Aby-a-Day – State of the Union (Cartoon Tuesday)

Sometimes, the sketches I do in Swedish class get a bit silly. I think we were talking about news when I did this…

Melur Singapuras…kittens available!

Just wanted to let people know that Logan’s half-siblings (Naina’s second litter) are looking for new homes! Click the link for more information.

Aby-a-Day – 29 January: Slip-sliding away

On yesterday’s post, Vagabondtabby commented: “…oh my GOD.

My Loiosh will sometimes go down the slide. I’ll hafta see what he thinks of the swings…”

Well, actually…

Jacoby wasn’t so impressed with the slide. He walked down it. He was more captivated by the view from the top of it.

Angel was next to give it a go.

Kalle helped her.

She needed a little push to get started.

She wasn’t really much of a fan of the slide…Perhaps because she did it backwards.

Abys are Everywhere and Singas are Super: Cat breed zodiac

Aby-friend Rachel posted this on Facebook, and I had to share it. Not only does it feature an Abyssinian for Aries…but my sign, Gemini, is a Singapura! I actually did laugh out loud when I saw it.

Aby-a-Day- 28 January: Get a load of this swingin’ cat! (Cinema Sunday)

The first summer we were here, we took Jacoby out on his leash to check out the area around our apartment.

Björn pushed Jake on a swing.

And…Jake loved it.

I know it seems silly, but photos don’t lie…

…Jake loved being pushed in the swing by Björn. Don’t believe me?

Here’s a video.

And here is another video. Tell me that’s a cat who doesn’t want pushes on the swing?

Aby-a-Day – 27 January: The tooth, the whole tooth, and nothing but the tooth

I have posted before about about Angel’s horrific dental situation. Angel has serious Feline Oral Resorptive Lesions. She’s had them since I adopted her, and she had few teeth left.

She had most of her teeth extracted before we moved to Sweden, but she was still having problems with her teeth. And there is NO WAY I can brush her teeth! Believe me, I have tried. So has my vet back in Boston.

Angel has had a chipped canine for a while which hasn’t really bothered her, but her remaining molars were starting to dissolve, so we were referred by our vet to a dental specialist in nearby Falköping.

Angel and I took the train to Falköping. The specialist checked both her eyes and her teeth, and then she was sedated for her oral surgery.

Her molars were too dissolved to save, but her chipped canine was salvageable, and the vet saved it for me.

Angel now has only three teeth left in her head – one canine on the top and two on the bottom. It makes her smile a little crooked, but, amazingly, it doesn’t impair her eating in the slightest. She still demands dry food with every meal, and she begs for raw meat scraps when I am cutting meat for supper. If anything, she seems happier to have gotten those bad teeth out of her mouth.

Abys are Everywhere: A Quite Interesting Aby

Since moving to Sweden, I have been watching a lot of BBC Brit. I have fallen in love with the comedic panel shows, especially

Aby-a-Day – 26 January: Wardrobe Rebel (Fashion Friday)

As you know, Jacoby has absolutely no problem with wearing clothing…especially if it’s his winter coat and there is snow on the ground!

Logan also has no problem wearing a coat outside when it’s cold.

Both he and Jake have figured out that going outside is fun, but being cold isn’t. Coats make outside not so cold so they can have that fun in winter.

Alfred, however…it finally snowed enough to let the kittens experience their first snow, so I took Logan and Freddy out with Jake. Freddy did not like wearing his coat. He started taking it off the minute we got outside. It was Gun-Hee’s old coat, and it fit him well, but he would have none of it.

He got out of it with lightning speed.

And then he proceeded to explore this strange white stuff that covered the outside.

It was almost as though he was saying, “Screw you, I’m Swedish! I don’t need no stinkin’ coat!”

Of course, Jake is Canadian and lived in New England for most of his life, and Logan is, of course, Swedish, too…and both of them appreciate their coats.

Jake, especially. He seems a bit bemused that Freddy would shuck his coat so quickly to frolic naked in the snow.

And frolic he did. He had a blast out there!

Still, I would feel better if he could keep a coat on. Maybe I just need to try a different style.

Aby-a-Day – 25 January: Things I can live without…Cat-like typing detected (Thursday Things)

I love living with cats, and I could never imagine myself not having at least one or two around me…but let’s be honest. They are not always the best roommates. They are not always a joy to behold. So, I thought I would start a new feature: Things I can live without.

And this right here is one things I can definitely live without. Cats sitting on my bloody keyboard! Logan, Freddy and Angel are all guilty of this, and they have done things like restart my computer, turn the screen brightness down all the way so I think they’ve shut it down, and worst of all, turn on the sodding Acessibility features like VoiceOver, Descriptions and Captions. I hate this because it always takes me forever to figure out how to turn it off. But it’s not so easy to just say, “well, just close it then, stupid,” because there are times when you don’t want to close the laptop, for example it’s running, downloading, or copying something large. I try putting things on the keyboard, or closing it partway with a stopper (usually my phone or the remote) to keep it from closing all the way. Of course, then they just sit on the thing, or on the half-closed lid…So I guess I’ll just have to live with someone thinking my keyboard is a lovely place for a bath.

Recently, though, they’ve learned a new trick. They are actually typing messages to people. They are now typing things like: ,,LÖ23B 1§ (This was Angel typing in Messenger to Björn).

And: Œ÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷
÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷
÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷
÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷
÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷
÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷
÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷
÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷
÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷
÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷’√ı©DEN902IO3 ÄÖN8TVGC, which someone sent to my sister (not sure who was doing long division – hell, I’m not even sure how they made a division sign…I’m not sure I know how to make one)!

I hope Apple comes up with a cat-proof MacBookPro soon!

