Strange Places My Cat Sits: on the rag rug

Actually, Podae does not sit in many strange places.

He is a very proper pussin. Very well-mannered. He sits on the sofa, or the chair, or the bed, or the rug.

He does not choose wild and crazy spots like the sink, as do some other pussins I could name.

So I feel he's missing out on his share of the limelight in this series. Henceforth, I shall include the odd random photo of Podder being his lovely normal self.

Or not ......

Fat Black Puss

It never ceases to amaze me what people will search for on the internets.  First though, let me digress briefly. There's a point, I promise, and I'll get to it.

If you're a regular reader of my blog (hello to both of you) you're no doubt aware of the three furry babies in my life: Podae, Fatpuss and Grimth. I should write a book about them called The Very Furry Babies. It would sell to Very Little People and their Very Nice Parents, I'm sure.

I love these animals, even though they can be incredibly capricious and frustrating at times. They won't sit on my lap - I know, three cats and not one of them is a lap-sitter, which surely is the primary function of a cat? I should ask for a refund. And they vomit in hard-to-reach places from time to time. And every now and again I get a small, bloodied corpse deposited in the bedroom as a token of love. And they like nothing more than to smooch on me and fur up my clothes in the split-second before I leave the house ... but I take it all in my stride.

It's the price I pay for unconditional love, you see, and I consider it a small one. And after all,they do shower me with the odd burst of affection and caterwauling, Fatpuss especially (the caterwauling that is). Podder is better with affection, and Grimth? He's mainly food-driven. Though he does quite like a scratch on the head in the morning and will close his eyes in ecstasy if you get the spot juuuuuuust riiiiiiiiight.

Ahem, I've become distracted. What was I saying? Oh yes - that I blog about them every now and again, and tell you adoring stories of their latest adventures and quirks. Much as I've just done. See how I did that?

And when I blog about them, I tag each of the blog entries with their names. Podae, Fatpuss and Grimth. Which leads me to the point, after all. Sometimes when reviewing my blog stats I'm intrigued to see how people find me. Often it's through keywords they enter into Google. Vintage tea towels is a favourite, as is Ode to Friday, and oddly, who sang Lazy Sunday Afternoon as well.

But my favourite has got to be the one tag people are most definitely NOT searching for. Not in the context I use it, that's for sure.

Let me be direct. Fat Puss. Fat Pusses. Furry Fat Puss. Fat Black Puss.

Yep, you know what I mean. And I can guarantee that a photo of my lovely furry fat black puss, such as the one at the top of this post, is not what they are after!!!

So this post is in honour of my lovely furry fat black puss, and his clear internet - ahem, attraction. Fatpuss, you're the tops.

I has no oomph

I has no oomph today.

I slept badly last night - could it have been the Russian Blue pussycat in the bed overnight, snuggling his little furry body firmly against me? Why yes, I think it was.

Podae gets under the covers when it's cold, you see. He waits until I've fallen asleep and then he sneaks himself in and wedges himself in the triangle between my arm and my torso. Only his black nose and whiskers poke out.

And many years of owning pussins has trained me well in the Overnight Stowaway Cat department. I never roll over and squash him. I've been known to reflexively stick an arm out to stop My One True Love doing exactly that, before I even know I've done it - but I've never had to stop myself doing it. Consequently, the Podder knows exactly who to go to when he needs winter warmth.

I like the snuggles, but it does result in me having a lesser quality of sleep, as I'm sure my unconscious mind chants to itself throughout the night: Don't Flatten The Cat. Don't Flatten The Cat. Don't Flatten The Cat. It's got to have an impact, right?

This morning's impact is that I feel all limp and boneless. I has no energy. I has no oomph. I even has no appetite, and that's saying something.

I'm finding it hard just to sit up straight .... all I want to do is slither silently off my chair and lie in a puddle under the desk, sighing quietly to myself. It's not made any easier by my present state of mind, which simply wants to push aside all the hard decisions on my plate at the moment and just veg out. Seriously, if my brain was a vegetable right now, it would be a turnip.

