Sweden is well-known for its recycling system. We used to have to go to several different places to recycle (paper and cardboard were in our område, but metal, glass and plastic were in other areas around town.
But two years ago, we got two consolidated underground recycling stations in our område. It is so much more convenient!
And, we can take the cats with us, turning a mundane chore into a fun outing.
The stations have kiosks for regular household trash, food garbage (which is turned into fuel for buses and home heating), coloured glass, clear glass, metal, cardboard, paper, and plastic.
It’s also an amazingly clean and odourless place, too, considering it’s a place people bring their trash.
The stations also don’t attract scavenging corvids, seagulls, or rats. Just Abyssinians and Singapuras.
One other nice thing about the recycling stations is that you can meet your neighbours. I think the whole concept of these tidy little stations is brilliant.
Dashiell really loves to sit on the elliptical and bask in the afternoon sun.
His fur is so shiny and bright, too.
Lorelai tried to get some of Dash’s sun puddle, but he was not giving it up.
Good for you, Dash!
The moral of the story: never relinquish your sunshine.
I honestly don’t know how this can possibly be a comfortable way to sleep. And yet, Lorelai sleeps like this a lot.
She also sleeps with her eyes a little bit open sometimes. That’s just creepy.
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.
Yesterday when Björn and Emma were making breakfast, they gave the cats a little bit of ham…and a piece fell on Alfred’s back.
He could smell it, but couldn’t figure out where the delicious ham was.
Meanwhile, here it is.
Meanwhile, Izaak is wondering why we are all giggling and taking photos.
“Mooooommmmmm…where’s the haaammmmm..?”
“Wait? There’s ham? I thought I smelled ham…”
I thought for sure Izaak would clock the ham on Freddy’s back.
Because I am a meanie, I tried to get Zak to notice the ham on Freddy’s back.
I almost thought he was going to see it.
But in the end, Freddy managed to knock the ham off of his back and eat it. Sorry, Zak.
Today we took the cats out with us to take out the recycling. Emma got to handle Lorelai’s leash.
It’s been raining most of the week, so the cats haven’t been outside in a while.
While we usually let Izaak and Alfred follow us at their own pace, Emma wanted to try and keep them all with us.
When we first saw this little Yorkie, I was afraid it was going to start yapping and being annoying, but it actually seemed curious about the cats.
Rory was curious, too. We let them say hello.
Rory and I continued to the garbage bin whilst Björn and Emma tried to get Zak to follow us (he had been spooked by the neighbour boys and was hiding from them). On the way we passed one of the rug racks being used for its actual purpose.
In the end, Björn and decided Zak would be fine until we got back, and finally made it to the bins. When we got there, we met an adult Vallhund!
At first, the dog was a little too eager for Rory’s liking.
But don’t worry. Although she be small, Rory is mighty fierce. She can hold her own.
Eventually, the Vallhund settled down, and they and Rory had a nice little meeting.
Freddy got to meet the Vallhund, too.
When Björn went to Stockholm yesterday to collect Emma, he’d left his bicycle next to the bus stop. It was very convenient to fetch it on the way back from the bins. As Björn was wheeling it up the path, Rory did something surprising: she jumped up on the chain guard!
The thing is…she didn’t jump off even when Björn continued to move the bike!
She rode on that chain guard for a while, too.
Long enough, in fact, that I was able to make a little video. Click on the image to watch it in a new window on Flickr.
Björn’s daughter Emma is visiting us this weekend! She’s here for her birthday, which was last Friday, but as Björn’s holiday started today, here’s here from today until Wednesday morning.
Tonight, we had options for dinner, and Emma chose ribs.
So, we had ribs.
And when we had finished, we let the cats gnaw the meat of said ribs.
Emma doesn’t have a cat at home in Stockholm, so she was quite amused to watch the feeding frenzy that ensued.
After the cats had their ribs, Emma had her cake.
