Viewing entries tagged with "Dolly"   //
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Byron

10

Kitties are impos­si­ble to resist when you see them in every other viral video doing some­thing hilar­i­ous or clever or just plain cute, and my plan to wait until life set­tled down a bit before adopt­ing another one was as dif­fi­cult as the inten­tions were noble.

I’ve had Byron for about a month now, and he’s already been a great com­pan­ion. He hasn’t warmed up to sleep­ing with me at night, but he fre­quently sleeps in my lap, and fol­lows me around the house, even going so far as to lie on the bath­mat to watch me when­ever I’m mak­ing a nice BM. He also rarely stops mov­ing, which makes him espe­cially dif­fi­cult to pho­to­graph. Like Dolly, he can be quite a vocal cat, and will meow repeat­edly when he knows he’s about to be fed or if I call his name.

cat on a couch

 

I can tell he’s already grown in the short time I’ve had him. It’s always fun to see how all the parts of kit­ties develop at dif­fer­ent rates; right now he has big ears and a full tail, though his big mitts are more likely due to his breed. His face is also quite mature, though it isn’t par­tic­u­larly strik­ing or unique.

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Date  September 18, 2011
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the path of least resistance

5

on the path of least resis­tance, you discover:

  • it is impos­si­ble to explain the appeal of dub­step to some­one who’s never heard it
  • every­thing works out in the end
  • moon­walk­ing is eas­ier to do with­out pants on
  • just hugs are com­pletely dif­fer­ent from hugs after kisses
  • no one is ever too old to eat Pocky
  • say­ing we can still be friends is like your mom telling you your dog died and say­ing you can still keep it
  • there is never enough time
  • Dolly will do any­thing for food
Date  August 18, 2011
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Dear Lisa

9

It was this suc­cinct wit. She could say so much in a line or two, and any­thing left unsaid would only serve to feed your curios­ity. You’d be given the punch­line, this blow that would knock the wind out of you, then won­der what cir­cum­stances could have led up to that. I’ve always been after that style, that abil­ity to move peo­ple with words the way hers used to move me.

Dolly and Lisa

Of course Dolly has to sleep on any­thing new in the house, regard­less of whether it’s your sweater or not. It’s part of the sass, and yet one can’t help but reward her with cud­dles and love.

For a few years, I lost her to the hap­pi­ness (where I hope to lose myself one day) until we spent a rainy day together, blissed out and hope­fully obvi­ous only to the check-out lady who scanned all our vari­eties of chocolate.

Dear Lisa believes in me, and that’s the only rea­son I believe in myself too.

Date  May 29, 2011
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god I hate myself for loving smoke and drink

0

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The weather has been lovely. It’s the per­fect tem­per­a­ture, though the humid­ity has given my ukulele a much more pro­nounced buzz on the C string. Spring offi­cially begins when I can take the mit­tens out of my car and drive with the win­dows down, my only con­cern being that my music isn’t too embar­rass­ing, and I don’t get a sud­den burst of I BE ON THE HOTLINE LIKE ERRRRDAY when stopped at a red light.

cat on windowsill

 

I’m still phys­i­cally recov­er­ing from last week­end. I got back to Darren’s late after work­ing a very intense 14 hours, and since it’s been so long since we last saw each other, that was just the begin­ning of the night. Then we woke up early to see Chris. On the way home, I had to pull over at a com­fort sta­tion to grab a few winks in my car, but I was too uncom­fort­ably exhausted to fall asleep, and ended up dri­ving home bug-eyed. I’m sure this is why my col­i­tis is act­ing up.

Probably not good that I’ve been liv­ing such a hedo­nis­tic lifestyle. I stay up far too late, drink too much caf­feine, and indulge in too many sweets close to bed­time. I can’t tell if I’ve stopped car­ing, or if I’ve stopped feel­ing guilty about it.

I’ve been going through long stretches with­out con­tact from the out­side world. It’s forced me to face my own iso­la­tion, yet I don’t feel lonely. I have no idea why. Maybe it’s cause I tend to get obsessed with my small hob­bies, and it dis­tracts me enough. I worry that I’ve become a lit­tle too com­pla­cent in this intro­ver­sion. It makes me won­der how long I can keep going down this path, and whether I even want to be on it or not.

