Tag Archives: zeke

my little mouse-catcher

after 8 years of hogging space on the bed, eating, pooping, and incurring large vet bills, zeke finally started to earn his keep this month when he caught his first two mice.

he doesn’t bring them to me like a loyal cat would, he generally just stores them underneath furniture and (luckily) alerts me to their presence.

i suppose i shouldn’t be proud about the death of a creature, even a small one, in my dwelling, but it is the way of nature, and a much more appealing method of handling our mouse problem than traps or poison. plus, zeke has grown rather chunky this winter. maybe chasing mice will get him some much-needed exercise.

i have a pair of fang marks on my forehead.

Worst. Way. To Wake Up. Ever:

last night, 20 minutes after i fell asleep, my cat attacked my head. he gave no warning, was completely unprovoked, and it was no rough-play, it was vicious. it was a strike and retreat (he didn’t sink his teeth in and hang on or anything), but he left claw marks on my scalp and a pair of puncture wounds on my forehead. i have a pair of fang marks on my forehead. i look like a vampire has been nibbling on me. it’s gross. also, cat bites are notorious for getting infected, so despite washing the wound with soap and water and antibiotic anointment, in the morning i called the weekend answering service for my doctor’s office. the nurse on duty, upon hearing the words “cat bite” promptly paged the on-call doctor who recommended a course of antibiotics.

needless to say, the cat and i are not friends this morning. he was grouchy about being locked out of my bedroom for the remainder of the night, i was grouchy about the fact that i have a pair of fang marks on my forehead. also, the sheer adrenaline rush brought on by being attacked in my sleep (not to mention the betrayal of being attacked by a cat i’ve owned and (mostly) trusted for seven years) kept me awake for another hour and a half, leaving me a cool 4 hours of sleep before i had to go back to work.

will this be funny at some point? i kinda hope so. it’s not right now.

a handy list of the various reasons that cats are aggressive towards people.

five by five

1: was spell checking an email on gmail this morning. “Islamist” was not in the dictionary. google suggested “slimiest” instead. hmm. google should perhaps work on their cultural sensitivity.

2: my cat loves to lick ice. weird, huh? my physical therapist has me making these ice pops, if you will, to treat the tendinitis in my achilles tendon. you fill a paper cup up with water, freeze it, then tear the top half of the cup off so you have what is a large ice cube with a paper handle on half of it for rubbing down the injured tendon. anyway, i set the ice pop down on a towel on the floor last night, meaning to go throw it away in a moment, and the cat came over, sniffed, and spent the next 20 minutes unable to stop licking it. he’d look at me, meow, get up and walk around it, and then go right back to licking it. i know it’s hot in the apartment, but it’s not like i’ve been denying him fresh water or anything. weird cat.

3: marathon milestones: last week i ran my 300th mile of the year, and also passed the 100-days-till-the-marathon date. the training is going well (much of my blogging energy is being spent on the training log lately, hence the large gaps between regular posts on this page), aside from the achilles tendinitis, and the occasional attack of boredom/lack of motivation. fundraising is on track (donate! it’s good karma!). it’s a little alarming that my thighs are visibly bigger (at least, to me) than they were when i started this project (no one runs a marathon to get BIGGER around), but overall i’m feeling very fit and healthy, so the increase in muscle mass is just something that comes with the territory i guess.

4: sandbox theatre project takes on suzan-lori park’s 365 plays/365 days project this weekend. it’s the guerrilla theatre my performance and politics prof in college always talked about! there’ll be an actor in a dumpster! the audience meets on a street corner and follows the performers around to the alley behind JP’s apartment! the neighbors just might call the cops on us at any moment! for anyone actually in chicago who reads this blog (is there anyone? perhaps), meet at the corner of wolcott and montrose at 8pm friday or saturday night. it’s 20 minutes long, free, and there will be beer afterwards.

5: last week i discovered the wonder that is mitsuwa, the best japanese market i’ve been in since leaving japan. shopping at mitsuwa is possibly reason enough to venture out of the comforting verticality of chicago’s urban landscape and into the flat wild prairies of the burbs. but just barely. throw in a trip to the nearby IKEA and i’ll take the plunge. city snob that i am.

computer cat

aww, even zeke thinks the hipster guy on the mac commercials is hot.

who knew that there was a flickr photo pool devoted to cute picures of cats and computers? i should have known. now we are part of the club.