It is New Year’s Eve. In fact, back in the motherland (the land of my mother, I mean, or at least the land currently containing my mother, so the UK, then) it almost IS New Year.

Hopefully, this means that everyone has made the perfect plan (there’s always pressure to make the perfect plan) and will see in the new year with at least *some* people they quite like.

In an effort to make 2010 the most optimum, top-flight, shiniest year in the history of years (no pressure), I will be performing a ritual of all the New Year’s Ever Good Luck Traditions that I can find on the internet. I will be wearing both red underwear (as some countries call that lucky) and yellow underwear (as others prefer that) luckily I have both of these colours of underwear with me, and don’t mind wearing them, what with it being cold.

I will also be eating 12 grapes and making twelves wishes, setting fire to something, throwing something else out of the window, and quite possibly walking around the block with a suitcase. I will be requiring a tall dark handsome person to firstfoot both this house AND the one back in San Francisco with a full compliment of coal, candle, dram etc.

I will be sweeping the dirt out of the house, making some noise to scare the bad things away, jumping up and down (what? some people think that this will make them taller come the new year, what’s weird about that?) and then tomorrow, I will be eating circular foods, like hula hoops and doughnuts, which I think is the best new year tradition I’ve ever heard of.

And thus shall I single-handedly bring about the BEST YEAR IN THE HISTORY OF YEARS.
You’re welcome, world.

Happy New Year to you, if it is your New Year already (and not if it isn’t, but then when it is, then Happy that)

I’ve been sitting here staring at the blank box with the title at the top of it and feeling more and more reflective. I just don’t know how to approach this.

I tried by making a list of my favourite things about 2009, but got stuck because every good thing I could remember reminded me of something else that had happened that I did not want to think about so much.

I tried by looking through photos (as I’ve done a photo round up before) and while a lot of them reminded me of the happy exploring I have done, and the things I’ve got to see, it also served as a perfect visual representation of how much I have fallen in love with San Francisco as a city, and made me sad to think that this time next year, I won’t get to live here anymore.

2009 has been, for so many people I know, a really really shitty year. It’s been a year of lost jobs, lost contracts, lost visas and homes. It’s been horrible, watching so many people I love in pain because they’ve lost parents, or children, or loved ones, or had their relationships suddenly break up, or their marriages end. There have been injuries, surgeries, cancers, miscarriages and diseases. The recession thing has made people fraught, working relationships difficult, and saving money impossible. I end this year in a more precarious financial and professional situation than ever could have imagined, and am dedicating much brain to having to think of a brilliant new plan that I can bring into play while having my lowest level of confidence in many years. And my problems are very small compared to some people around me (whether geographically or interneterly) and I really, REALLY hate 2009 for that.

If it wasn’t for the fact that a couple of very good friends brought new (and particularly adorable) people into the world, I would politely request that we just erase 2009 from memory and write it off completely.

This is not what I wanted to write here. I didn’t want to make a list of the bad things, or to remind myself or anyone else of them again. But the unfortunate fact is: that’s what this year has held for me, for people I know. And perhaps I just need to scrub away all that bad stuff by actually putting it down here.

I’m just going to leave it there, I think. I want to write a happier thing, but I’m going to have to go and do that in another post. One where the sad is not allowed.

Tonight I’m spending new year’s eve in a very snowy place with a good view of far off fireworks, and will be, at midnight, clutching a small bucket of fizzy wine and hoping that next year is better. Not just for me. For everyone. 2009 can piss off, frankly.

We were sitting around yesterday after coming in from a long snowy walk on the lake shore and wondering what to do with the rest of the day.

Checking the entry hall table, however, it appeared that someone must have picked up the keys to our rental car by mistake and disappeared off skiing with them. That was the only possible solution. The entry hall table is where the keys live (in case anyone needs to move a car. I’m learning MUCH about group holidays this week) and they weren’t there, so that must have been what happened. Because My Beloved certainly wouldn’t have had them with him on our snowy walk. That would have been a really really silly idea.