Nearly one o'clock. Technically, I can go home in four hours and eight minutes.

Not that I'm counting, of course, oh no ....

Feeding the Fathead (and trying not to!)

Ah, another Monday, another day spent swimming in the stinking, toothless yaw of paid employment .....

But really I shouldn't complain. (And yet I do - I do!!) I'm just glad to be home now, surrounded by the furry babies and my sewing projects.

It's very cold this evening, and the babies were all inside when I got home. Fathead greeted me like a shark, eddying around my ankles and looking up at me with giant saucer eyes, desperate to be fed as soon as possible. He just about tripped me up as I came in the front door and stuck close to my legs as I went into the bedroom.

Diet chompies dispensed (he ate a couple and miaowed in dissatisfaction), I changed out of my work outfit and headed down to the kitchen - Fatpuss hot on my heels - to feed Podae and Grimth, who are both still allowed to eat their normal food.

I doled out two big globs of kangaroo mince and they tucked in. Poor old Fatpuss sat there woefully, looking terribly sad and bewildered. Why me? he seemed to ask. What did I do wrong? How come they get the nice food and I get cardboard pellets? Don't you love me any more?

I swear, if that cat could talk I couldn't possibly demonstrate the resolve I do. I stayed strong, made sure the other two ate their dinner, fended off the Fathead when he tried to ram his head in and get some .... it was exhausting. Check out the expression on his face in the photo.

When they finished I collapsed in a crumpled heap and ate six chocolate chip cookies out of sheer stress and guilt. The diet might be working for Fatpuss but it's certainly not working for me - who is the *true* Fathead in this situation?!

Lazy Sunday Afternoon ....

.... as the song goes (who sang it, by the way?) .....

Okay, technically it's not yet the afternoon. And I suppose I actually haven't been that lazy today when you think about it.

In fact, I've been quite busy. I made a curtain to cover a bookcase full of fabric (1.8 metres high, stuffed to the gills, and that's just half of my upholstery supplies) so that the materials wouldn't fade in the light. I used Vintage Cherries here on the left, from the Sandi Henderson Farmers' Market range, and it matches my lovely yellow wall really well. Isn't yellow a lovely colour? Whenever I make something yellow and put it on the stall, it sells really well. I think people are naturally attracted to happy yellow colours.

And I read the papers in bed, very early, accompanied by the Grimth who was having a lovely time playing with a piece of string. And I had breakfast. And I cut out and sewed lots of individual Hoot parts, ready to put together this afternoon.

And I ran up and down the hallway with the Fat One, whose diet FINALLY appears to be working. We have to find ways of exercising him, so I grab his piece of plastic packing tape that he loves (don't ask me why, it makes no sense at all) as it's the only thing that'll get him going. We run up and down the hallway five times, and that's about 100m. Which is probably more exercise than Fatpuss gets in a full day otherwise! It's all about the metabolism. And you know, if it gets me moving too then that's a good thing. I put on a pair of pants the other day - well, tried to put them on, except they didn't really do up .... and so if Fathead can master the diet, so can I. It's a neverending struggle (for both of us).

And Podae just watched us from his snuggly blanket on the sofa, a bemused look on his face. Podae is the supermodel of the cat world. He's long, and lean, and elegant. He's been exactly 5.25kgs for the past three years. He takes two little bites of food and goes Oh, I'm full now.

That never happens to the Fatpuss - or me!

I've digressed a bit from my original statement, which was about laziness and Sundays. I think it feels lazy today, because this is my first weekend in a month where I didn't have a market stall. And how relaxing is it to just wake up at one's own pace, and potter about doing a bit of stuff, without a timeline or anywhere to be? I'd almost forgotten how pleasant the weekend can be.

So here I am, sitting on my chair, sniffing the scent of the erlicheer jonquils in a vase nearby, watching the wind outside, and unwinding for the first time in a VERY long time.

Things are definitely looking up.

