I took these last autumn after a trip to the vet with Dashiell.
In the courtyard outside Commerce (our downtown mall), there was a giant Adirondack chair.
It appeared randomly last summer, and then disappeared, never to be seen again.
When I put Dash on it, it reminded me of Edith Ann on Laugh-In…and that’s the truth.
I was downtown today, and, on a whim, I thought I would check out the bookstore in the mall, and something caught my eye.
There was a table where children could draw, and then a tree where they could hang their drawings. I almost didn’t take a photo of this drawing, but I remembered my motto: “The only photo you regret is the one you didn’t take.” So here is an adorable drawing of a kitty done by a random Swedish child.
So, on our way to see Frozen 2 downtown, I couldn’t help but notice a power box decorated with the very lovely Castle Cats.
I had no idea what they were or what they referred to, and come to find out that they’re part of a video game designed by PocApp Studios, based right here in Skövde!
How cool is that? I am not much of a gamer, but I may have to check out this game!
Autumn in Skövde is beautiful.
The trees are easily as lovely as the trees in New England.
And the orange and yellow leaves carpet the lawn.
By October, Dashiell was confident enough outside to go offleash.
At first, he stayed close to the side of the building with Angel.
But then he got brave and started to explore. It was so heartening to see!
At one point, I was looking for Alfred and thought I saw him in the middle of the lawn.
But it wasn’t Freddy. It was a hare!
I tried to get both Dash and Freddy to notice it, to see what they’d do…but neither of them saw it. Too bad.
I guess Dash was too busy exploring!
Yesterday, I had an appointment to take everycat to the vet for a check-up and jabs. Björn didn’t have the day off, so I had to manage on my own. Naturally, I took them all in our new stroller. Our appointment was in the middle of the afternoon (not that Skövde really has a “rush hour,” unless you count when all the kids get out of school), so the bus wasn’t crowded at all.
We have to take two buses to get to our vet, and the first leg of our journey was uneventful.
The buses we have in Västra Gotalands have a dedicated space for strollers, with room for two (theoretically, as we will see).
This isn’t the first time we’ve taken all four in this stroller (we had a trip to DjurMagazinet in April), and it was vastly easier than trying to do it with Jacoby’s old stroller! Still, I did feel a bit like that man in Tokyo who takes his nine Persians out in a stroller.
As you can see, everyone fit very comfortably in the stroller. We also got lucky with the weather. It was sunny and warm. Today it’s grey and rainy.
On the second bus (also empty), we started out comfortably.
And then…it happened. Another stroller wanted to get on the bus.
Of course, I instantly shifted over as much as I could, but she wasn’t very good at manoeuvering her stroller (it was one of those awkward raised car seat/stroller combo things).
In fact, she was having so much trouble getting on the bus, the driver got up to see what was taking so long. And he glared at me like it was my fault and told me to let her on, like I was deliberately blocking her. As you can see, I was jammed in as much as I could possibly be.
And then, on the way home, it happened AGAIN! This time, it was one of those awful double stroller, with one kid who looked about five…isn’t that a little old to be needing a stroller? Again, I shifted over and jammed in, but this woman was a LOT better at managing her stroller, and her older boy (the one not in the stroller, behind me) seemed to really love the cats.
I understand that people with little kids need strollers, because I need a stroller to schlep multiple cats around. I couldn’t even imagine what it would have been like trying to manage three (we have one that’s a double) cat carriers on my own! And believe me, I am no stranger to controversy about cat strollers. My resentment and annoyance is not anything against parents or children. It’s the attitude I get from people (like the driver, and sometimes the other stroller owner) that somehow their strollers are somehow more important than mine. I have as much of a right to bring my stroller full of cats on the bus as they do with their stroller full of baby or child(ren), especially if I am running an errand that requires multiple cats to be with me. And I always shift as much as I possibly can. Yet, in these situations, the person with the non-humans in the stroller is always the “bad guy” taking the space away from “the person who NEEEEEEEDS it”. (Sidenote, it’s even more fun when we’re on a bus back from a cat show with other cats in strollers and a baby stroller comes on. The entitlement on the baby people and the shade thrown doubles.) Basically, it’s a case of “All strollers are equal, but some strollers are more equal than others,” which really isn’t fair at all.
To that end, I posted a couple of these photos to Facebook as events unfolded, and made a flippant comment that 4 > 1, and then added “Cats Before Brats.” A friend said, “That should be a bumper sticker!” So…
…I made one. It’s available on Zazzle, and at the moment, you can get 15% off with code ZSWEETTREATS.
I thought I would chip away at my massive backlog today…
This time last year, we hadn’t gotten Izaak yet, and we were showing Lorelai the outside world on the end of a leash.
Well, she was only three months old…but I think these early outings laid the foundation for her being so good offleash outside now.
Look how little she was!
Even though she was so small, she was still fearless.
Of course, she had her big brothers with her to protect her. Not only Alfred…
…but Jacoby as well.
Rory was lucky to grow up with two protective big brothers.
A couple of weeks ago, we did the pub quiz again. It was our friend Roger’s birthday, so I did a birthday-themes sketch with Lorelai.
I also did one with her beloved red dot as well.
And, of course I wanted to practice Izaak, too. It wasn’t our best night, but we had a really good time.
It’s finally spring here in midwestern Sweden.
We can tell because there’s no snow, the temperature is getting up above 5°C, and the swans have returned to our little lake (See those two little white dots in that photo up there? Those are our swans).
Even though it was still a little chilly, I took Lorelai and Izaak outside to run around. It has been ages since they really got to run around, and run around they did.
Rory got out the door and immediately started bounding down the hill, with Zak in hot pursuit.
It is amazing how far they can get in such a short time. They are almost down to the road at the bottom of our hill.