So we sat and we did many things instead (like sitting down in front of the fire and reading and things) and were quite surprised when people came back from the big hearty activities and said that no, as it turns out, they hadn’t walked off with the keys by mistake at all. In fact, they had no idea where the keys to our rental car might be - the only keys, please note.

So we turned our bedroom upside down, and checked all the whole house thoroughly, the entryway, the drive went through the rubbish in the kitchen in case we’d thrown them away by mistake and, all the while, kept repeating the mantra that they MUST be in the house somewhere, they simply must. Because them not being in the house at all was simply unthinkable. That’s where they would be. They would be in the house. So, trusting that we’d find them next day when it was light and we could lift up all the furniture, we went to bed.

The next morning, I found the keys, which was great.

What was not so great - not even remotely great, in fact, was that I found them remotely, while in bed looking through the pictures I’d put up on flickr the night before of My Beloved making angels in the snow.

“Oh, THAT’S where the car keys are”

We said. And sighed. Deeply.

And then donned 15 layers of clothes and ran out into the snow.

The new snow.
Because the snow had fallen, overnight. Snow on snow. Snooooow on snow.
There had been a few feet of snow already, but overnight, since we had last been there, frolicking and making angels, there had been four new inches of snow. Which made it a little difficult to see where the keys might lie. We knew that when we found a good snow-angel-making spot, we had walked past a boathouse and hadn’t quite reached a log that we later sat on, but other than that, we couldn’t be completely sure. And there were no other distinguishing landmarks, because of the aforementioned snow.

Leaving us with a search area that looked like this:

Knees wet and half-frozen, snow sneaking up my sleeves and down my collar, I worked on one patch of untrodden snow at a time, kneeling on it, sweeping the newer powder back and forth, occasionally sinking hip-deep into the rest. My Beloved sat thoughtfully on a rock nearby, mostly, trying to logic the keys out of the snow, trying to retrace our steps and therefore magically draw the things out of the ground.

Long story short - or shortish, or at least not as long as it could be if I was REALLY milking it - I found them. Proving I may actually be part-bloodhound, I followed some buried sledge-tracks until I found a spot where a very faint curve of snow suggested there may once have been an attempted snow angel.

And, below the surface, only the tiniest bit of keyring wire sticking up, they were buried.
As you can imagine, I was very smug about this, and insisted on being extremely pampered for the rest of the day, which, frankly, is the least I deserved. Because I am the best at finding things, and I win.

And I don’t know why I got so excited about it.
It’s just: well, it’s been a year of spectacularly shitty luck, to be honest. And this was just something suggesting that maybe, possibly, next year might be a little more lucky.
I hope.

Goodness, with all these video and words and things, I have been getting all OVER your internets.

And there’s more! I forgot to say! I did a little guest spot on brilliant new podcast shift run stop about trying to find a hint of proper British Christmas by attending a Victorian Christmas Fair in San Francisco. I failed to do so - it was the world’s worst plan, in fact - but it made for nice podcast material, and there’s a bunch more I really have to write up here at some point, too.

Anyway. You can go listen to that if you like. Which you should, because it’s a very good podcast anyway. And they might let me be on it again at some point. Hurray!

I’m not at the edge of many other things. This week, I am mainly at the edge of a lake.

It is a very nice lake. And it is surrounded by snow covered mountains, so that is very good for all my hearty snowsport-type friends, who can go and do hearty snowsports on them. (Apart from the one who shattered his leg doing the same thing last week (get better soon please, or at least do after next surgery on monday) not that that seems to put anyone off).

For me it is mainly good because there is a fire to curl up by and read, and a lot of sleeping that needs to be done (well, someone needs to do it, and everyone else seems to be busy, so I am helping out with that, I think). Also, there is snow. And I like taking pictures of snow, it turns out.

Also, I didn’t grow up around very much snow, and have never in my life been on any kind of snow-based holiday, sporting or no. Consequently, I am still dealing with the concept of being around so much of the lovely lovely snow-like stuff like I am a very small child who has only heard of this volume of snow in books before. Which, to be fair, isn’t far off.