Date  April 23, 2011
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The Short Life of Leonard the Cat

7

The hard­est part was putting away his food bowls, and that ter­ri­ble sense of final­ity that he’d never be eat­ing from them again.

Spending so much time at home meant Leonard was in my com­pany for a large part of the day. I’m get­ting used to his absence, but I still miss the lit­tle guy.

I had a bunch of ran­dom footage and I never knew what to do with it, includ­ing a few moments from the first time I let him out of quar­an­tine into the rest of the house. When he died I kept watch­ing the footage over and over again until it sort of pieced itself together into this small vignette of a kitty who lived with me for less than three months. I hope they were happy ones.

Date  March 14, 2011
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And I shall call him Leonard and he shall be mine

2

I was going to wait to see how his per­son­al­ity devel­oped before set­tling on a name, and for a while I was call­ing him Serge (after Gainsbourg) cause he was almost overly affec­tion­ate, con­stantly paw­ing me and rub­bing my face with his. Eventually, I real­ized it’d be impos­si­ble for a cat to live up to such name­sakes, so I went with my first choice, which was Leonard. It has Leo in it, which is per­fect for any­thing from the fel­i­dae fam­ily. I could never call him Lenny though cause “Lenny Cohen” sounds so wrong to me.

Leonard the cat on Dolly

 

I love cats with goofy faces, and I can tell Leonard has a bit of one already from the way his cheeks puff out. I also like my cats fat cause there’s more to hold when they decide to crawl into the cov­ers. As novel as it is to see how tiny Leonard is in com­par­i­son to Dolly, I’m look­ing for­ward to see him putting on some more weight.

Unfortunately, Dolly’s per­son­al­ity has changed. She’s a bit less affec­tion­ate, less vocal, and more sickly; I’ve been deal­ing with per­pet­ual res­pi­ra­tory infec­tions and eye abscesses ever since I brought Leonard home. I’m won­der­ing if she asso­ciates being mis­er­ably sick with the arrival of the new kit­ten. Her mater­nal instincts seem to kick in when he lies next to her, and she’ll try to lick and groom him, but he doesn’t seem to like it much and they end up fight­ing. Hopefully, he’ll grow into the habit.

Date  February 7, 2011
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stability or stagnancy

7

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I’m liv­ing a drama-free life.

John used to tease me about my drama, con­vinced that I loved it because I always seemed to be cre­at­ing it. But drama is just a by-product of the strug­gle when you’re dis­cov­er­ing your­self and try­ing to become the per­son you’re meant to be. It’s never an easy path; oth­er­wise, you’d already be that person.

I don’t have bad days any­more either, but I can’t tell if it’s because I’m han­dling things bet­ter or if I’m not chal­leng­ing myself enough.

And now that there’s no more drama, it feels like I’m fin­ished. Like there’s no next step for me to take and nowhere else to go, because I’m here. All that’s left is to enjoy this existence.

That’s not to say my life is with­out a touch of inner insta­bil­ity. I still have mem­o­ries, thoughts, lust, and love, and they’re enough to fill the mind for an entire day. But now I know everything’s gonna be okay.

cats in sunbeam

 

Now that I’m work­ing from home full-time, I barely step out­side. Living like Foul Bachelor Frog, cause yesterday’s pants are today’s pants if they have the belt in them. There’s noth­ing for me out there. It’s never worth the trou­ble any­more. I’d go out if I wasn’t so con­tent in my com­fort­able home with two cats and every­thing I need to sing or write or create.

I’m just won­der­ing if I’ll ever get tired of this.

Date  January 12, 2011
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new kitten

7

Adopted another kit­ten from the Humane Society (and I wasn’t able to wait until the new year). When I went to go see him at the shel­ter, he jumped into my arms, started purring, and wouldn’t stop nuz­zling my face. Even if he was any less cute, there’s no way I could have left him there.

He’s exactly what I was look­ing for: four months old, neutered, male, with a stubby tail. Cats with stub tails from shel­ters usu­ally have their tails cut short because they’ve been run over by a bike, or caught frost­bite, but on him there’s no sign of scar­ring so he was prob­a­bly born with it.

I’ve yet to name him cause I want to see what kind of per­son­al­ity he devel­ops first.

new kitten

At this point, his res­pi­ra­tory infec­tion led to sores and he was bleed­ing from him nose. That’s why he looks sort of sad and groggy.