Rain, glorious rain!

Ah, it's pouring down rain tonight here in Melbourne - at last! I am very happy about this. The pussins are not.

I love the sound of the rain on the roof. I love the way it makes the ground smell good, and I love the way it helps my garden perk up after weeks and weeks and weeks of dry, dusty weather.

The pussins do not love the rain though. None of them.

Podder hates the slightest bit of damp - he won't even walk on the grass after I've done the watering. He consciously and deliberately objects to the rain.

The other two however .... they're a bit different.

Fatpuss is the funniest. He's got such fat, thick fur that he usually doesn't feel the rain for some time, especially if it's a light dusting. He will sit outside with the rain gently falling on him for hours, and then finally, when the water starts to penetrate his fur and touch his skin after what seems like an age, reality dawns upon him.

It's quite amusing to watch. One minute he's there in the garden, checking things out, snapping at cabbage moths, examining the dirt .... and the next minute his eyes are as wide as saucers as he realises what's happening. You can see it in his face as he recoils in horror:

"oh my GOD! I am WET! It's WET out here! Its - it's RAINING ON ME!!!!!!!!!"

And then he'll dash for the back door and miaow like someone's holding him down and threatening to withdraw his food supply, until one of us lets him in.

The Grimthlet too, he's a different kettle of fish. He knows it's raining on him, but he engages in a silent battle of wills with the weather, steadfastly stoic in the belief that he can stop the rain through sheer mental effort ... that, or outlast it, at least.

Of course this never works. But he'll sit out there resolutely, frowning crossly and willing the rain to stop, certain that he's going to win this one through sheer stubbornness and obstinacy, despite all evidence to the contrary.

And then we have one cranky puss on our hands.

I should have stayed in bed

It wasn't until I turned the corner, half a mile after leaving home this morning, that I realised I'd forgotten both my mobile phone and my blackberry.

Not just one of them, oh no, both of them. Both.

It was at this point that I should have turned back around, gone home, gotten under the quilt, and stayed there.

There was something in the air that did not bode well.

But I ignored that instinct, didn't I. Instead, I went back to collect the accoutrements of my trade, surprising the Amateur Actress as I walked in the door. They're essential though, there's no way I could have continued on without them. I had to go back.

And so then, with my electronic gadgetry in hand, I set off down the hill again, determined to continue my long (1.5 hours) morning walk to work. I only do this walk once or twice a week, and I already knew I was going to be frighteningly busy at work for the rest of the week - to wit, this is my first post since Saturday - so exercise in that kind of time-poor context becomes even more important.

And then, at ex-ACT-ly the same point, half a mile after leaving home, I realised that I'd also forgotten to put a bra in my backpack. I was wearing one, of course, a sports bra .... but no way could I spend the entire day in it at work, especially after a long and sweaty walk. Oh no.

I sighed - again. Turned around - again. Went home - again.

Podae was ecstatic to see me, his whole body quivered with delight as I came in the front door. I think he thought I was there to stay. And oh, if only that was true. But it wasn't.

I caught the train to Jolimont in the end, considering I'd lost all that time going up and down the bloody hill to pick up my forgotten things. And walking from Jolimont to the office took about 40 minutes, so that almost passes the test of being exercise. If I count the two trips up and down the hill, I can probably add another 10 or 15 minutes in there. Which is practically an hour. But certainly not the kind of exercise I'd originally planned!

So here I am at work (wearing my bra, and carrying around my phone and blackberry) and sure enough, it's been the kind of day that I knew, just knew from the start, would be better off spent in bed with a book.

Good Friday? It's been a GREAT Friday!

As the black orpington came towards him, the Miniature Genius quavered with studied delight. Not having seen a chicken before, this was quite something. There were fraggle chickens, and white chickens, and bantam chickens, and ducks, and golden cockerels ... so many chickens! In one only place!

He started bokking quietly. Bok! Bok! Ba-gok!

