Anonymously Famous

What is it about cats that make them so emotional? Is the word I’m looking for emotional? Flighty? Paranoid? Assassin-y? And their memories are so incredibly selective!

For example, last night just as I had gotten into bed Owen decided that now would be the perfect opportunity to go outside and do ..... I assume that he has another family elsewhere that feeds him fresh salmon and cream and makes sure that he has his own hot water bottle ... I usually try to wait him out, but when he starts to literally climb the walls (the sound of his claws on the walls is not unlike nails down a chalk board) I give in like the weak and easily trainable human I am and let him outside.

Owen, if he could, would be a permanent outside cat so I’ve stopped fighting a losing battle, and since I’ve become more ammenable to him coming and going, I have been getting more head butt pats from him, and curling up next to me on the lounge and just general love-like feelings from him, so it’s working out for us.

Marley, however does enjoy the indoor loving. There are times when he willingly goes outside, and there are times where he will hide underneath a bed and hope that I forget that he is there and he has the run of The! Entire! House! when I go to work. Last night though, he decided he wanted to go out whe Owen went, and like all people who are owned by cats, I tried explaining to Marles that I was going to bed, I and may not wake up when he knocks to come back in. (They knock; I think that swing their bums into the door, but whatever they do it’s definitely a knocking noise that is produced, and neither of them climb the gauze to announce their intentions to be inside now.)

He still went out. I still went to bed, and I slept all the night through, so I have no idea if he tried to come in later or not. I think though that it is safe to assume he tried, because he wasn’t waiting at the back door with Owen when I went to let them in for their breakfast. The only time Marley isn’t waiting for food is when I have done something horribly wrong and he is trying to prove to me that I am a terrible person who can’t be trusted.

He turned up about 5 hours later when I was outside cleaning up the garage, looked at me and then ran away. Came back 15 mintues later to look at me some more, make sure I noticed him, and then went and hide underneath a bush where I could only see his face. Where he made sure I could only see his face. And his face said “I can’t believe you did that to me. You are such an arse.” An hour later he moved to a bush that was closer to me to really make sure I could see his face, and this face said “Such. An. Arse.”

It took me another 45 minutes to convince him to come inside and eat, and while I helf the door open he ran inside as if I was making him come inside to be tortured instead of simply wanting to feed him something nutritious that he hadn’t killed. Then after eating he went and hid under the spare bed in the room he thinks is his. In case I decided that he must go back outside, when we all know I never made him to outside in the first place.

I hate how cats like to re-write history so you’re always the bad guy. I bet he yawns in my face tonight when I’m trying to sleep in what he believes will be a fair and just retalition for forcing him to be homeless last night.

ETA: Yep, revenge has been completed by Marley. It's amazing how comfortable clean folded up washing is when a cat is tired after a hard day plotting the destruction on the world. Clean folded navy clothing.

Favourite swears: My time most used and all time favourite swear words aren’t even real swear words.

I’m quite partial to using “son of a goat!” if the need arises. I, of course, use that instead of the traditional “Son of a bitch.” (also known by the quaint spelling sonovabitch) because by replacing the b-word with ‘goat’ you can use it often in front of children, and really, that’s one of the most important things an aunt can do. Because sometimes you really need to swear, but the small people make it difficult for you to do so without their parents having stern words with you.

My other all-time that isn’t really swearing is “Holy Mary Mother of Pear!!” or just “Mother of Pearl!”. (And if I’m only saying “Mother Of Pearl!” It was be said in a gasp almost whispered. I don’t know why I must say it like that, I just must. I do like how it makes me sound as though I’m from a different era. I don’t often bring it out, so when I do, you know I”m serious.

I bloody well forgot my drink bottle today. I was half way to the bus stop when I realised, and looking back on what time I discovered I didn’t have it I probably did have time to turn back, but I would have cut it fine. Dammit! I should have risked it. I could have always driven my car! If I was a teenager this would be hash tagged #worstdayever, but since I am not a teenager, I can only grumble about it (and while I’m grumbling, my hip still aches since the fun run on Sunday! When did I get middle-aged?). As I’ve mentioned before, work is a 40 minutes drive outside of town, so you bring with you what you need food wise. There’s drinking water out here, but I find the cups are not   good size. You’re constantly getting up to re-fill the tiny tiny things. So I have two cups of water on the go today to cut down on trips to the kitchen. And even doing that I’ve managed to make 5 trips to the kitchen so far that are purely related to water, not tea or snack related and it’s only gone 10 am. It is going to be a very long day. It’s 4 pm now, and I am thirsty, but I am so sick of walking to the kitchen. I have started timing my jaunts to the kitchen to co-incide with toilet and food breaks, but I am over it. I’ll have a glass of water at 4:30 pm to saite me until I get home. And I shall buy an extra water bottle and keep it at work. Never again!!