When I got him, he had an upper res­pi­ra­tory infec­tion and was infested with fleas. I kept him sep­a­rated from Dolly for more than a week, but she still man­aged to catch both. Now she’s really grumpy and sick, and he’s com­pletely over it. She also feels huge, because the lit­tle guy is so small right now.

He likes to sleep by rest­ing his chin on my cheek, or lying right across my neck. I’m cur­rently try­ing to change his sleep­ing pat­terns because he’s still a noc­tur­nal cat and gets up in the mid­dle of the night to lick my face. And because he’s a kit­ten who doesn’t know any bet­ter, he thinks Dolly is play­ing with him when she gives him a swipe in annoy­ance. There haven’t been any real scraps between them yet. More of a play­ful fight­ing, where Dolly gives as good as she gets.

new kitten

He tries to sleep with her all the time, and Dolly is usu­ally just too lazy to move away. I’m pretty sure this has helped her get used to hav­ing him around.

His tail isn’t buried under Dolly’s fat — that’s how long it is.

I won­der if I can be as good as Tiana and only write about him once a month the way she does with her son. But cats grow up so fast; they reach adult­hood in one year instead of 18, so I’m more tempted to record him as much as pos­si­ble when he’s so small and cute. I just don’t want to be a mommy blogger.

Date  January 6, 2011
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This is the part where I explain where I've been for the last week

5

I decided to work on Canada Day and take Monday off instead. It was strange to be pro­duc­tive when it seemed like every­one in this city was out cel­e­brat­ing in the stran­gling heat. At this time of year, I can’t help but think of euca­lyp­tus oil first kisses blue blan­kets shy embraces, con­stantly unsure of whether the mem­o­ries made me happy or sad. Canada Day will never be the same.

I was left feel­ing com­pletely dis­con­nected from the world. In my room, I won­dered what Aaron was doing at his place this year. The fire­works pop­ping out­side my win­dow were so loud it was as if they were going off in my back yard. I didn’t bother to look. It was still just another day.

cat in bag

Dolly can never resist sleep­ing on unfa­mil­iar objects, such as John’s duf­fel bag.

The sec­ond plot was John pass­ing through Ottawa for a bach­e­lor party. It ended much ear­lier than expected after two days of debauch­ery that got too much for even him.

So we had a lot of extra time together over the long week­end though we didn’t do any­thing spe­cial. It was mostly games, sun­shine, dri­ving, three sea­sons of the IT crowd, pop­corn, and duets. Also, three movies were watched: The Hangover (which I agreed not to watch until we saw each other again), The Prince of Tides (to switch gears a bit, and my third time see­ing it this year), and The A-Team (which is what we decided on for a movie in the the­atres, and the likes of which is gen­er­ally only pal­pa­ble dur­ing the sum­mer in the com­pany of other male friends).

I sort of…unplugged. Drifted off in the haze and lost my mind for a lit­tle while.

ginger rose tea

Ginger rose tea. Delish.

I also invited Heather and Sergey to pho with us because they had yet to meet John, and every­one got along swim­mingly. I shouldn’t be sur­prised; Heather and Sergey are type to find some­thing inter­est­ing about any­thing, and John’s the type to say inter­est­ing things.

John explains

John with his sher­bert and hol­i­day scruff, say­ing the kinds of things that make him pop­u­lar to everyone.

Now I’m catch­ing up on work and sleep and alone time.

Date  July 7, 2010
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Meat slap

3

I’ve dis­cov­ered that bonk­ing my cat on the head with a pep­perette will not dis­suade her from eat­ing it.

Then again, I prob­a­bly wouldn’t give up bacon if some­one slapped me with a pound.

Date  June 9, 2010
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The saddest fact in life is that our cats will die before us

7

When I was young and a cat food com­mer­cial came on where the kit­ties would nuz­zle their owner after receiv­ing a por­tion of Brand X, I’d think to myself, “Those are prob­a­bly spe­cial cats, the way they use perky mod­els to por­tray every­day moms in clean­ing com­mer­cials. I won’t ever have a cat like that.”

But I was wrong.

She fol­lows me around the house, she sleeps under the blan­kets in the crook of my arm, and I can’t imag­ine my life with­out her.

Date  May 28, 2010
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Cat Stretching

4

When you have a cat, every day is filled with moments like this.