Rory was fascinated by something in those sticks…
…Whilst Zak was more interested in trees.
Finally I got them back up the hill…
…and into the open area behind our apartment.
They’re very familiar with the back of our apartment.
We had an audience…apparently that other cat we saw on the balcony last summer has a roommate.
As much as they enjoyed running around on the back lawn, it was pretty clear that there was only one ultimate goal…
Rory did her usual digging holes in the sand and then running away from them.
Finally we all got cold enough to go back in the apartment. But we had 45 minutes of fun and bonding before we went back in.
Last year, Valentine’s Day fell on a Wednesday, so Björn and I celebrated by doing the pub quiz Our favourite pub, The Bishop’s Arms. This year, of course, Valentine’s Day was on a Thursday, but we decided we wanted to celebrate the same way, so we did Valentine’s Day a day early.
And of course, I drew on the answer sheet again. First Jacoby with a big heart sign, because Valentines. But then I wanted to draw someone else. I started it out intending it to be Izaak, but once I got the face done…I realised it wasn’t Zak at all. It was Alfred! Which, considering he wears a heart on his collar tag, seemed quite fitting.
Our favourite pub, The Bishop’s Arms, holds a pub quiz on Wednesday evenings. When Björn works downtown, and I happen to be downtown too, we’ll go play. As a team, we do pretty well; we’ve won everything from 800kr, to hair salon vouchers, to glasses, a package of napkins, and Bishop’s Arms reflectors.
They supply us with pencils and paper, and the golden rule is NO SMARTPHONES. So…paper, pencil, no phones and downtime..? Yeah, I started sketching on the quiz form.
I also did a little drawing of Jacoby as the Bishop in the logo. Even with a ballpoint pen, drawing on paper napkins is HARD! I guess Picasso must have done his art on cloth ones.
Okay, not exactly a cartoon, but I see this sticker grafitti stuck to a wall-ashtray everytime I go to Commerce downtown. It’s just so happy! I mean, I know it’s grafitti…but it’s adorable.
They also hit a postbox with a Sharpie, and this time Cat Mob has a friend. I really love his tail. I have no idea what or who Cat Mob is, but I appreciate their mascots.
The weekend before last, Björn, Kalle and I went to the aby-aSweden Game 2018 here in Skövde. I’m not really much of a gamer, but I went along anyway, figuring there’d be something interesting there. And I was right! The first thing we saw was a huge display of Wacom tablets. I do have one, but I find it very difficult to draw on it as I find the disconnect between drawing on the table and looking at the computer screen difficult. But they also had the Wacom MobileStudio Pro tablets, the type where you draw directly on the screen, available to play with. They were also holding a Spiderman-drawing contest…so the drawing above is what came of that combination. I know it’s not up to my usual standards…but it was drawn in under an hour whilst standing up and using an unfamiliar device, so I can’t beat myself up too much about it.
But I actually found an intriguing came to play as well: Cateau. Cateau, made by a company based right here in Skövde, is an award-winning choose-your-own-adventure type game that involves walking around in Paris making friends with outdoor cats you meet along the way. Sadly, though, it’s only playable on PCs and I don’t know if they’re going to create a Mac or iOS version. They had a sheet of paper where people who tried out the game could “leave a cat,” so of course I had to sketch a quick Jacoby. There are a lot of other players who are good at drawing cats, though!
We are very lucky in that we live extremely close to a very good pet supplies store. Skövde’s DjurMagazinet is the equivalent of five Boston blocks from our apartment.
And they carry almost everything we need. The rest we can order online.
But they have our Bozita, our Vaisto raw, and everything else we need on a regular basis.
And of course they welcome pet visitors. And you know how Jacoby loves to help me shop.
He always makes sure we have gotten everything we need before we pay.
The staff all know Jake, of course.
With our purchases safely stowed in Jake’s light stroller, we’re homeward bound!
When we all move to Sweden, Jacoby and Angel will have fabulous HD Cat TV on a big window.
This is the view from Björn’s living room window.
Granted, it’s significantly different from the view they currently have out their windows…
…which isn’t to say that watching cars and trucks isn’t interesting. I just think that cats in general find birds more captivating than vehicles.
There are lots of birds that frequent the yard outside Bjorn’s apartment, as well as squirrels and the occasional rabbit.
Residents aren’t supposed to feed the birds from their windows or balconies, but they still come close to the buildings.
Best of all are the magpies.
I love magpies; I grew up in Northern California, the only place in the world where Yellow-Billed Magpies exist.
There are no magpies in Massachusetts, and even blue jays and crows are fairly scarce in the city.
I miss seeing them and was happy to learn that once I’m in Sweden, I’ll get to see them, as well as crows and jackdaws, fairly often.
(This is a crow at the train station in Falköping…I love their colouration so much!)
Views like this, taken outside Björn’s living room window, are common.
Which is really cool, since I love magpies.
I found the view outside Björn’s window endlessly fascinating.
I can only imagine what Angel and Jake will think!
Pyret, being 16 years old, is rather immune to the birds outside.
She’d rather watch me work on my laptop!
This week’s Photo Hunt subject is “Dog.”
When I was in Sweden, I noticed that there were a lot of dogs in public places – indoors!
And not just places like trains and subways, either. This dog was in a mall in Stockholm. He was very well behaved, and he wasn’t the only dog I saw in that mall that day.
However, as you can see, he’s waiting in a queue with his master in a coffee shop that serves food! That’s a big no-no in the States. This bodes incredibly well for Jacoby and I having shopping adventures in Skövde. We may even become regular fixtures at the shopping mall that’s only several meters from Björn’s apartment! At least, we’ll have to visit Dad at work on Saturdays when Björn works at that mall…
The Daily Abyssinian...and Singapura 