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I have a theory about wall paper. Wall paper goes out of style, when the next generation starts owning real estate and has the pain in the bottom of trying to get it off walls when they are renovating. I am speaking as someone who wanted to paint a room, and it took me three days to get the freaking decorative wallpaper frieze off the wall. It was like 6 inches wide! Not even that!! Three days!!!

Ahem. Then, when that generation has moved on and sold their houses to the next generation, the new generation sees photographs of wallpapered walls, and sighs over the elegance and style and sophistication of the designs, and plaster it up with no thought of the work involved later on down the track.

What I’m trying to say is – people, do yourself and people you don’t know and aren’t even born yet a favour and don’t wall paper. Hire someone to draw something pretty on your walls if you must have some sort of design. The next person to renovate the house will not curse you, and you’ll be giving to the community by employing a local artist. And, it will be one of a kind that every one will be incredibly jealous of.

There is a gentleman who whenever he visits our site, he brings a box of cinnamon doughnuts and a box of cheese and bacon buns. It’s very exciting. If I have an important job out here, that job would be the email I send out to different departments letting them know the the doughnut man has arrived and he has bought with him glourious food stuffs. I once sent the email out, and it seemed as if some of the people I sent the email to actually beat the email. It would have not been even 30 seconds since I pressed the send button, and the people on the doughnut mailing list started coming into the processing wing.

Ah, yes. I acutally have a mailing list set up to tell people that there are doughnuts and buns for them to eat. I used to walk around, but after a while it became obvious who would want free food and who didn’t, so I created the mailing list “Doughnut people.” I like to think that these people are sitting at their desks, having a boring day, and then up pops the notification that there are Free!! Dougnuts!! And Scrolls!! And that makes them happy.

One of the great things about the doughnut man, is we’re never really sure as to when he is going to appear. Well, I say we, but I am sure that the supervisors and managers know when he is due. The ‘lay’ people do not, so whenever he turns up everyone gets slightly a little bit excited. And there is great joy throughout the building.

People are always grateful to be told that there is free food, and they like to tell me how much they appreciate me telling them. As I always say back to them, I’m doing myself more of a favour than them; the doughtnuts and whatnot are in my line of vision, so the sooner I can get rid of them, the less likely I am to cave and scoff down the lot of them. So really, anyone who’s not me that eats them, are doing me a huge favour. So really, it’s the Circle of Life… but with more food and less witch-doctor gibbons. It also comes in handy if I need a different department to do something for me, they remember that I am a nice person who lets them know first that there’s delicious and free food on the premises.

I’ve always said that if you want to poison people out here, all you need to do is bring out a box of food, and it will get eaten within minutes. We came in one morning at 7 am and there was a box of doughnuts sitting on a filing cabinet and people devoured the box like a lion on a gazelle during a 15 month drought. The weird thing about these particular doughnuts, is that it was not the usual time for the doughnut man to drop them off, nor was it the usual spot he dropped them off. No one knew who they belonged to, and no one cared. As long as the food was free they were happy to eat. I should also point out that our site is 40 minutes out of town, and while we have vending machines with soft drinks, potato chips and chocolates in them, unless you bring food, there’s no other food readily avaible. Most people keep ‘spare’ food in their desks for those rare but devastating occassions when you forget your lunch on the kitchen table.

.... did I warn you guys that I would be increasing my posts (and the lengths of said posts) for all of November? I am adult enough to admit that I don’t have a novel in me, but a friend dared me to go back to writing, so I signed up for NaNoWriMo and didn’t really think about what that meant. I thought 1600 plus words a day would be a piece of cake, and I am finding the opposite. Anyway, consider this your warning - I am going to talk some absolute shite this month, and I will not be at all offended if you don’t read any of my posts. (Or, save them for  either a rainy day, or when you’ve got bad insomnia and are desperately using any means to make you fall alseep.)

Alternatively, if there are any topics in the universe that youwould like my opinion on, leave me a message and I’m sure I can come up with something amusing. Or at least, something.