She also mentioned that she didn’t like wearing a mask, so I gave her my two cat-face masks. I mean, if you don’t like wearing a mask, it’s easier to wear a fun one, amirite?
Okay. Today was…weird. Strange. Mysterious. And not a little bit scary. It has many layers to it. It starts earlier this week, when I bought a used tricycle.
Since Covid, my balance is a bit off and my Dutch bike is getting harder to ride, especially when I am carrying things. But good tricycles are expensive, and cheap ones are…unpredictable. I’d been looking on a Swedish used item selling website, but there was nothing. Then, on Wednesday, I happened to check it again…and there was one listed, in Skövde, for only 2900 kr (about $300 USD – wicked cheap). The trike had been put up the day before, so it really was serendipity. He delivered it Thursday. It’s going to take a bit of practice to get the hand of riding it (bicycles and tricycles handle very differently) and it needs some lights and reflectors.
Another point: Björn is away on a weekend gaming trip, since everyone is vaccinated. Last night, I was on my own, so I ordered those lights and reflectors on Amazon.se. As part of this shopping, I went out twice after sunset to look at the trike to see what I needed and where I could mount things. When I went out, I got a lot of mosquito bites. I also ran into my upstairs neighbours, who told me they were going on a trip in the morning (this becomes important later). I fell asleep watching Hamilton, woke up at 4am, and went to bed. Woke up at 10, itching like crazy, and took some Benedryl. I was reading in the bedroom (it’s cooler there during the day than in the living room) and the Benedryl made me doze off. When I woke up, it was almost 4pm.
Which meant the cats’ breakfast was late. I immediately went to feed them. Izaak and Lorelai weren’t around, but that’s actually kind of normal for them; Zak has been hiding from me when I feed him, especially in the morning because he doesn’t want to be shut up in the bedroom, and Rory likes to hang out on the balcony and eats later.
But it was bothering me. Afternoons, Rory sleeps on the end of the sofa, and Zak eventually comes out of hiding. Kalle and I searched the house; I had started a load of laundry and thought they might be shut in there, but they weren’t. Now I was getting worried. I started thinking they might be outside, but how? They didn’t get out when I went outside last night, because they were here for dinner. Around 5:30pm, I went outside, both to look for them and also to see if I could put the tail light back on the trike. As soon as I got to the trike, Zak appeared, yelling a blue streak!
“WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN!? WHY WAS I OUTSIDE? WHERE WERE YOU!?” And I couldn’t answer that, because I have no idea. But that means Rory was probably outside, too. I put Zak back inside and Kalle and I scoured the område. Kalle suggested we check with the Anderssons, and I told him they’d gone on a trip this morning. We looked everywhere, but couldn’t find her…but it occurred to me that late afternoon is Rory’s nap time. WHen I messaged Björn about it, he thought she might be napping under some bushes in one of her favourite spots, like near the sandbox. So, we decided to wait for an hour and try again. Kalle mentioned that the door wasn’t locked when he went shopping; he had forgotten that until after we searched. Alfred, as you know, can open the front door if it’s not locked, and when the Anderssons load their car, they block the door open. Kalle and I started theorising: The door somehow was left unlocked (I don’t remember NOT locking it, but I don’t remember actually locking it, either) and Freddy opened it. Zak, Rory and Freddy go out in the hallway, and the front door is open because of the neighbours’ trip. The Anderssons see Freddy and put him inside, but they don’t see the other two. I also knew no one had found her; she’s pretty well known in the område and all the children know her by name. She has two ID tags and nobody had called or checked the Blanket ID site.
Kalle suggested taking Zak with us when we went out to look for Rory, and I had been thinking the same thing. So, Zak and I go out to find Rory and Kalle was still getting ready…but there Rory was, right at the door, waiting to be let in! I have no idea when they got out, how long they’d been out, where they went…nothing. Just our theory of events, at least until the Anderssons get home. But, this shows that taking them outside often and in all seasons is a VERY good thing, because they know where they live. A lot of indoor cats don’t learn that, so if they do escape, they are easily disoriented and don’t know how to get home.