(I can tell she’s purring just from the way her stom­ach moves when breathing.)

(Compare this to a very sim­i­lar clip I made of Dolly six years ago to see how far I’ve come with video.)

Date  January 17, 2010
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The Advantage of Having Stubble

7

(Turn up the sound!)

I never have a lot of it, but when I do, it means I can scratch my cat with my chin.

Once again, taken with my iPhone.

Date  August 25, 2009
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Welcome Home

0

Joel and Charlotte agreed to take care of Dolly while I was in Hong Kong. Unfortunately, the com­bi­na­tion of another cat, a dog, a new envi­ron­ment, and my absence, stressed her out. She started mark­ing her ter­ri­tory (on their couch), even with her own lit­ter box in a secluded area, so they decided to bring her back to my house, and let Julie take care of her from then on.

Cat drawing

I found this draw­ing on my white board when I got back. Along with an espe­cially affec­tion­ate cat, it was a nice lit­tle thing to come home to.

Date  April 12, 2009
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Four Day Vacation

3

I’m in Toronto right now, at John’s house. He has the cot­tage for his birth­day week­end, so I took two extra days off work to see him. It’s kind of strange how much I’ve been see­ing him lately. In the past, we’d go over a year with­out see­ing each other because he was in Windsor for law school and I was in Ottawa with­out a car. But now that he’s been called to the bar and I’ve obtained the Civic, things have worked out.

We plan on going to the Ontario Science Centre today — some­thing I’ve wanted to do for a while1 — then dri­ving up to the cot­tage tonight. We’ll spend two days at the cot­tage2, maybe take a day trip to another town, and drive back on Sunday. Aaron also called me yes­ter­day about his co-ed baby shower on Sunday, which i’m not sure if I’ll be attend­ing yet, since I’ll have dri­ven eight hours that day.

Sunsets and Audiobooks

The drive was absolutely amaz­ing. The weather was per­fectly cool, and the sun took its glo­ri­ous time set­ting over a few hours. I think the most sat­is­fy­ing part is get­ting to the sec­tion of high­way where the 417 splits to the 416, and one can stay in the left lane and accel­er­ate through the turn, leav­ing all the traf­fic behind.

I lis­tened to some audio CDs of Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking on the way over. The con­cept is that our first reac­tions (made within a few sec­onds) are often intu­itively cor­rect, and that even after think­ing about some­thing for a long time, we end up going with our gut feel­ings any­way. We’re made to believe that the more impor­tant some­thing is, the longer we should take to make a deci­sion. I’m espe­cially guilty of this3. Wally lent them to me in an effort to help me act faster so I don’t miss any oppor­tu­ni­ties. Not sure if they’ll help me, but the way it delves into processes of the human psy­che is a very inter­est­ing lis­ten nonetheless.

Feeding Butterball

Left Dolly lots of food, and I’m hop­ing she doesn’t eat it all. The rea­son why I feed her by hand is because she doesn’t have any sense of how much to eat, and bal­loons up if not con­trolled. In either case, I expect a lot of poo in the lit­ter­box when I get back.

New Game

I bought John a copy of Assassin’s Creed for his birth­day, which thank­fully was on his list of games for which to watch. It was devel­oped by Ubisoft Montreal, the same stu­dio who made Prince of Persia, and plays very much the same way. An open-world con­cept with lots of stealth ele­ments. Certainly a game I could get into. We take turns play­ing, and it’s made me real­ize that I haven’t been play­ing much myself in the last few months.

A Sense of Overstimulation

Life has been some­what over­stim­u­lat­ing lately, and I can’t blame any­one but myself. After spend­ing a day shop­ping for house­wares with Julie last week­end, the house is a big mess, with things scat­tered over the coun­ters and floors. I haven’t even had a chance to write about the last time I came to Toronto. It seems like life is going faster than I can keep up. I’m just try­ing to enjoy it, espe­cially when the weather is this beautiful.

After all, life is for the liv­ing. This won’t last for­ever. I get to look for­ward to some time alone when every­thing is settled.

  1. I don’t think I’ve been since grade 4, so over 18 years ago. [↑]
  2. Last time I was there was two years ago [↑]
  3. John says that I tend to over ana­lyze things to the point of paral­y­sis. [↑]
Date  August 21, 2008
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Viewing entries tagged with "Dolly"   //
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