I have been glad that my friends were all off doing serious snow-based hearty sports, as I think they may have mocked me for my snow-activities, which mainly involved:
- Snow angels.
- Tramping through the deepest drifts I could find
- poking things.
- marvelling
- frolicking.
- eating sliced meat.
- and cheese.
- also fish.
- Considering snowmen.
- taking pictures, as aforementioned.
- saying things that earnestsnowysport people would find probably boring and certainly moronic about how glittery snow is, and how consequently pleasing.
- Oh, and enjoying pointless things like sliding about on little patches of frozen lake. Like this:

Like a small child with a new toy.
I consider this the best possible use of my time this week.

Alright. There was going to be some really very good post about cats, and an also very good post about christmas. But you know what? There were a lot of other things I meant to do today as well, and I don’t care about the catvent ones or any of the other things because, from very-silly-o’clock this morning, I spent the day hanging out with the best 3-year-old in the world again (while his little brother came into the world elsewhere) and it was the best way I can imagine spending the day.

So you’re not going to get either of those things.

In place of that: a christmas card: from me, to you, after a very horrible month, week, year, but a very lovely day (and, after 48 hours in which I might have eaten 1.5 meals and had 4 hours sleep total, then quite a lot of mulled wine…)

Oh come now, as least it’s not as bad as out first (failed) attempt at a family greeting.

Never mind.
I may not, personally care about christmas so much, but HAPPY CHRISMAS! All the same.
xxx

We have been babysitting this afternoon.The flat was suddenly filled with the noise and energy of a particularly bouncy and amazing three-year-old, and, consequently, our bed was suddenly full of cat-shaped lumps, refusing to move even when cajoled and offered treats [And that mental image there was Catvent Calendar: Day 23, people. Because everything's become really busy, suddenly. I'll try and put them in hats to make up for it tomorrow].

So my afternoon has been filled with the question “Whhhhy?” - asked in that very inquisitive, very important tone that makes you feel bad if you don’t fully commit yourself to at least TRYING to answer it properly. Of course, half way through the conversation, I discovered, the “Why?” turns into more of a listening noise than an earnest enquiry, and then it doesn’t really matter what you say, apparently, because no one’s listening to you anyway.

I can only imagine this is what you DO for entertainment when you are a parent. I know it would certainly be what I would do. It is certainly what I did today.

Oh, and play games involving taking all the coins out of a money box and putting them all back in again. Occasionally into the same money box, occasionally into the other one.

“Whhhhhhhy?”
“Because the money mailbox is full.”
“Whhhhhhhy?”
“Because we filled the mailbox with coins. Now we have to put them in the money pig”
“Whhhhhhhy?”
“Because there is lots of room for more coins in the money pig, so we’ll put them in there.”
“Whhhhhhhy?”
“So I can save up lots of coins”
…
[a thinking pause]
…
“Can I save lots of coi-ins?”
“Yes. But. Um. Can you stop putting all the coins in your pockets?”
“Whhhhhhhy?”
“Because they are heavy, and will pull your trousers down.”
“Whhhhhhhy?”
“Because you have elasticated trousers.”
“Whhhhhhhy?”
“Because they are easy to put on and take off”
“Whhhhhhhy?”
“Because you are three, and… No! Wait! Why are you putting all my coins in your hoodie pockets now?!?”
“I will take them home, and I will save lots of pennies”
…
[Wild West stand-off-like pause]
…
“Right. Well, you CAN do that, but not with those pennies.”
“Whhhhhhhy?”
“Because they are my pennies”
“Whhhhhhhy?”
“Because they belong to me”
“Whhhhhhhy?”
“Because I earned them”
“Whhhhhhhy?”
“Because I went to work, and did some work, and they paid me those pennies”
“Whhhhhhhy?”
“Well… Because they are on a tight budget.”
“Whhhhhhhy?”
“Because the newspaper industry is experiencing substantial economic difficulties”
“Whhhhhhhy?”
“Well, there are a number of possible explanations, although generally people blame the internet.”
“Whhhhhhhy?”
“Because the internet is a faster, more effective and consumer-led way of delivering the news”
“Whhhhhhhy?”
“Because there are lots of different sites that people can chose from, and lots of different points of view. While they might not have the depth or attention span of traditional dead wood media, you can offer a greater amount of material. Though you can’t pay people as much for writing it as you did when there was only so much paper to fill”
“My pockets are FULL of COINS!”
“Yes. Well. You belong to the world of social media startups and the internet. This is a brilliant choice.”

