I had to study 'A Winter's Tale' in high school. That line's about all I can remember of it. :) It is entertaining, but in a soap opera sort of way.

I'm doing the 'early to rise' without the 'early to bed'--probably explains why I keep falling asleep at work.

Up all night earning marshmallows?

Among other things....

Poor Dave, sorry to hear you're having such a hard time with Sarah's cats. I'm not sure why they won't come in, but I don't think that they feel Sarah's abandoned them. You're part of the household, effectively, and you've looked after them before while Sarah's had short trips away.

They probably are missing her, and are sulking about it, apart from Minsky, who is a more independent sort. Skiffle and Diesel settled happily with Iain and Vikki for 6 weeks or so while my flat was being renovated. When I came back for them and picked Skiffle up, she touched my face with her nose. Vikki exclaimed "She kissed you; she never did that to me."

Sarah's cats will probably come galloping back when she returns, leaving you feeling rather foolish, but don't take it personally. Contrary things, cats.

I probably ought to explain here that I would be unable to have a cat flap even if I wanted one, because I live in a council house with glass-panelled doors. Having said that, I wouldn't be enthusiastic about the idea anyway, for several reasons:

1. Where I live, people let their dogs run loose rather than taking them for proper walks. They frequently get into the garden. Many of them are small enough to go through a cat flap.

2. Although my cats have all got bells on their collars, occasionally they still manage to catch something particularly vulnerable or hard of hearing, and I don't want small corpses in the house.

3. I don't want other cats coming into the house after food in Minsky's absence. Klinsmann will chase anything which will run away from him, but the moment something starts to advance on him, he instantly loses his courage and runs away (typical bully). Chomsky and Heidi are just naturally timid.

Having Dave R's computer downstairs sounds like a brilliant idea, though it would mean unplugging mine, as I am ridiculously short of power points, especially in the living room. I think I'm already using more adaptors than anyone reasonably ought.

I shall be back on Sunday, and I dare say all the cats will then return to normal, although Chomsky is likely to glue himself to my leg for at least the next three days; he is an adorable creature, but I do wish he wasn't quite so "mumsy"! At least Minsky is there and visibly coping with the situation, so the other three have some kind of an anchor.

It also, incidentally, speaks volumes for Minsky's self-control (not a virtue found often in cats) that he hasn't yet killed Klinsmann.

So the catflap is a no go then. Mine is an electronic one, Maisie and Jack have magnets that let them in (until they lose their collars or the battery goes flat) but I don't think you can get them for glass doors. I quite agree about the corpses.



Post Edited (08-08-03 11:50)

I did actually have a catflap in a glass door once - you can get them put in by a glasier who knows what he's doing - that and the magnetic tags on their collars would solve everything but the corpse problem (but not all cats can cope with catflaps anyway, I've found!)



_ _ _ _ _

If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur.

My brother tried to put a catflap in a glass door. He very carefully cut round the template and tapped gently as per the instructions, and the whole door shattered apart from the perfect glass circle he was trying to remove.

KT, that's brilliant! Love the way you said it with such a straight face too. Still laughing now and I've been back in to read it three or four times already! I know several people who I can imagine exactly that happening to as well (not me, I wouldn't even dare try...)

My parents installed a catflap when I was very young but they had to board it up since (a) the cat, Ozzie, haughtily ignored it and (b) I kept insisting on trying to climb out of it. My mother maintains to this day it was because I was born by caesarian section.

And then there's the (possibly apocryphal?) story about a family whose video-tapes mysteriously started getting wiped... which turned out to be because they often left them in the machine, their cat liked to sleep on top of the machine because that was a warm spot, and it had one of those magnetic door-openers attached to its collar...

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"God rot Botchkamos Istochnik!"

I'm not sure how it happened, but I seem to have got all the last seven posts directed to my e-mail address- let's see if I get this one as well!

Having checked my in-box I have replied to them all as if sent personally in support. Well, whether intended or not, thank you all very much for your understanding and cat humour.

I have written about these four cats in 'The Nextarillion', and currently am having just as hard a time with them as Dave Rubach; but in his case, Minsky can book jump and Klinsmann is in the ChronoGuard, so they have the power to make his life a complete misery. I could walk away but don't; Dave Rubach can't, and that is even more infuriating for him.

Klinsmann has take to coming in and sitting under the table but refusing to eat. What more can I do?

On Sunday I will be free ---

Sarah - I am suddenly totally in agreement with you over catflaps. I've just got home from work and found a dead, half-grown rat in the hall. UGH. Usually, I just pick corpses up and put them in the bin, but this time I put on two layers of latex gloves, and a big wodge of kitchen roll - I'm now going to have to disinfect the keyboard. UGH UGH. Anything but rats. (I love to see them in the wild, but not in my house!)

DaveR, 'On Sunday I will be free ---' Me too! Can't wait! This housesitting business really sucks! (At least the cat I am sitting never leaves the house. The downside is that I have to be in the house with it. Sometimes it insists on touching me. UGGHH!!)

Hee hee hee --- commiserations.

We'll both need a stiff drink to get over it. Still got that scotch I sent you?

I think I'll drink it when I get home tonight, if it survives being so far from a broadband connection. 2 e-mails in the post for you. :^)

2 emails returned. :)

It seems I have one sane cat, one cat who would (as Dave R put it during a telephone call) give St Francis some serious theological problems, one totally neurotic cat, and Greta Garbo.

Don't worry. I'll be back tomorrow, and that should bring them back to whatever qualifies for normal!

in our last house, we put a store bought cat flap in the door to the laundry room so that the cats would have easy access to the litterboxes without us having to constantly smell the mess.

One problem...actually two...2 of the cats were too large for the opening. I really should have purchased a medium dog size one. So they really had to squeeze to get in. But they managed it. Not happily, but they managed it.

Second problem: during the training part, I had to tape the flap open so they would learn to go through the hole. That took bloody forever! Then one day, the tape gave out and Crickett had to go...and I could see her pacing and pacing in front of the door almost with her knees crossed LOL...and she finally got desparate and pushed her way through the CLEAR plastic flap. After that, they were fine!

Now in this house, we actually replaced the paneled door to our laundry room with a @#$%& luan door and I built a custom cat hole for it, large enough for the cats to get through easily but with a flap large ehough to help mask the smells, which is a good thing because the room is right off the kitchen and family room! It's been fun watching new cats come in and figure out how to use it. I showd it to Odin once and then he spent the next 2 days running and jumping in and out. It was absolutely darling to see him play like that.

Don't think I would ever do a door to the outside though. For one thing, I don't really want my cats outside and two, I KNOW they'd bring me gifts I really wouldn't want to receive!

So I go round to Sarahs expecting to be roasted for cats having lost weight and become even more deranged. Not a bit of it. Sarah reports all four to be in perfect health, no weight loss, and their coats have improved from having 'got a life' for the last week.

Snarl.

Then I bump into Klinsmann, who instead of running away petrified, arches his back to be stroked. I'm told he isn't yuckling Minsky, so maybe his enforced ejection last time he did it has put him straight.

You'd think last week had never happened.

I vote, next time lock them out and let them fend for themselves; they seem to have done very well out of practically no better!

Must see psychiatrist ---