Björn rented a car, and we went to Fallköping and Jonköping today.
One of the things we do when we go to Jonköping is to go to IKEA.
IKEA may have discontinued their mice, but they still have rats.
There’s only one colour now, a sort of shiny beige, but Izaak doesn’t care. It’s an IKEA rodent plush…he loves it.
And Zak violently loves his IKEA rodents.
Even though we have about a dozen of these things around the house, this is now his favourite.
Today would have been Pyret’s 22nd birthday.
She only saw 18 birthdays, but no matter how long they’re gone, you always remember their birthdays.
Pyret was an only cat for many years…until she had a couple of Abyssinians thrust upon her.
She adapted well, though.
And then…she met Logan.
Right from the start, they had a sort of bond, those two.
Of course, when there’s a Singapura involved, bonding is not exactly an option.
When Pyret started dying, Logan watched over her closely.
Even after Pyret died, Logan spent time with her body. It was especially poignant in hindsight, as Logan died a month later…almost as if he knew.
So, happy 22nd birthday, Pyret.
For over ten years, Karen Lawrence has been working on collecting, archiving and publishing the history of the Abyssinian breed. At long last, her book has been published, and my copy arrived yesterday. It’s an incredible oeuvre, and an incredible resource.
There are photos of all sorts of relics from the early days of Abyssinian breeding, like this pin from the Abyssinian Cat Club in England that’s 102 years old.
And these CFA registration cards, when the records were kept on index cards.
The cover of the first issue of Cats Magazine from 1945 featured Abys.
And, yes, as advertised, there is a chapter about the Somali, too.
And there are also a few nifty surprises, too, like these photos of Aby kittens taken by Kenneth Heilbrom. I have some of his prints.
And look, I even have a mention! I sent Karen a photo of my Selene’s Firefly
Apparently, it also makes a fine seat for a certain blue Aby girl.
The only downside to having Emma stay with us was the fact that she occupied the spare bedroom, where Alfred and Lorelai eat their daily chicken necks.
There is a very good reason for this.
Rory and Freddy eat their necks wicked fast. Sometimes, Freddy will be finished with his neck before I can get the door shut!
Dashiell and Izaak, however, eat their necks at a more leisurely pace.
Which is somewhat ironic, considering Zak is the entire reason we have the evening neck ritual at all. But he’ll look at his neck, and then try to follow me out of the room. It’s like, dude…eat your damn neck! You wait all day for it and yell at me until I give it to you!
It’s arrangement that works well. Freddy and Rory scarf their necks down, growl at each other if one tries to steal the other’s neck, and can pretty much defend their necks from one another. Dash and Zak respect each other’s boundaries and generally don’t try to poach the other’s neck (although sometimes they do trade).
So you can see the problem. Dash and Zak aren’t accustomed to competition. Meanwhile, Rory…
…and Freddy are hovering like vultures, just waiting for an opening to swoop in and snatch a neck away from one of the boys.
Rory…NO!
“Whattaya mean, ‘no,’ Mom? He’s not eating it!”
Finally, Dash ate about half his neck, and I gave up and let Rory have the rest. Better her than Freddy; she needs the calories more than he does. And I needed to go eat dinner with Björn, Kalle and Emma.
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"Thanks, Mom!"
Yeah, I'm glad we can go back to the two-room system.
Björn is working on a project, and he needed a piece of foam. He’s working on the project in the living room, and he set the foam down on his laptop and books.
Of course, Izaak had to investigate this new and fascinating object in his territory.
He tried to walk on it or sit on it, but it was unstable and kept teeter-tottering. I admit, it: I laughed at him a little.
“What?”
“I would greatly appreciate you not judging me.”
Zak then spent a great deal of time examining the situation. He seemed determined to conquer the foam.
Unfortunately, his efforts were in vain. Zak ended up settling for sitting next to the piece of foam.
“Don’t look at me like that.”
This is starting to be a regular thing.
Angel’s napping in a bed…
…and Izaak decides he just has to be there, too.
But look at Angel’s body language.
She seems totes okay with his intrusion!
It’s kind of funny, because she’s never really been much of a social cuddler. She did sleep with Jacoby when he was young, but that stopped as he matured. Of course Singapuras never take no for an answer, so maybe she’s just given up. Himbs doin a heckin assimilate. No resistance. So much futile.
I know some of these photos today are a bit blurry, but I wanted to share them anyway because this is so Alfred’s personality.
Freddy loves to cuddle between us when we’re sitting on the sofa watching television.
