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 🙂
I ordered a ridiculously large cat tree for my monsters 😀 It’s fantastic, and I think they’re gonna love it!
Wednesday I went to see If I Stay with Ingrid and Nienke. It was a fun movie (insofar a movie about people dying or almost dying is fun). It matched the book well enough, and I liked the actors (especially the parents).
The next day, as if to compensate, wasn’t so good. I felt out of sorts and crappy the whole day, and then when I went home I got annoyed at the darkness (brain: stupid winter), the train (brain: why don’t you leave now instead of on your scheduled time in 15 minutes), the people in line at the Burger King (brain: order faster!) and the people working at Burger King (brain: gimme ma food!).
Luckily, when I got home, I cuddled the cats and made snacks for Friday’s party which made me feel better.
Friday evening we had a little Halloween party with some friends. We’d decorated the house and with the snacks it was all set. To stay on theme, we had Halloween music for background and later watched a Halloween movie 😀
Intestines and feces
Pumpkins and stuffed roaches
Severed fingers
The whole of it
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.
Had a needed lie-in this morning. Last night I went out for dinner with my aunt and uncle, their kids and grandkids, and my parents. All in honour of my uncle’s 80th birthday. We went back to Yankee Doodle, where we’d also been with them last March. Had a great time, but didn’t sleep well. I woke up around three and lay awake until seven. I entertained myself playing iPad games and messing with the cats.
When I got downstairs, I found Captain had slept on the sofa 🙂 So much progress in just a few days!
And in the afternoon my new Pop Vinyls arrived. Special ordered from Australia a few weeks ago, which is not something I’ll probably repeat soon. The shipping charges are atrocious. I picked the cheapest option and it still was half of the cost of the dolls while taking weeks and offering no tracking or anything. I figured it would be okay, but it is still weird waiting for it. Ah well, winged Castiel and the mystery item I bought for Nienke for December gift giving make up for it.
Now I have to go and get ready. I’m off to the Oosterpoort tonight for my birthday present to myself: a concert by the St. Petersburg Chamber Choir singing the Vespers of Rachmaninoff.
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.
Yesterday was Kim’s birthday, so Nienke and I went over for cake, the giving of pretty gifts, mutual merriment and cat-shaped entertainment.
Lola
Also, earlier this week, I bought a typewriter! It’s an Olivetti Lettera, so I named it Oliver 🙂
Oliver
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.
