Felis Fattus

I don't like being out in the rain...

2011-12-11T00:28:00.001Z

...but when my human calls me in, I still won't rush.

Angry Birds

2011-11-18T23:30:00.000Z

Addicted...

You were gone?

2011-10-16T13:14:00.001+01:00

Human keeps asking me if I missed her. She says was gone for a week...?

(Don't tell her, but I think slept through it.)

Suitcase

2011-10-01T09:50:00.001+01:00

So, the suitcase is out... Time for a nap in it.

All your face are belong to me...

2011-09-26T17:20:00.001+01:00

I randomly decided to boop the human's nose when she put food down for me today. When kittens do it, humans fall over themselves, but when I do it, everyone's all "Hey! What the...?! Crazy cat!"

*hmph*

New place to sleep

2011-09-18T00:53:00.001+01:00

The bath. Very cool on a hot evening. I heartily recommend it.

Crane flies

2011-09-15T22:03:00.001+01:00

Why do they land just out of reach? WHY??

Outrageous

2011-09-11T15:06:00.002+01:00

The vacuum cleaner is out. Time for some intensive scowling from the top of the filing cabinet.

X-(

Productive day

2011-09-10T22:49:00.001+01:00

Barfed on the mat and batted an expensive gadget under the couch.

Next stop: bed.

Fellow feline felons

2011-08-30T06:10:00.003+01:00

So if I go outside, I could bring back a whole leg of lamb, you say? Hmmm...

BRB.

Vid: Want to freak out your human?

2011-08-29T16:01:00.008+01:00

Try suddenly staring at something she can't see, and then running out of the room.

I find this works a charm.

Super-injunction kitteh is revealed

2011-08-29T08:33:00.004+01:00

Hmmm. Very interesting reading. Victor and I should meet to compare lawsuit notes.

Itchy ears. Vets. Ear drops.

2011-08-28T19:13:00.002+01:00

Bad times. :-(

Taking the coffee hostage

2011-08-27T15:49:00.002+01:00

...till the human hands over the 'nip. Fair's fair.

Litigant kitteh...

2011-08-24T23:41:00.001+01:00

Human chopped out the dreds today. When I figure out how to use the camera, I will be emailing pictures of this outrage to Judge Judy.

Vid: Some nerve

2011-08-23T01:32:00.005+01:00

The human suggested today that I waddle. Waddle?!

Hmph! It's a lateral sequence gait, I tell you. Or ambling. You know... whichever.

The best time and place for extensive bathing?

2011-08-22T01:19:00.001+01:00

The middle of the bed during the early hours of the morning.

ZOMG. Fattest pigeon EVER

2011-08-20T17:22:00.001+01:00

is sitting on the garden fence. Feathered football. How to get through glass?!

Human + brush =...

2011-08-20T10:16:00.005+01:00

depleted first aid supplies. Dreds are totally in right now anyway.

Tuna au jus with stone-baked seafood croutons.

2011-08-19T20:24:00.001+01:00

Or, if you prefer, tuna chunks with biscuits...

Drinking from the bath-tap

2011-08-19T16:56:00.002+01:00

Followed by decorating the bathroom with muddy paw-prints. Can't say I'm not considerate. :-)

A keyboard to a kitteh....

2011-08-19T13:44:00.002+01:00

... is a chiropractic mattress. So, hands off.

3:27am

2011-08-19T03:28:00.003+01:00

Perfect time for galloping round the house.

The Tale of the 3:00am Triumph

2011-04-25T23:11:00.002+01:00

The long Bank Holiday Weekend has been well worth while this year. In between trying out the water produced by different facilities (the bath tap, the sink, the water bowl, the toilet, etc.) I also had the good fortune to catch the 3:00am show of Tux and Greater Hoolicat in what can only be described as all out warfare.

I had been successfully engineering my own, more peaceful takeover of the bed when we were all woken by particularly raucous bark-like yelling, and since the windows are now open for the ridiculous heat, the screeching carried straight into the room. I was instantly on the bedroom sill and growling back, which in turn got the semi-indoor human up. Seeing that I was glued to the sill and would neither get down nor cease participating in the noise-making, she took some interest in what I was watching, though she seemed rather less impressed by it than myself.

In the yard below, well-lit by the moonlight and our one nearby street-lamp, Tux and Greater Hoolicat were having a mortal standoff, but the evidence was all in Tux’s favour. He had a mouth full of silver white fluff and was doing all the circling, whilst Greater Hoolicat was tiptoeing, side-on, out of his way. The two continued to shout various obscenities at each other, and I tried to make my part heard by standing up against the window and shouting back, but as I’m sure has been mentioned before, whatever I may have in size, I rather lack in volume, so they didn’t hear it.

There were no more rounds, however, and after a long, tense, stare-war, Tux seemed to decide that the scalp he’d collected was a fine enough trophy, and as if nothing had happened, he turned and flounced away. Greater Hoolicat then made rather a show of taking possession of the yard, but a minute later when a car drove past he was off like a shot.