And then we went to play something else.
I think it was something to do with cars and monsters.

The so-tenuously-related-to-cats-I-might-as-well-not-bother-pretending
(-but-clearly-I’m-going-to-anyway-)
post of the day: “Please help me find my cookies”

Cookie is a popular name for a CAT. And, it’s interesting we should find ourselves discussing that very fact, as it is cookies I have come here today to discuss. Not the the cat name, the edible substance. This post is still very much part of the catvent calendar, however. It’s not just “what I needed to post anyway with some reference to cats so that I didn’t have to write two posts”.
God no.
That would be shockingly neglectful.

Anyway, so, remember when I first got the CATS? They were kittens then, of course, and therefore very frisky. Frisk frisk frisk, they would go. Frisking all day, frisking all night - never missing an opportunity to frisk it up all over the place. And, coincidentally, ‘frisk it’ sounds like ‘biscuit’, and, as chance may have it, when I was in Brighton I made a LOT of biscuits. Brighton. Where I first got the CATS.

And yes, since you should mention it, I am very much in the mood to make biscuits again. With some urgency, in fact. For an event that, shall we say - without wanting to spoil anything much - might be happening in a couple of days time.

My problem is this. The very recipe - the very brilliant recipe, may I add - I was working from was one torn out of the Guardian Weekend Magazine in either 2005 or 2006. Probably by Dan Lepard. That column, anyway.
(Lepard, can I just mention at this point, is a type of big CAT, but spelt wrong)

Anyway, that recipe is currently on its torn, grease splattered piece of magazine paper, stuffed into the back of a recipe book and tightly packed into a small crate just north of Brighton with the rest of my belongings.

First suggestion? Search for it online. Yeah, I’ve tried. For the last hour. It’s not there, the uploader must have missed it that week, boo, hiss. Next solution? I know that many of you might think that I might have some contacts who would offer me special help in accessing this recipe from its original source, but right now a) not so much and b) the lovely contacts I have that might be able to help are gone for Christmas, I think.

So this is just a plea - to anyone reading who might, similarly, tear recipes out and store them somewhere this was:

1) from Weekend magazine in 2005/2006 sometime.Or maybe early 2007, actually. Oh hell, I’m too old.
2) a very very basic soft cookie recipe - it’s not remarkable, just the best I’ve ever tried
3) It might have been billed as a something & somethingelse cookie, but it was made very clear that this basic recipe worked with almost any other combination of additions and flavours you might want to add. I can attest to this. It does.

I know it’s a silly question (or “catsion”, as we’re adhering to a certain theme here), but none of you happen to have it torn out and stuffed in the back of a recipe book that you actually have it to hand, available, do you?

I’m guessing not.
It’s a shame, because we have some kick-arse things to put in these particular brand of cookies. And it would be a dreadful shame for the world (or our friends, NOT THAT THIS IS WHAT THEY’RE GETTING FOR CHRISTMAS IF ANY OF YOU ARE READING THIS), should miss out on them.

Tomorrow, for anyone who might not have this particular recipe torn out, I will DEFINITELY write something about cats. As well as either something christmassy or a review of every film I’ve seen this year, I haven’t decided.

In the meantime, please help me. Help me in my bakingest hour of need.

Cookie recipe, anyone? Weekend magazine? Dan Lepard? Soft? Yummy? Involved a mixture of kinds of sugar? Really REALLY good?
Please help me.
Can you?
Cookie?

I have problems feeling Chirstmassy. It is a thing that is quite difficult for me, for many reasons, including the darkest time of the year, and… well, and about eleventy billion other things.