The Miniature Genius does a pretty good chicken impression, I have to say. He can also do Rawr, for the tiger and the lion we saw yesterday at the Melbourne Zoo, and he can say Giraffe, but as they don't make any noise he can't do an impression.

But my goodness, how quickly he's learning new words at the moment. He's on the cusp of turning two, but his vocabulary is extensive. I know three-year-olds who can only say "bacon", and only under intense pressure. This one, though, will repeat just about anything you say. Except my name of course, which has four syllables and is an understandable mouthful.

That's part of the reason we call him the Miniature Genius, though he's also such a serious and considered child that I'm thinking of changing it to the Sober Judge.

Anyway, the visit to the Collingwood Children's Farm was a rip-roaring success, and was probably pipped only by the meerkats at the Zoo yesterday. It's been quite a busy weekend.

The Sister Of My Heart and I have celebrated this rare opportunity to spend so much continuous time with each. Each afternoon at 430, we've toasted the event with a champagne cocktail while the Sober Judge sleeps. Delightful!

Take one champagne flute. Add two centimetres of Chambord, beautiful black raspberry liquer. Pour champagne to the top. Sit back and enjoy.

It's a perfect recipe.

While I'm loving them both being here, the pussins in the house are not quite sure. Fatpuss disappeared under the bed at the first sound of the Sober Judge's dulcet tones, and we think he may have built a fortress under there. The positive side effect is that he's not eating while he's under the bed, so his diet is going quite well at present. I think Fatpuss was scarred by a small child a couple of years ago, when a two-year-old called Gideon spent three hours running up and down the corridor squealing at the Fatpuss. He's never quite recovered.

Grimth is slightly unsure about this small and unpredictable creature now roaming the house. He slinks up curiously, and then turns tail and runs at the slightest movement.

Podae though? He's all smiles and waggy tail, and thank goodness for that. Because without at least one cat to pat, the Sober Judge would be quite upset!

Seventeen courses of feast ... and famine

So the Fatpuss had a weigh-in at the vet last night.

After the kicking and screaming stopped - he does so love the vet - we plonked him on the scales, and guess what?

He is right on target! He's meant to lose 70 grams a week, and that's exactly what he's done.

It hasn't been easy. He starved himself for the first week, clearly reasoning that if he just stuck it out, eventually we'd give in and go back to feeding him. He mourned, and smooched, and flirted, and stomped off in a fury. He tried everything.

But ha, it didn't work. It may have killed me to watch him, knowing how desperate he was, but I held my resolve.

And around Day 8, the penny finally dropped, and he started eating the new diet chompies.

Podder is quite pleased with the diet chompies as well, so he's tucking into them regularly. But the Grimth ... now that's a different story.

He doesn't like chompies, so he won't eat them. Which means he doesn't eat a thing during the time we're at work, he hangs out for dinner time when we get home. At which point he virtually inhales his food, and then seconds later, sicks it back up again because he's shocked his poor hungry tummy.

We had about 10 days of this. Gorging and vomiting, gorging and vomiting.There was a very bulimic tinge about the house during those days. He began losing weight, because he couldn't keep any nutrition down. And this was meant to be the diet for the Fathead, not the baby!

So now we've managed to train him. He gets a ten-cent-piece sized blob of food to begin with, and he has to wait ten minutes before he gets another one. And so on, until about an hour and a half later, he's finally eaten (and kept down) a reasonable amount.

He's not happy about it. He's taken up residence on a dining chair, and he perches there scowling at me until I rattle the food container. If only he'd eat the chompies!

So we've got one cat who wants to eat ALL day but is only allowed to eat twice a day. And one cat who only wants to eat TWICE a day, but has to be given it in a seventeen course meal.

Cripes! The effort I go to for the furry babies. Thank goodness the Podder is easily pleased.

And on the seventh day, she rested ....

I had a very well-earned rest from sewing today.

After three markets on three weekends in a row, I'm whacked. I slept in this morning til well past 10 o'clock, and I cannot remember the last time I did that. Podae snuggled up in the crook of my arm, Fatpuss planted himself heavily on my knee (which went numb reasonably quickly under his great bulk), and there we rested until my bladder forced me up.