After the excitement of watching Tux once again defend his kingdom from all-comers, the semi-indoor human and I felt it best to sleep till after lunch. Bliss.

Laziness, hoolicats, and the new King of the Yard

2011-04-23T16:23:00.006+01:00

I can't remember if I mentioned that I'm a particularly lazy cat? Hence the... er... delay between posts. No, I'm sure you find that as difficult to believe as I do. Meanwhile, life to press. Let us get straight to the heart of the newest drama. Unfortunately, two Hoolicats have moved in just across and to the right of the little back lane. They are half my size, twice my speed, and in a word, thugs. They work as an organised tactical unit, conspiring in the thickets before launching their planned, cold-blooded attacks, and unfortunately they've become so adept at this that a couple of months ago, after a particularly fierce disagreement, I was whisked back to the vet to have an abscess in my shoulder lanced and drained. Where might this abscess and its resultant three stitches and giant vet bill have come from? The rather grubby mouth of one of these arch-foes.

But oh, to hear the wretched humans talk in raptures about their glossy silver-white coats, dusty grey ostrich-plume tails, and diminutive little selves, you'd think our sleepy little street of retired pensioners has been visited by very cream of feline royalty... Ugh.

Anyway, now that I have set the scene of this grim story (to which you may add a few dramatic dark shadows and a deep sense of foreboding) there is new news of only last week, brought to you direct from the bedroom windowseat. Prepare yourself... Another hoolicat has moved in about ten doors away, only he is the short-haired, working-class-heavy-in-a-tuxedo to beat all film villains. He's as big as your average, mortal cat (i.e. rather smaller than myself), but has a head the size and density of a water melon, and produces a sound that I can only describe as a roaring bark, rather than yowl. In fact, I think he actually might be part-terrier. Or part-bull. Anywho, Tux. Does. NOT. Like. The Hoolicat Twins. At all. He practically ran out of his skin chasing one of them round, and round, and round the yards. The Hoolicat Twin in question (Lesser Hoolicat, the vindictive, plotting snidekick) finally had to scramble up into the ornamental yard shrub in fear for his very life, and then clamber right to the top, or lose whatever of his extremities Tux felt it worth his while to reach, which were most of them.

(To illustrate this enjoyable event more fully, find below a blueprint of my little kingdom...)

Whilst this vignette of cosmic, karmic justice was in progress, Greater Hoolicat dared to try to sneak past, and Tux was after him like a bolt of black and white lightning. Greater Hoolicat then had his obligatory laps, this time through the pensioner's gardens, before he vanished off into the horizon (read: round the side of the Posh House where I can't see) with Tux snapping at the tip of his tail. A few minutes later, Tux came back and sat in the yard washing his whiskers in a most satisfying way.

However, after some enjoyment of the tableau - Lesser Hoolicat swaying gently in the breeze atop the bush, newly crowned King of the Yard Tux scrubbing the day's work off his ears, the garden birds trilling their applause, it occurred to me that this was the definitive end of my time outside. I may choose, by and large, to be a stay-at-home cat anyway, but like anyone, I am also only too happy to absorb copious quantities of sunshine that hasn't been pre-filtered through glass, so the cosmic, karmic justice came with a tragic pang of deep, poetic sadness...

Life is far more unpredictable than this, however, and whatever my feelings on the matter, after a particularly active afternoon during which I went to great pains to subdue the wiring belonging to the new set of speakers that the semi-indoor human had recently bought, she decided, in her infinite wisdom, that I should take my enthusiastic high spirits outside and share them with the fresh April afternoon, instead. And who should be there but Tux.

Let us establish, first and foremost, that my tuxedo is decidedly smarter than his. I'm also a significantly bigger cat, too, and have more fluff on one lambchop than he has on his entire slippery-as-a-mink body. In summary, we can see that I'm infinitely the superior. And Tux clearly thought so too. We had a cautious conversation whereby I sat and stared at him vacantly, and he laid on the grass and twitched his tail in a most distracting manner, until finally I think I must have nodded off, and when I came back round Tux was a few short feet away, bathing his hind leg in an insultingly flexible manner. (Why cats who can articulate their joints to an unnatural degree feel they must always be showcasing this talent is something I have yet to fathom. It really feels almost deliberate, as though mocking we less lithe kitties.)

Anyway, I decided that Tux could do without the concern of adding me to his hit-list, particularly since I am not given to running, or really even trotting very far, and so we have somehow come to an agreement that I tolerate him slouching all over my yard as though he owns it, and he keeps the Hoolicats at a very safe distance. In short, my briefly disrupted sunning cycle is now firmly back on track.

In other news, the semi-indoor human got a 'promotion'. I later found out that this directly translates into 'more tins of tuna', so I have explained to her in return that she needs to back and get another half dozen of these 'promotions' right away.