Aby-a-Day – 23 January: Would I lie to you, baby?

Cats lie.

Cats lie if it suits their purposes.

When Alfred and Logan were kittens, they got a mid-meal snack. One day, when I was in Swedish language class and Björn was home, I wanted to let him know they’d already had their snack for the day. I messaged him, “I already fed the kittens a snack, so don’t believe Logan’s lies.”

Inspired by that, I drew this:

It says, “No…mamma has not given us food…”

Aby-a-Day – 22 January: National Answer Your Cats’ Questions Day

Today is National Answer Your Cats’ Questions Day in the US. I did this five years ago with Jacoby, Angel, Kylie and Tessie. But now we have Logan, Alfred and Pyret, and of course, Angel and Jake are five years older…so let’s see what they want to know now.

First off, Freddy would like to know…

And also:

Meanwhile, Logan wants to know this about birds:

He also wonders…

Jake very seriously asks:

And all three boys are dying to know this…

As for the girls…Angel only wants to know…

And Pyret…well, Pyret has only one question:

I am afraid I have no answers for most of these questions…

Aby-a-Day -21 January: Agria photobooth (Selfie Sunday)

One of the best things about the show in Örebro this weekend was the photobooth.

Agria Djurförsäkring (Animal Insurance) is a pet health insurance company, and a regular supporter of FIFe shows in Sweden.

At this show, they upped their presence with a free photobooth.

Logan was benched right next to the photobooth, so Björn and I took quite a few photos with him in the photo booth. I mean, who doesn’t love a photo booth?

This is how selfies were done back in the day!

Aby-a-Day – 20 January: Report from the road (Cat Show Saturday)

Logan is entered in a cat show this weekend in Örebro, a town about 146 km northeast of Skövde. I will do more in-depth posts about the FIFe shows that Jacoby and Logan have gone to, but for now, here are a few snaps of Logan’s budding show career.

Here is Logan at his very first show in Stockholm, back in August. He was just five months old, entered in the Kitten class (4-7 months old), of course. You can see how stressed out he was by the experience.

At his second show, in Västra Frölunda (near Göteborg), he got to see his sister Iris again!

That was a lot of fun.

Well…mostly.

Then in November, he went to his first and only show as a Junior (7-10 months old), and it was also his first international show. We took the ferry from Stockholm to Helsinki.

He also got his first Nomination! It’s kind of like going to the finals. It’s hard to explain.

At this show, though, we happened to meet a lovely Maine Coon…who was around the same age as Logan! Yes. These guys were both showing in the Junior class. This is what the largest breed of cat and the smallest breed of cat look like next to each other.

This weekend’s show is Logan’s first as an Open, which means now he starts earning points towards his Championship, Grand Championship and beyond!

Pretty exciting!

At the end of the day, Logan was not named Best in Show by the panel of judges, losing to an International Champion black-spotted Bengal. To put that into perspective, Jake is an International Premier, the alter version of the same level; basically rookie Logan went up against a cat like Jake. But he beat two British Shorthairs to get there (one of which was a lilac International Grand Champion, so a level higher than Jake), so as a representative of the newest breed in FIFe, that is not at all bad.

Aby-a-Day – 19 January: Pam Dave Zarings style portraiture (Photoshop Friday)

If you haven’t seen the hilariously bad “professionally” retouched family photos a woman posted on her Facebook account last week, you just might want to click those two hyperlinks above and take a look.

And, of course, some clever person figured out how to get this hot new Photoshop look that’s trending right now. A Finnish Photoshop expert created a tutorial on how to recreate the captivating and bewitching look. Well, I’m always up for a good Photoshop challenge (like the Woodpecker, Snowmobile, and Man Bun memes), so I thought I would try it on Jacoby and Angel. I took this photo of Jake (appropriately enough, on the ferry leaving Helsinki) and created the masterpiece at the top of this post

I couldn’t find a brightly-lit photo of Angel’s face, so I used this one of her in a tree:

And I came up with this:

I don’t think it works quite as well with cats as it does with humans, because the unretouched hair is part of what make the faces look so…odd. I tried get the same effect with the ears, but it’s just not quite the same.

Singas are Super! Catster sings the Singapura’s praises

Last week, Catster Magazine published “11 Reasons to Sing the Singapura’s Praises” and it’s really a nice little list. Check it out!

Aby-a-Day – 18 January: Jacoby’s CFA big wins

You may recall that in 2016, Jacoby was the 21st Best Cat in Premiership in Region 1 and 8th Best Abyssinian in Premiership for that show season. I even made a silly sketch of his Regional win.

For his 21st Best Premier in Region 1 (the Northeast), he got this lovely trophy.

We keep it on the kitchen windowsill.

He also had his photo printed in the program.

And he received this certificate. Which…yeah. Besides my name being misspelled…who is Helena?

I did get a corrected certificate, eventually.

Back in 2013, I tried like hell to get Jake a breed win. He was 10th Best Abyssinian in Premiership in CFA for most of the spring, and we went to Stamford, CT to solidify his position. Sadly, in the last week, he was displaced and ended up being 11th.

Three years later, he was 8th Best Abyssinian in Premiership. Eighth. Best. And it was a complete susprise! We weren’t trying, like we were in 2013…but three years later, it happened.

Jake could not be prouder of his accomplishments. And, even better: Jake went to only two CFA shows last season (2016-2017)…and he was still 10th Best Abyssinian in Premiership! I am so proud of my boy.

Aby-a-Day – 17 January: Wordless Wednesday (Jake and his cat toy)

Aby-a-Day – 16 January: Head study (Cartoon Tuesday)

Just a little head study I did in my Swedish language class the other day…can you tell who is who?