yonmei

09:01 pm: Gallus's Day Out
This morning, I burned a potato in the microwave, and it left behind it that peculiarly foul aroma - famine itself sickens at it, as Charlotte Bronte observed. So I opened the kitchen window, switched off the central heating, and nipped upstairs and opened the bathroom and bedroom windows, too.

Bob was lurking in the hall. Gallus was curled up asleep on the spare room bed. I left for work, and came back about six, to find Bob lurking in the hall, and Gallus... not asleep on the spare room bed.

I had been wandering around the house for an hour or so, closing windows, switching on heating, heating and eating soup and getting other things done, when it dawned on me that Gallus wasn't here. At all.

( cut for suspense )

Tags: cats, gallus, neighbours

07:11 pm: Isn't it nice when things just... work?
I was walking home from meeting Atropos at the museum for coffee and natter, via Real Foods (bag full of healthy groceries in one hand, Margery Allingham in the other). And just as I was passing the primary school, five minutes from home, it came on to rain. Suddenly, in buckets. Before I got to my front door, my jeans were soaked, my socks were wet through, my hair was sopping wet.

(I had stopped to ring merlins_lair twenty minutes from home, having suddenly the feeling that this was the right time to do it: if not, I daresay I might have made it home on time.)

Fortunately, this morning, I had taken out a portion of the courgette and broccoli curry I've been working on. It was defrosted, and all I had to do was stick it in the microwave, run upstairs to get a towel, change out of my wet clothes, dry my hair, towel Gallus dry - and my curry was hot and ready. (This attempt was hotter than I think I want to go for normally, but very welcome when I had just been drenched in cold rainwater.)

Tags: eating some delicious food, gallus, weather

11:35 pm: Cat politics 2: Have I Got News For You
I am about to go to sleep. I watched Have I Got News For You with Bob lying on my chest: meantime Gallus had occupied the chair in front of my computer upstairs. Now I am upstairs and the two of them are having a quiet stary confrontation on the upstairs landing, punctuated by occasional growls. (Mostly from Gallus.)

I'm glad livejournal reminded me about Have I Got News For You, because not only did Paul tell Ian "We're still on for the 20th, then?" which by the way was a fib, because they're not one of the half-dozen couples getting a civil partnership in Scotland (though I suppose they could be among the couples getting registered in Northern Ireland) but also Ian Hislop told Lorraine Kelly that her comments about "what boys do" made this the most sexist programme he'd ever been on. This from the sperm of Satan...

( a poll )

Tags: bob, cat politics, gallus, have i got news for you

07:37 pm: Cat politics 1: Bob and Gallus Meet
One of the things I forgot to do before I went to Wales was to buy another litter tray. Or two more food bowls, come to that. A Saturday shopping trip looks like a plan.

( cut for length )

I think I need a cat politics icon. However, as nobody has killed anybody yet, or even looked like they wanted to, I'm going to go for my lovely Who icon.

Tags: bob, cat politics, gallus

07:28 pm: How do you get to Wales in a train?
Book them seats in Weekend First and hope the carriage isn't too full. / Via Carlisle, Crewe, and Cardiff. The last hour of the 8 hour trip is a slow stopping train that the locals use to get from Cardiff Central to any of the villages down the valley: where I am staying, Treherbert, is the last village on the line.

I shall be coming home tomorrow, another 8 hour trip, accompanied by a small fluffy 8-year-old cat who was once (by heartless owners) named Levi, and named anew Bobby (by her rescuers - she lost her tail in a car accident a few years ago) and I think I shall call her Bob. It's a nice name, Bob. She is quite terribly pretty, and very territorial (she sits on my lap growling at any of the other cats who think they can trespass there). I have no idea how Gallus is going to react to her, or she to Gallus. Wish us all luck.

It's lovely here. Full of hills and sheep and rain. And cats. And dogs. Not a dog person, but if any dogs could persuade me otherwise, it would be these three white Alsatians, Ghost, Freya, and Nemo. Especially Ghost: he's such a big handsome friendly lummox of a dog. It took me two days, but I persuaded them I did not like to be jumped up on.

Tags: bob, cat politics, gallus, wales

06:08 pm: List of Stuff
Today I let both cats out for the first time since we moved here. ( cat stuff )

1. (265 - (332 - (87 + 5)))/265 = 0.094: BNF factor 9.4%

2. Counter googlebombing: Jew.

3. Snark commentary on evil summaries of bad HP fanfic.

4. ( I am Spirit! )

5. Facing mortality? Here, have a casserole!

6. ID cards in everyone's wallets around 2010? Fuck that.

7. Last but definitely not least: Why the Alamo is over-rated as a tourist attraction, by ginmar.

Tags: cally, cat politics, cats, gallus

08:20 am: The cardboard boxes arrived.
Gallus is sitting on them. Was sitting on them. Now she's sitting on me.

And in five minutes I have to leave the house to go see a nice man to borrow money from him. Or rather from his bank.

Back when I first got a mortgage it seemed bizarre to me that I owed more money than I'd ever seen in my entire life. But after six years (six years tomorrow, to the day) you get used to that.

Bridging loans, though. Weird, what?

Tags: gallus, moving house

07:07 am: Tag team cats
When my cats want to wake me up, they seem to take turns. I never wake up to find both of them sitting purring at me: but I've frequently woken to find first one, then the other, taking the position of chief purrer.

Tags: cally, cats, gallus, just my life really

07:51 pm: My stupid cat has a Very Loud Wail
I mean, really. Loud. Noisy.

( on cats, locks, and wails )

Tags: cats, gallus, work, worrying about my cats

10:33 am: Not a happy bunny
Gallus, my stupid cat, has got herself locked in to the empty flat immediately below mine. It's in the process of being repossessed, apparently - it's empty, it's not listed as "to let" or "for sale" on the espc.co.uk website, and my cat is stuck in there and has (probably) been there since Thursday evening. I assume she's drinking out of the toilet bowl. And, of course, it's a damn bank holiday weekend.

Solutions (which is why this is a friends-locked post):[unlocked, since I decided not to break the window]

1. Break the window and let her out. Maybe call a glazier to fix it. Or maybe not. I'm really kind of pissed with whoever locked up without checking the rooms thoroughly.

2. Call a glazier and/or locksmith, find out how much it would cost to get a windowpane removed (and whether it would cost more than changing the locks).

3. Call the police and ask them for advice.

I think she's probably okay till end-of-day today, and in any case if I'm going to smash the window I'd just as soon do it after dark.

( moaning about physical pain )

And I really, really have to get out of the house and go to Glasgow for a homosamurai forum with brandnewgun. Soon. (I woke up at 6am, stumbled through to the kitchen, made myself breakfast, took it back to bed, ate breakfast... and went back to sleep for 4 hours. Ow, my hip hurts.)

Tags: cats, gallus, work, worrying about my cats