Avoiding diets, annexing duvets, and other observations

2009-09-28T18:31:00.001+01:00

Well, the past few weeks have been... interesting. It seems that The Diet is for really real. I am now allowed out for night patrol at 11pm (earliest) and called straight back in for breakfast at 7am, which means that for the past few weeks, I have entirely missed out on the al fresco buffet provided by the crazy cat lady opposite. Snooks. At this rate I'll be a whippet by Christmas.

All this indoor time has invariably had consequences. If I have to stay in quite so much, then I'll jolly well enjoy it, so as of last week, I took it upon myself to annex a duvet. I do actually already have a bed. In fact, I have several, as the semi-indoor human never fails to point out, but most of these beds are designed for micro-felines. A single duvet folded in four, however, is plouffy, soft, and nicely accommodates even a good sprawl. And what should I find when, perchance, I hopped onto the spare bed in the office the other day? You guessed it.

It took several days of unmoving, silent demonstration – fortunately performed usually whilst unconscious – but victory came at last and it too has been added to my growing horde of possessions (inc. a PSII controller, a tin of 100% proof 'nip, and a threadbare old blue towel).

This all means that I've been spending quite some time in the office observing the curious habits of the semi-indoor human. The one who spends spring/summer firmly nailed to her desk indoors, and autumn/winter outdoors for eighteen hours a day. Inexplicable.

Anyway, from various mutterings, paper rifflings, drawer openings and closings and list writings, I've gathered that she has plenty to do, and yesterday I'm pleased to report that she managed to:
- categorise 1,227 pictures into folders,
- play a lot of Lexulous,
- read two 'FAIL' blogs,
- wield a brush in my direction (risky), and
- vacuum the whole house

Curiously, I note, none of these seem to be on her list of things to do. And humans think that cats are a mystery.

I am kitterocerous! Hear me snore!

2009-09-13T01:39:00.001+01:00

Uncool things to write in your first ever blog post...

I have this burning urge to write "FR1ST!", or, "OMG I'm on teh interwebz!" What is wrong with me...? Geekery aside, who am I? My name is Charlie Bear, or just Charlie, but I'm also known as kittesaurus, kitterocerous, or, most glamorous of all, porkball. Yeah. My humans are comedians. But how did I come by them? Like David Copperfield, we must start with my earliest memory, which alas, isn't all that long ago...

Playing at Bear Grylls, not doing so good actually

In my former life I was a street cat failure. I combine the appetite of a lion with the athleticism of a llama, so I wasn't exactly flourishing. Then I had a run in with something. Whatever it was, baseball bat, car, really big fall, I ended up hiding under a hedge with a busted up face, and in the end, some human had to massacre their shrubbery to get me out and take me to the CPL. The vet confirmed a broken jaw, one and a half missing lower canines, and damaged sinuses, as a result of which, I can add snoring and snuffling to my galaxy of charms. The vet also confirmed that I am, by any standards, enormous. Half-starved, I weighed 8lb, and based on my dimensions, the vet felt I should be around 1st.
I slowly recovered in a large, outdoor, CPL pen, complete with king-sized meals and quiet hidey-hutch (that's me in it here on the left). Two months later, I was a new cat, but it wasn't over yet. In the neighbouring pen, lots of cats came and went - diminutive females; charming males; a tortoiseshell kitten here; a little tabby there, but whenever humans came, they took one look at me, chose my neighbour, and fled. Until...

Kitterocerous goes home

On the 30th of November 2008, two more humans arrived. My neighbour was a slinky, silvery, half-grown female; all big eyes and little paws, but rather to my surprise, after the customary "He's half-bear!" exclamations, they seemed more interested in me. The next moment, out came a carrier. You know, one designed for a cat. Not a mammoth. So I made the next few minutes rather awkward as they sardined me into a teeny box. (They have since bought a dog carrier. Much better.) I also took the opportunity to demonstrate that I have an inordinately tiny meow.

One short, feebly protesting car-ride later, and it finally happened. The carrier door opened, and I stepped out into my forever home. That's a pic my first evening, on the big bay windowsill. I think it took me, oh, five minutes to take charge of the situation.

As it turns out, my days are now busy with important tasks. Whilst the indoor human does her work, I keep the pens and important papers in order. Other tasks include laying across the top step, to make stair-negotiating more entertaining.
I also assume odd positions that endeavour to take up as much floor-space as possible, thereby traffic-calming busy parts of the house. Occasionally I go stark raving mad and savage my scratching post, but I would rather spend those calories on a well-executed cheesecake or curry theft, and overall, my recovery has been so resounding that I now need to lose 3lb. Oh, and I occasionally sneak online.

In short, I am, ladies and gentlemen, your online, on-a-diet, kitty correspondent for all the exciting little nothings that happen in the daily life of a mammoth domestic cat.
Welcome to my blog.