And when I finally arose, it was time to catch up on some of those chores I've ignored for the past few weeks.

This is what I've achieved on my so-called day of rest:

1. the shopping is done
2. the kitchen is tidy
3. I have put away several hundred pieces of fabric that were previously crowded onto the dining table. This sounds easy, but took a great deal of time to sort by colour, texture, purpose and size
   
4. the laundry is washed and folded
5. I have stretched two pieces of fabric across the frames in the windows of our bedroom cabinets (using delectable embossed saffron silk that My One True Love and I bought in India last year for exactly this purpose, that's how long this job has waited!)
6. read the weekend papers for the first time in a month
7. watered the garden before it expires
8. visited the Lee St Primary School Fete in Carlton, eaten a sausage in bread and purchased a small succulent
   
9. seen a quilt in a shop window that wasn't half as nice as mine, yet was three times the price - that's given me some ideas, oh yes it has
10. washed all the Australiana teatowels I collected in Mildura as well as the New Zealand ones My One True Love brought back for me this week

That's pretty good, isn't it! And now I can start to think about my next sewing project with a clear conscience.

I think it's time I made something for myself now, rather than something for a market. Perhaps a skirt. I have some beautiful Anna Maria Horner fabric that I can hear calling my name ....

Fatpuss on strike!

The Fatpuss is very doleful today. He does not like the diet food. Or the new regime that accompanies it.

This morning he sniffed at the new diet chompie, inhaled one, coughed, spat it out again, and snorted at me in disgust.

He alternated between hopefulness (as I walked towards the Former Home of Fat Chompies) and despair (as I walked past).

In the end, as I continued to ignore his pleading, he resorted to flirting with me in an effort to make me give in.

He jumped onto the bed. He turned round in a circle, arching his back. He waggled his tail and blinked a long, slow blink at me.

He activated the subsonic purr, grumbling deep inside his throat as he batted his eyelids. He even rolled onto his side (no easy task given the amount of stomach he has to heft over in the process) and stuck a leg into the air, elongating his neck in an invitation to pat him.

Pat me, he crooned silently. Pat me, and succumb to my glorious voluptuousness. And then feed me Fat Chompies.

I gave in - to the pats, that is, and we had a lovely little affection exchange. That is, I patted him and ignored the subtext, and he endured me patting him in an effort to reinforce it.

I'm sure that by the time I get home this evening he will have conscripted Podae and Grimth, forced them to write large signs with ideological slogans, and will have them picketing the doorway in protest.

If I make it inside without a dead mouse being thrown at me, I'll be mightily surprised.

Fat Puss Slim

Well, the verdict is in. Cat Weightwatchers says something must be done about the Fatpuss. We've got to make the Fat Puss Slim.

Here is a photo of him expressing his feelings about the news.

We went back to the vet to check his paw again - only this time I had to take the Grimth for a vaccination booster as well.

Driving there, a trip that takes all of 15 minutes, they at least made the effort to harmonise their catastrophic (cat-astrophic! ha! ha!) yowling beautifully, it was like fingernails down a blackboard, except Right. Inside. My. Head. Strangely though, when Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata came onto the radio, they both quietened down considerably. I must remember that in future.

Once at the vet, they both squeezed themselves into the smallest spaces possible before the examinations. Here is Grimth in the smallest space possible.

A number of conclusions were reached following their examinations.

1. The Fathead's paw is improving, but we have to keep him inside for a week. This also means we have to keep Podae and Grimth mostly inside as well, because we can't have two pusses running around outside without the third, and we can't keep the catflap closed because then Podder and the Grimth would be stuck outside, and that would be both torturous to Fatticus as well as mean to the other two. And that means My One True Love and I have a real task on our hands to keep them inside together, not letting them squeeze out the front door as we leave for the day, not letting them open the bathroom window with their little paws, no, just sitting on the sofa looking longingly at the outdoors. Result: three deeply irritated pussins.