Epilouge: The Anderssons didn’t see the cats this morning. I just messaged Oksana, and she didn’t see Freddy, Zak or Rory this morning. The mystery continues. So much for all that CSI I’ve watched in my life.
Yesterday, we took some recycling out to the bins, and of course the cats came with us. Which, of course, drew the kids in like a magnet.
This one little boy, who we’ve seen outside as long as we’ve been taking the cats out, loves the cats…
…but his love tends to involve happy shrieks and picking them up. Alfred and Izaak generally get enough love and prudently run away and hide in the bushes. But Lorelai on her leash is a captive audience for his attention.
It’s funny. This boy loves the cats, but is also a little afraid of them. I don’t know what he thinks is going to happen or what he thinks Rory is going to do.
Eventually Rory went into one of our recycling bags. This fascinated the boy.
It also brought a little girl to look at Rory in a bag.
They had a pretty good time playing with the bag, Rory and the kids. It was cute to watch.
I wanted to take the cats out today, but the weather had other plans. But I found these photos from an earlier. Lorelai just LOVES rolling in the sand.
Izaak, on the other hand, likes to dig. They are so fun to watch!
We finally got to see Raya and the Last Dragon on Disney+, and I was absolutely mesmerised by the dragon Sisu, voiced by Awkwafina. She reminded me so much of Lorelai that I had to draw her as the dragon. Here is my first sketch.
Followed up by the ink outline.
I did colour layers both underneath and over the ink outline, and then covered up some of the black lines with matching colours.
This is the finished Procreate drawing, sans background, before shifting to Photoshop.
Add a background and some outer glow on some of the layers…and here is the finished piece.
As always, here’s the video of the Procreate drawing process. Click on the image to watch the video in Flickr.
Since we’ve had to keep Lorelai on a leash, the neighbourhood kids are asking to pet her, hold her, and walk her on her leash. Interestingly, it’s mainly boys who are asking! They get so excited when they see us, and if we’re out without the cats, they ask us when we’ll bring them out again.
It’s so much fun to watch them interact with Rory. And I get it…when I was a kid, I always wanted to “help” neighbours walk their dogs. There’s something about holding the end of a leash with an animal at the other end of it that’s like no other feeling.
One thing all of the cats love to do when we go outside is chew on the grass. Alfred and Lorelai especially enjoy chomping on fresh, green bladage.
It’s funny. Izaak and Dashiell aren’t as much into eating grass. But it’s the first thing Freddy and Rory do when we open the front door.
Nom nom nom.
Sometimes, though, the camera catches some humourous faces.
Like this one. Freddy’s trying to catch moving grass…but he looks like he’s doing a heckin’ screm.
A couple in the C part of our building recently got a Swedish Vallhund puppy. We’ve seen them walking him outside, but we had yet to be outside with the cats when they were training him.
Until last Thursday, when we took the recyclables out. As we know, Lorelai likes dogs. But she’s never really met a puppy before.
The pup is really young, and he’s squirmy and yappy. At first, Rory was a little taken aback.
But eventually they touched noses.
Then Alfred strolled up to meet the puppy, whose name is Toke (Pronounced “TOH-kuh”).
It was pretty funny to see how big Toke made Freddy look. Toke looks a little intimidated. Toke’s humans were happy to introduce him to our cats; they want to get a kitten as well.
And then Izaak joined the party.
“That sure is a funny-looking cat!”
“Wait…That’s no cat!”
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!
The other day when we took the cats outside, Björn got the idea to use his phone’s front camera to take some photos of Lorelai from a different angle.
Rory was standing on the rug frame, so Björn took photos of her from underneath.
I’ve got to admit…I never really thought about taking photos from below like this. Pretty brilliant, I think.
Rory seemed to like it, too.
Björn managed to get himself into a couple of the shots as well. I think they’re cute.
The Daily Abyssinian...and Singapura 