coming home again, I dug a path from the front door to the road.
Spent most of the day playing WoW and watching stuff on Netflix, which I reactivated yesterday. Now with an iPad, and the improved offerings, the cost-benefit analysis was much more postive 😀
Hmm, tricky. If I have to pick a specific moment, I think I would go with getting my university Bachelor’s degree. I’m partial to intellect and intelligence, so achievements of the mind are quite meaningful to me.
However, I’m also proud of my continuous efforts in gaining Milo’s trust, and proud of Milo himself <3 He was such a scaredy cat, literally, when I got him. Running off at loud noises, weird shapes, unexpected things. Skittish to be approached and not often found near me. But now, two years later, he’s around me all the time. Whenever he can he will follow me around. If I lay down, he comes to sit on my chest and knead my belly. When I am in a room, most often he will be there, too. He no longer runs off when weird things happen, and if he does, he immediately turns around to check if it was worth running away from. And, he allows touch at so many more spots than before.