2. Grimth is adorably cute. See Exhibit A, above. Ignore the slightly resentful expression on his face. This is due to the FIV and FE vaccination jabs, which went fine. He weighs 5.6 kilos and shouldn't be allowed to gain any more weight.

3. (And this is the worst part). Fatpuss is overweight - okay, no surprise there. It's his name for a reason. He weighs 7.05 kilos. Which is less than his top-heavy record of nearly 8 kilos over a year ago, but not nearly good enough. Apparently he should be more at the 5.5 kilo range, which means more the weight that Grimth is. So he's been put a special diet and isn't allowed to eat any other food. Nothing, zip, zilch, nada. Not a single Fat Chompie treat is allowed to pass his lips. No chicken livers on a Saturday morning. No kangaroo mince. No tinned wet food. Nothing. Nothing but the new special high-fibre, low calorie food.

This might sound simple enough, but consider that there are three cats inside the house (all currently wandering around in bewilderment at not being allowed outside.) We can't leave chompies out during the day. And it means feeding them separately for the FOUR MONTHS it's going to take to get Fatpuss to lose 1.5 kilos, if he shifts the weight at the recommended retail amount of 70 grams a week. Cripes.

Podder is going to be disturbed. He's such a light eater that he takes two mouthfuls of wet food and pushes the plate away - Oh, I'm so full, I couldn't eat another bite. Then he spends the rest of the day grazing on dry chompies - he loves chompies, any kind, it doesn't matter which brand or flavour. If he could live solely on chompies he would. Fish chompies, chicken chompies, iron filing chompies, he'd eat them.

And Grimth, well, he just likes to hoover up whatever he can find. I swear if we could plug him in he'd be the most efficient vacuum cleaner ever. He's like those pool cleaners that just work their way methodically across the bottom, sucking everything up.

And Fatpuss lives for his Fat Chompie treats! We use them to reinforce his positive behaviour, and they're specially designed to help pusses keep their teeth clean. (The good news from the vet is that Fathead has excellent teeth.)

So this morning we tried to feed them separately, with the Fathead in the laundry. Podae took a bite of wet food and went away, Grimth steadily ate the rest of it up, Fatpuss had a mouthful of the new chompie and stopped, I walked away from the closed laundry door for a minute, and when I returned Podae had pushed it open and was busily eating all the Fathead's chompies while the Fathead moaned about the cat flap being closed.

Gah. I know it's for a good reason. We want the Fatpuss to live a long and healthy life, free from diabetes and arthritis and all the other weight-related afflictions that can strike a portly puss. And once he loses weight he'll have more energy and be more active, and probably happier as a result.

It's not going be easy, but we've really got to try and make the Fat Puss Slim.

The cutest culprits ever

I tried very, very hard to be creative when I finally got home last night after the stultifying training day.

First though, I went to my bedroom to placate my mobile phone. It took some effort, but after a decent amount of stroking and patting and soothing, I think it forgave me.

Of course, there was the moment at first when it refused to listen to me, went flat and shut itself off in a mark of protest, but this morning we seem to be back on an even keel again.

I've promised to always, always check my bag for it before leaving the house in the future.

After setting things to rights, I decided it was time to do some sewing as a way to decompress. But when I went to my sewing area (that's what I call the unholy pile of crap on the dining table where I keep everything I'm working on, and a good deal of stuff that I'm not working on but which seems to need to be piled up around me for total effectiveness) - this is what I found.

And he seemed very comfy indeed, all curled up on my fabrics. How could you disturb something so gorgeous, and fast fast asleep?

So I chose instead to work on a project that's already halfway through. And that's when Grimth decided to help me. He loves to help.

Look at him helping me here, with his little paw on the needle and his loving eyes gazing up at me, half-lidded.

You couldn't be angry though, when the culprit is so very, very cute. I decided to read a book instead.

The second great love of my life

It’s time to reveal the second great love of my life.