But even for the terminally unchristmassy, some things help. And one of the things I’ve been missing, so far from home, has been the idea of Christmas television - of taking the Radio Times and a big fat marker pen and sitting down, going through it slowly and systematically as I do every single year. Actually no, that’s not true. In certain quarters of my family, there was a more specialised method. Red for MUST WATCH. Blue for MAYBE. Black for IT’S ON, SO, YOU KNOW, IF WE’RE BORED. Oh, and there was also a special green pen for things my mother would really like and we could all watch together. I look forward to doing the whole traditional process again, some year soon. It is the Very Serious Procedure of The Marker Pens.

Do I end up watching most of those things? No. But that’s not the point. The point is that the ideal of sitting around, curled up in front of a fire with people you love and being entertained - or entertaining each other while watching something wholeheartedly terrible, most usually - is my tradition.

Christmas TV in the US is a lot more scattershot. Lots of TV, obviously, but nothing that seems like something you would want to circle with any colour of pen, let alone red. In the UK, television is attracted to Christmas like a magnet … in the US, it is repelled. It is a tellyhole. All the big series disappear, not to reappear until weeks or months later. This year, because TV-people are scared of the winter olympics, some huge things won’t return until mid-March. And in the meantime? nothing. NOTHING.

However. Luckily? My Beloved and I discovered a whole new world of menus on our television that we hadn’t previously known were there. Menus leading to menus, splitting off into subsets and mini-menus offering episodes of TV, films and, beyond that, a whole world of unmitigated rubbish that couldn’t be more pointless if it tried.

Or so we thought. Today we discovered it has greater depths of pointlessness than we ever imagined possible.

See, one of my favourite things about American Christmas television traditions - or rather, my one favourite thing (but it’s so good I don’t need to try and find any other favourite things, and besides, they don’t seem to be quite as into Big Christmas Television Traditions as I am) is the Yule Log.

For several hours on Christmas morning, one channel (or more) is given over to the yule log. It’s a looped film of a fireplace, close up, with seasonal music playing softly in the back ground. It goes on for hours. Literally: HOURS. The high point of the action is when the yule log, having broken down to a pile of glowing almost-embers gets replaced by … wait for it … ANOTHER yule log! Yes, a disembodied hand comes in from one side of the screen, places another hunk of tree on the fire, then retreats once more. It’s thrilling stuff.

And the idea is, you see, you can have it on, quietly in the background, fulfilling the function of a crackling log fire but without any of the nasty side effects like heating the room, it’s occupants, or releasing that annoying “pleasant smell” that real fires have a nasty habit of insisting upon. ALSO, you don’t have to do anything so terrifying as to actually turn the TV off. It’s still on, it’s just not as distracting as it might usually be. The height of pointless! But my favourite thing was that this was, at the end of the day, a real fire. It was a real fire that someone had bothered to train a camera on for a bunch of minutes, and then looped over a never-ending parade of over-sentimental crimble music.

So I was, of course, quite ridiculously overexcited when I discovered a whole menu of other similar Christmassy moving screensavers I could have on my television whenever I wanted them. It’s great, it’s like having a whole new view without having to move off the sofa - or a whole new window without having to lift the entire flat off its foundations and transport it by truck to somewhere more scenic, which, frankly, is expensive. Instead, I can just click a few buttons and have a perfect scene of christmas joy, sitting in the corner of my tiny flat.

There is a winter woodland, with a babbling brook and the sound of trees gently swaying in the breeze, and soft showers of snow falling off one particular branch and suspiciously regular 12 second intervals.

And then there is a snowy version of Yosemite, which looks just like Yosemite did when I was there in October, but with a covering of CGI snow smeared over the top in some kind of cheap microsoft paint software.

And then there is a yule log, whose flames burn too bright and consistently for any real fire.

But, most eerily, the last remaining screen has one of the most odd screen saving options was a screen simply called “CHRISTMAS DAY”. Clicking on it, the viewer is presented with a family living room. It has a burning fireplace, a happy tree, and a complete gaping lack of human life.

The thing is: leave the babbling brook onscreen while you’re trying to do something else? You’ll occasionally look over and wonder at the calm, babbling nature of brooks. And then need the toilet.

Leave the fake version of Yosemite onscreen, and you’ll end up just staring at it, because it’s just a ridiculously beautiful place.