He especially likes to lay up against my bare legs when I’m wearing a skirt. It’s kind of sweet to see him next to Jacoby.
It’s not the most fun when it’s almost 30°C, but it is cute.
For some reason, he also likes to touch peets.
I am not sure what this is, however.
The other day I looked out the livingroom window and saw a little girl and her mom waling her cat on a leash!! I took photos with my long lens through the window, so they are a little blurry.
I don’t know anything about her, apart from she lives in the C block of our apartment building. I saw her in a first-floor window yesterday.
She reminded me so much of Kylie!
The white kitty was obviously very new to walking on a leash…
…but she was doing an excellent job!
I kind of wonder if I’m not a little responsible for this. I mean, back when I was in the SCA, I took Harri to events, and, suddenly, there were a lot of people bringing their cats out, too. I like to think I inspired this kitty adventure.
So, you may recall that I took some lovely photos of Izaak and his tree in winter and spring. Well, the other day when we all went outside, I thought the tree was ready for the summer photo, so I put Zak in his tree.
At first, he thought about jumping down.
But then, Zak climbed even higher into the tree!
And…used the branch as a scratching post.
Juuuusssst before trying to eat the lichen on the tree. Cat won’t eat dry or wet cat food, but lichen he eats?
Eventually, Zak decided to come back down, and the photo session was over.
This one shot, though, is the one I think I’m going to use in the Four Seasons project.
The other day, Dashiell was sitting in the window and he looked so handsome and photogenic, I had to capture him.
I mean, just look at him!
His coat is so very shiny. All of the cats have great fur (I think it’s the raw/Bozita diet), but none of them are as shiny as he is. It’s like he has special reflective hair.
“Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful…”
So…this happened the other day.
Angel was sleeping on the IKEA cat bed, which is Lorelai’s usual afternoon, post-breakfast napping spot of choice.
So Rory, seeing Angel in her “spot,” just decided to join her. And Angel went with it.
It’s kind of a big deal, because Angel isn’t exactly known for her cuddling with other cats. Voluntarily, anyway.
But then, this happened: Rory started licking Angel’s head! And Angel LET her!
It was just so sweet to see Angel accepting cuddles from another girlcat!
If you are a regular follower, you know the story behind Angel’s eye. You may also remember we took Angel to Angell Hospital to see an Dr. Biros, an opthalmology specialist.
Back then she was diagnosed with open chronic inactive keratitis with corneal scarring, a result of her early Feline Herpesvirus that took her left eye as a kitten.
So, this morning Angel and I took the long bus ride to Min Veterinär.
“Wait, what? I was just here yesterday!”
She waited in her carrier for the doctor and her assistant to come in.
First they put some drops in her eye to dilate her pupil.
Then the lights were dimmed.
And the doctor shone a light into Angel’s eye to examine the cornea.
Then we decided to check her blood to see if there was anything systemic going on.
First, of course, we had to shave her leg.
Tomorrow is her 14th birthday, and I don’t think she’s ever had her blood tested. Even without any eye problems, it’s a good idea to see if there’s anything else we need to worry about.
And then we were done.
She was a very good patient.
Then, we had to wait for the bus back home.
We had just missed one bus, so we had a 14 minute wait for the next one. I let Angel out to get some air.
She was good, and went back into her carrier when she was finished exploring (not that there’s much to explore at that bus stop).
When we got off the bus at home, I let her out again. She walked part of the way…
…and rode part of the way.
After two trips to the vet in two days, we were both happy to get home.
Apparently, her previous open chronic inactive keratitis has been activated. The doctor prescribed Dexmethasone drops, so hopefully that will deactivate her keratitis.
Björn asked me what I wanted to do for my birthday. I said, “go to the second-hand store and to eat at Max (Sweden’s best burgers)“. And so we did.
Björn gave me a Schleich Bengal (I collect Schleich cats)…
…a paint-by-numbers kit and some vintage cat books.
At the second-hand store I scored a beautiful Egyptian cat statue (which Lorelai was quite taken with)…
…and a Rosa Ljung ceramic cat.
But the BEST thing we found was when we checked out a new pet store in town, Dogman. There I found FREEZE-DRIED Vaisto cat food (I have been wanting to give Angel freeze-dried instead of raw, but couldn’t find it in Sweden), some dried chicken treats, and an interesting duck “cat sausage” that I am hoping Izaak will eat, because it will be easier to travel with that than with frozen raw food.