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s my pleasure to introduce you to Podae.

How to pronounce that name? Say POE-day, and you’ve got it correct. Or, like us, you could call any one of the myriad of nicknames we’ve got for him:

Podder, Podlet, Pod-a-Pod, Poddle, Podger.....

Podae is a Russian Blue, so he’s sleek and silvery and elegant. His fur is deep blue-gray, and burnished with magnesium edges around his paws.

He’s got a tail that he wags like a fly-fisherman, in great balletic loops; and you can always tell how he’s feeling from wagginess of his tail. If he’s happy, he wags chirpily. If he’s sick, he doesn’t wag at all. If he’s being chased by Fatpuss or the Grimth, it’s arched and pointed and stiff! If he’s curled up on my lap, it’s tucked in over his nose.

We got him on the same day as the Fatpuss, from the same dodgy breeder.

Out we went to the big cat runs where litters of kittens tumbled over each other. She opened up a gate and we handled a few, all warm and soft and purry. My word, I wanted them all! How could anyone resist such delicious little bundles of kitteny goodness?

One pale, pale silver male stood out to me, and I gave him a test cuddle. Eh. It was like handling a beautiful, empty vase. So he was cute, but didn’t have a lot more going for him. Resting on his pretty laurels, he was, like so many other cute boys do.

I tried a few more. The female one went stiff and stuck all her legs out like prickles and wouldn’t let me hold her. So, not her then!

I don’t know what it was that made me reach for the Podder … maybe his giant ears, rotating like satellite dishes to pick up every sound within a radius of ten kilometres.

Or maybe it was his beautiful sea-green eyes, looking longingly out at me through a veil of tears as I stood at the entrance to his cage.

As I picked him up and brought him to my chest, he bobbed upwards in my arms and gave me a great big smooching kiss on the cheek, which made me laugh. We had a little pat and then I handed him to My One True Love, and he immediately smooch-kissed him as well. Podae I mean, not my husband – I’d have been slightly disturbed if my husband smooch-kissed a cat.

We ummed and erred for a minute – the first pale silver male was SO beautiful – but the Podae was so friendly – god, which one to choose? A beautiful but empty-headed boy you have no connection with but would be able to show off and parade around, or the one you feel a deep and instant connection with? Ah, it's just like picking a boyfriend when you're a teenager, isn't it?

I think I already knew the answer, but it wouldn't be lying to say that I was also ever so slightly seduced by the temptation of owning a cat with the beauty of an alabaster statue.

I took the Podlet up again into my arms, and he sneezed all over me, bits of snot flying out left, right and centre, and the cat breeder assured us that oh my goodness me NO, under no circumstances did he have cat flu, heavens to betsy, it was just a little cold, nothing to worry about, never you mind, clear up in a couple of days, just due to the sudden cold snap. Ha! We learnt differently on our first vaccination visit to the vet.

But then this little kitten kissed me again. And I looked at him, with his beguiling green eyes gazing up at me through the pearls of yellow snot beaded on his pale grey whiskers.

And I knew I wasn’t going to have to make the choice, because he’d already chosen us.

Two silly pussins

Oh, the cheeky pusses!

I'm at work this morning - of course, because that is where I am *every* weekday morning - and I receive a call from a private number on my mobile phone.

It's the headmistress of the primary school at the end of our street, and as she says in a serious tone "I think I have two of your cats ....", my heart pounds hard against my ribcage and I catch my breath as she goes on "...here in my office at the school" and I breathe an enormous sigh of relief as I realise that she is talking about two live cats and not two squashed ones.

She explains that some of the children saw Podae and the Fatpuss wandering up the laneway next to the school, and Fatpuss was doing his massive caterwaul - you've never heard a caterwaul until you've heard the Fat One doing it, it sends shivers down your spine. It sounds like he's starving to death, or being slowly cut up into a pile of tiny pieces, or something equally horrific.

In fact, this caterwaul usually means one of two things. It means either "Hello! I have missed you! And I'm hungry! Give me a pat!" or it means " I am hungry! And give me a pat!".