But leave the supposedly calming CHRISTMAS DAY screensaver sitting on your enormous television screen?

You will look over at it, the first few times, thinking “OK, that’s nice, it’s a nice family living room”. But then, after a while, you start thinking “Seriously, where are the family? Why is the fire burning? Why is the room so terrifyingly, neurotically super-clean? Where are the children for whom those presents are wrapped? WHAT is going ON?!” and, by the time you’ve been sitting trying to enjoy your screensaver for about 23 minutes, you’ve come to the unhappy realisation that the family to whom the living room belongs have been murdered and are presently lying and bleeding out just off camera.

Which is, you know, great, as happy holiday-spirit-filled Christmas tradition-tv goes, and everything.

To be honest, I’d still kind of prefer Wallace And Gromit.
Circled in RED.

I actually had had great plans to write great things - hilarious, non-catblog-type things for today. But then, my day went seriously south, and, what it more, Squirrel decided to be photogenic for once.

Squirrel, grumpy big cat, is frequently beautiful … but always at a point when the camera happens to be in another room or too far away to reach without disturbing the cuteness.

This, however, was too good to miss. See, Squirrel, above, is captured lying on our new duvet. But what you can’t quite tell from that picture is quite the extent to which she has managed to place herself right in the direct centre of things. See, the whole world might be a big urban mandala; but squirrel has managed to make herself the absolute middle of the world.

My big-cat knows how to provide her services as an interior decorating accessory. That makes me happy.

No time for catvent calendar as it turned out today, and no real enthusiasm for it either, for one reason or another.

So, to mark the absence of the Catvent Calendar (and thereby non-absent it, thus making the marking of its absence meaningless), a celebration of the lack of cat.

Thus I am happy to present, for day twenty:
No Cat

From the always-been-brilliant Garfield Minus Garfield, who is amazingly consistent, and ace. Who knew that you could make something familiar and run-of-the-mill into something that can be surreal, ridiculous, even poignant just by removing the main character.

I love it. And only because at the root of it, you have the fact that Garfield could never really talk. And that this is, on one level, these one way lonely exchanges are all Jon’s life has ever contained. And that’s just sad.
(And yet also funny)

I do have other things to tell you that aren’t about cats, I promise. They’re ace, too. Give me a couple of days.

Now, given that guest catventer Emrys has shared an “My stupid cat” story, I realised I had my own, from ages ago. So, though it is, clearly already on this site, I thought I should repost it, so it looks like I’ve really written something for today when I really haven’t. YAY archives!

THE STUPIDEST CAT I’D EVER HEARD
Oh, if only I had known

Bobbins was stupid.
He was very stupid.
Cute, but really, really stupid. His name was Bobbins, for flatulent reasons, but that’s another story.

Usually they were fed pretty run of the mill food, dry food actually, in an attempt to stop Bobbins getting any more obese than he already was.
Of course, Bobbins was getting fat mainly because he was eating at every other house in the road as well as our own, but we didn’t know that at the time, so we carried on feeding him diet pussy food, in the hope that he’d get thinner.
Occasionally, however, for a treat, we’d boil up some cheap fish, and they’d have a little bit at a time, to go with the diet food, which let’s face it, must have been horrible, as all diet food is.

Now, bobbins could smell the fish boiling away, as could the other (’clever’) cat, Poppy. But while Poppy would sit quietly, waiting, Bobbins would make your life hell until he got his fish.

While it was boiling away, in the pan, and while it was sitting in a sieve, cooling down, he’d spring from chair to chair, leap up onto your shoulders, find a place of reasonable height to stand and catch you with his claws every time you wandered past, wander along any shelves he could reach, swing on the door handle, break stuff and fart.

The fish took about 20 minutes to cool to a cat-edible standard.
There was no way Bobbins was waiting 20 minutes.

After about five he would annoy you so much that you’d cave in.
“Alright,” you’d say. “I’ll give you some fish, but I’m telling you, Cat, it’s hot. You don’t want it now, you want to wait. You just don’t know it. Alright. Yes, I’m fetching it. Get your claws out of my arm. Now, or there’ll be no fish. Stupid Mog.”