AND we found 1kg bags of frozen chicken necks! We had been buying Vaisto Mush necks in 800g bags, but they’ve been in short supply lately, and these are much better (and cheaper). Zak, as you know, LOVES his necks! All in all, not a bad birthday.
As you may remember, Dashiell isn’t as confident about being outside.
But he does seem more comfortable when he’s with the other cats.
So when Alfred started to run down the hill, Dash kind of followed him.
I mean, okay…Dash walked down the hill, he didn’t run.
But the fact that he went on the hill at all is a huge step for him!
I absolutely love watching Izaak run.
It’s so different from the way the Abys run.
It’s bouncier, somehow.
I’ve also noticed he has a tendency to curl up his tail as he runs, while the Abys’ tails are either straight up or straight out.
Zak’s got a swagger to his stride that the Abys just don’t have. They’re more about the speed.
And then Zak slows down to a businesslike trot.
He’s clearly a cat on a mission.
Earplane 1Z44K is taxiing down the runway after another successful flight.
After the successful landing, he is met by his faithful groundcrew.
Yesterday, I showed you our new neighbours, Randall and Beth, a pair of European Pied Flycatchers. They are very interesting little birds. And not only have we never seen them in our område before now, but we have had that little birdhouse up for three years and no bird has ever shown any interest in it until now.
But Beth and Randall have moved right in.
They appeared on Tuesday, so we named them after the characters on This is Us.
They rarely, if ever, land on the ground, so they are fairly safe from cats. But that didn’t stop Randall from doin’ a heckin’ concern when we went outside with the cats this afternoon.
The cats, however, were mostly oblivious to the bird couple above.
Mostly.
Izaak noticed their movement at some point whilst we were outside.
He watched them flying around for a bit.
But I think he knew there was no chance. We will have to be careful when we take them out after the fledglings emerge.
Yesterday in one of my Facebook cat groups, someone posted about an app, Cat Scanner, that claims to identify what breed your cat is from a photograph. So of course I had to try it out.
It worked great with the Abyssinians.
It even identified Angel correctly.
And it got Markis pretty well, too.
I was disappointed with how it did with Tessie. I was expecting perhaps a Burmilla…but I guess at least it could tell she’s a tortie?
And then…there was Izaak. Complete and utter fail. I was expecting a Singapura to be a fairly easy ID…at worst, maybe a Burmese or Aby…but a Bengal!? Seriously? Well, you know I clicked that “Am I right?” link to tell them they weren’t. And the explanation was…the app only really works with FIFe-recognised breeds.
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Um….what!? Singas have been recognised in FIFe since 2014…SEVEN YEARS!
Which, naturally, I felt the need to tell them. Haven’t gotten a response yet, but I can’t wait to see what they say.
This is the last installment of the series about the big cats at Borås Djurparken. This week, it’s the Tigers’ turn.
Unfortunately, unlike the other cats, the Tigers were…underwhelming.
But at least we got to see them at all. We did not get to see the African Wild Dogs or the Wolves at all that day.
Continuing >the series about the big cats at Borås Djurparken. Last week, I focused on the Cheetah kittens, and this week we’ll look at the adult Cheetahsthey have at the park.
I don’t remember how many adults there were in the enclosure; I think there were two adults to the several kittens. I think it may have been two mothers with their combined litters.
Interestingly, the adult Cheetahs didn’t really interact with the kittens all that much.
They just walked on past the kittens, staying in their own bubble.
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I love this shot. You can see the muscles in the hind legs; they are like coiled springs. The power of the Cheetahs' speed is obvious.
The park also had an informational Cheetah display with information on wild Cheetahs’ territories and life styles.
There was also an articulated Cheetah skeleton. You can really see how big their carnassials compared to the rest of the skull.
Cheetahs are the only cats whose claws don’t retract. But look how heavy and thick their claws are – they give them excellent traction when they’re chasing down prey.
Still, as interesting as the insides are, looking at the outsides of the Cheetahs is a lot better.
Continuing the series about the big cats at Borås Djurparken (which, admittedly, I totally forgot about last week). This week, I have a little more about the Cheetah kittens they have at the park.
It was a little hard to tell how many kittens (I refuse to call baby cats “cubs”) there were; I think there were four or five.
I’m also not sure how old they were.
Compared to the mother Cheetah, I would say they were a few months old.
They were wicked cute, though.
Most of them were lounging out in the open. Look at this guy, just chilling.
One interesting thing I did not know about Cheetah kittens is that when they speak…they chirp like little birds!
I love Cheetah kittens, with their fluffy fur.
The Daily Abyssinian...and Singapura 