Usually Fathead does his caterwaul when he greets me on the street after I return home from work in the evenings. I can only guess that if he was doing the screech next to the school, he was in fact not distressed, but seeking attention. Silly Fathead!

And of course Podae would have been along for the ride, and he would have been all "Hello children! How are you? I'm Podae, I live up the street and this giant beast beside me is Fatpuss, he's my fat friend. We live in the house together with another puss, but he's not here today. Are you having a good morning? What's happening? Are you having fun? Can I play too?" etc etc. He is a very sociable creature, the Podder.

So the headmistress scoops them both up and gives me a call to explain they were worried the pusses might have wandered from a far distance, and they wanted to make sure they didn't get run over, and so she has secured them in her office and would we like to come and collect them?

I explain that we actually live in the street and she asks if perhaps we've moved in recently and that might be why the cats are upset? And sheepishly I tell her it's been nearly three years and in fact it's just the pusses' way of being friendly. Ooops.

I ring My One True Love and while he sighs heavily, knowing he'll miss an important meeting, he jumps into a cab and goes back to Northcote to retrieve our furry babies. Once home, he locks them inside for the day so that they don't repeat the performance.

On one hand I'm seriously relieved that the pusses are ok - because as a long-time cat owner I've been through the horror of car-related deaths - and on the other hand I'm a little cross at them for misbehaving. But on the third hand (I am turning into Ganesha now) I'm also just a tiny bit proud that they are nice cats and wanted to make new friends.

Most importantly, I'm very gratified to know that the headmistress is the sort of person who cares about little creatures - which I suppose is to be expected given that she looks after a school full of what are effectively baby animals - and I'm pleased that now, having made their acquaintance, if the pusses wander down there again the school administration will know what to expect.

Apparently as My One True Love was carrying the pusses out of the school (Podae over his shoulder and Fathead crammed into a carrying cage he's really too big for now), he was mobbed by the school population who all declared their undying love for Podae and the Fatpuss. It's nice to know they've got friends there now who'll look out for them.

God bless feline-friendly headmistresses and all the children they command.

Bally-licious

So I mentioned My One True Love has a real gift when it comes to giving presents, and that he found me this original Bally poster.

Here it is in situ on our sitting-room wall. If you look very very closely, possibly using a magnifying glass, you will see on the chair to the left of the picture there is a little grey Podae all curled up and staring straight into the camera from his blankie. He loves that blankie, though the Fatpuss often commandeers it, which is his right as Top Cat. On those occasions the Podder paces back and forth in front of the chair anxiously, before giving up and sitting on the other one. It has no blankie and he considers it a very poor substitute.

But back to the poster. It's known alternately as the Lotus, Lotus Flowers or Ballerina Shoe poster. It was designed in 1973/74 by Bernard Villemot. It’s reasonably rare and depicts two women - a redhead and a brunette - showing off their new yellow and blue ballerina flats.

Villemot was a French poster artist (1911 – 1989) who began designing for Bally in 1967. His posters really came to define the brand, using very strong abstract imagery and the female form. They’re very graphic pieces which grab your attention.

He won the Grand Prix a number of times for his Bally art and kept producing designs right up until his death in 1989.

The posters were produced in limited lots of 500 or 1000, and they were meant to be exhibited outdoors – on hoardings, dans le metro, on building walls etc - but many were also kept indoors and that’s the reason there is a modern collection of vintage posters.

Outdoors, the posters would have become faded and torn with time .. plastered over, graffitied, they’d have flapped in the wind and deteriorated in the elements. I imagine elegant and sleek Parisiennes hurrying past them in light rain, clutching their fur collars closer to their throats, scarves fluttering out behind them.

My immense thanks go to the wonderful people who had the foresight to keep a few out of the weather.

If you’re interested, this excellent art and journalism blog has a good page on some of the posters Bernard Villemot designed for Orangina, not to mention lots of other interesting stuff.