I’ve had a whole week now of being a SAHW – a Stay-At-Home-Writer. It’s been great, although my productivity has been slightly decreased by having to feed my cat through a funnel.
Well, that isn’t quite correct. Before you conjure up pictures of a cat at death’s door, allow me to clarify: the cat’s head is in the bottom of the funnel. They call it an Elizabethan ruff, although I doubt HM QEI would thank you for pointing out the resemblance.
Our elder cat (“the Cat”) managed to nick her achilles tendon – and make quite a mess of the skin that usually covers it – so had to be taken to the vet on Monday, collected on Tuesday, and taken for a post-op check on Thursday. Time-consuming.
She also has to be kept in for ten days, but her son (known as “the Kitten” despite being well over three years old) is still allowed to come and go as he pleases. In the split she got the bathroom and bedrooms and he got the lounge and kitchen. We got – a complicated custody arrangement.
If we spend all our time on the Cat’s side of the Door in the Middle then we hear the Kitten’s plaintive lament on the other side. If we stay on his side, the Cat gets grumpy – and then purrs loudly all night about how happy she is to see us. Passive-aggressive little weasels.
The Cat has been wearing this ruff or cone since Tuesday, which changes her functional dimensions more than she realises. Unfortunately the Code of Cat states that no cat may admit to making a mistake, so if her cone catches on something she has to sit down and pretend that she wanted to stare at the woodwork for ten minutes. Pride is a terrible thing.
She spends the rest of her time giving her celebrated imitations of a vase, a lampshade, a satellite dish, and one of the Invisibles of the 1810s.
Depending on which angle you catch her at, she also portrays either a headless cat or a catless head. Reminiscent of the Cheshire cat, except the grin was the first thing to go, not the last.
Speaking of all things Wonderland, inquiring minds wish to know your opinion on the subject of the Jabberwock/y. Namely, what colour or colours is it? Tenniel presented us with a very vivid image of it, but only in black and white. And what about texture? Thoughts?