Then you’d put the bowl on the floor, after mashing it with a spoon to try and cool it, and you’d retreat to the stairs, sit down and watch.

Bobbins would rush at the bowl, open his mouth, just get his little cat lips around the steaming fish, and then spring backwards, in suprise. He would look around the kitchen, suspiciously, and his gaze would rest on you. He’d trot over.
paddapaddapaddapaddapadda.
“This fish is Hot!” he would say, “You have given me hot fish! Why?”
“Look, Bobbins!” You would say, and point - “Fish!”

And he would turn around and look where you were pointing. “Oooh!” the cat would say, racing over to his bowl, “Someone’s given me fish, yum yum yum yum… Ouch!”
And with his little puss lips almost around the pile of steaming fish, he’d jump backwards, then look around the room suspiciously.
His gaze would settle on you, and he’d come trotting over.
paddapaddapaddapaddapadda
“Excuse me” He would say, “This fish is hot! You have given me hot fish! Why?”
“Look Bobbins,” You’d say, and point, “Fish!”

“Oooh” said Kitty, “Someone’s given me fish, must eat the nice fish, yum yum yum yum… Ouch!”
suspicious look.
paddapaddapaddapaddapaddapadda.
“This fish is Hot!”
“Look, Bobbins, Fish!”
“Ooooh!”
padapadapadapadapada, head down, jump back, suspicious look.
paddapaddapaddapaddapaddapadda.
“This fish is hot!”
“Look, Bobbins, Fish!”
“Ooh!”… etc etc.
Once we did it 12 times before the fish cooled down enough to eat.

Dumb Cat.

Of course, by that point, I’d never met Finn. Or Widget…

Guest post!
An actual real one written by someone else this time

Illustrious and longstanding commenter of this parish, Emrys, noticed I was struggling (or, to put it plainly “not even managing to post at all”) to keep up with my catvent calendar, and emailed offering one of his own cat tales as a catvent day. And I was more than happy to accept it. More than this, it reminded me of a very own post I had written on this here blog, meaning Emrys had actually offered me TWO days of catvent goodness! Hurray!

Now, onto Misty and her questionable hunting skills…

Billy the Bass-tard (another That Stupid Cat adventure)

Recent comments by someone about Misty’s intelligence (and the unlikelihood of there being any) reminded me of the Great Fish Caper story.

Her brother, Sam, was definitely the bright one in the family - he used to enjoy being given a choice of catfood (three tins lined up, he’d wander up and down and then nudge the one he wanted - and he wouldn’t eat the food if we gave him one of the other two, bless his little furry paws).

One of his sister’s finest moments (in my opinion) came on Christmas. We’d been given one of those wonderful Billy The Bass singing fish things (I won’t mention by whom because he and/or she are occasional visitors). Hugely amusing, of course, after a few choruses of whatever it sang, we propped it up against the TV cabinet and returned to vegetating as is traditional.

Misty entered the room some time later and spotted a huge fish just lying there, asking to be eaten. I’d spotted her reaction - she froze when she spotted it - and quietly pointed this out to Di.

“Watch this - it should be fun”

As I’d hoped, the furry beast squatted down to reduce her silhouette and slowly crept across the floor intent on her prey. Even Di’s stifled giggles didn’t distract her from the Biggest Christmas Dinner For A Cat Ever - there was almost a trail of drool across the carpet as she imagined sinking her teeth into the tasty, tasty piscene.

It was because she was stalking it so well and slowly that the motion sensor on the fish didn’t pick her up at first. In fact, she’d got to within a foot of the contraption when it suddenly turned to face her and started singing.

I swear she leapt her height off the floor, howled and fled as Di and I fell off the sofa, laughing. Misty refused to return to the living room for some days, so the fish was packed away. It’ll be in a box, somewhere.

I wonder if she’ll remember it if I find it …

For a long written(ish) thing, see yesterday’s catvent. Today, because I am working very hard on something else right now, I simply present another of someone else’s videos. It is my other favourite cat video ever. The ninja cat:

he
is
Coming
To
GETYOU!

good old ninjacat.