oliver is a hater

i was going to put up a picture of oliver lounging beneath the christmas tree but i haven't uploaded it yet. so picture it, london, 2006, an adorable kitten sleeping under a slightly jenky (janky, how do you spell that) christmas tree, he looks content and happy, he appears to love the christmas tree.

but the next day, our narrator and heroine returns home to find ornaments everywhere! the earmuff wearing styrofoam snowman, he's wedged under the sofa. the picture of some cadles stuck between a couple pieces of contac paper with a doily and som glitter, oh, it is forlornly laying on the floor. the beaded white ornament, is rocking back and forth, its wounds still fresh from the battering of our feline foe! worst of all, the poor foam gingerbread lady has found herself a few toes short, was it frostbite? no, it was oliver's attack on christmas!

what has caused this antipathy towards my khan's bargain bin tree? why does oliver hate it so, i've sprayed it with pine essecital oil to make it seem less plastic, does he resent the presence of this almost tree in his home? does he reject the consumerist and capitalist hijacking of this our lord and saviour's birthday? is he, like his adoptive father, a jew and therefore in oppostion to all christmas goodwill? or does he just want outside more? this great mystery may never be solved, but until boxing day he shall be known as oliver scrooge, hater of cristmas and its ornaments.

Don't worry little man, you won't have to beg at the window much longer! soon you will have a cat flap and all the autonomy a punk ass kitten could want. you shall run free through the streets of nunhead! south east london shall be your oyster!

















Fear not, my friend, the green napping chair will come with us wherever we may go! it has been napped on by kittens in 2 countries, 3 states and 5 cities. its time has not yet come.
and there will be stairs for you to run on and a rosemary bush in the garden, life will be sweet, little man, ever so sweet!

bullet points

• I'm reading The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O'Farrell and it made me miss my bus stop last night even though I was getting motion sickness from reading on the bus. I just couldn't stop reading, that's how much I like this book. It is about the title character, duh, who is institutionalized in Edinburgh for 60 years for such crimes as refusing to cut her hair and just being generally difficult in the 20's. It's also about her greatniece who is asked to take her in after the institution is shut down to be sold for property value. It's a fractured telling of what happened from the point of view of the niece, Esme and Esme's sister who is suffering from Alzheimer's.
• That's a really bland description, it doesn't do the book justice. Maggie O'Farrell is really talented at the whole disjointed narration, she uses it pretty successfully in all of her books (although to be honest it was abit off putting in My Lover's Lover, my least favorite of her books, still an engaging read though.) After You'd Gone, her debut novel, uses it to excellent effect.
• Oliver has begun a new plan of attack on my sanity by destroying a tea and coffee related items. Yesterday I came home to find the french press in pieces on the kitchen floor and the he woke me up by pushing our glass jar of cammomile tea off the highest shelf in the house at 2AM. I tell myself that he's just a kitten and he doesn't understand that he's being incredibly difficult, but honestly, I'm beginning to wonder if he isn't being a huge pain on purpose.
• Some writing done at lunch yesterday but little else. Tonight I have no plans at all and I will use the time productively. I will, I will, Iwill.
• We came in a disappointing 4th place at the pub quiz last night, I blame the flag for Kazakhstan, and therefore the Borat movie, alongwith the logo for Continental Airlines and the slogan for Panasonic. Ideas for life my ass!
• Only two more days until I get to leave town and go to Copenhagen for the weekend. I am looking forward to slightly fresher air, the canals, good coffee, open faced sandwiches, and sleeping in.

oliver is not an effective alarm clock

most days i wake up to this little dude licking my chin and rubbing his wet nose on my face because he wants me to get the hell out of bed and do one of the following : a) feed him, B) let him out to run around the gardnen or C) both of those as fast as possible.

he is a task master.

but this morning, instead of being a pain in the butt he was all lovey dovey. but he waited for me to turn off my alarm clock on accident before climbing onto my chest. laying his head on my cheek and falling asleep with a sweet purr. therefore i overslept by an hour and woke up at 7 in a frenzy. no writing was done this morning, no lunch was made, all i had time for was some innefective ironing and a much needed shower.

the little bastard. this is clearly all his fault.

news of the world

• feeling better physically today so i kept my dreaded dental appointment where mrs. stephens the dental hygeinist scraped my teeth and told they looked much better than the notes on my record indicated. i bled a bit at my last appointment a month ago. i am also very flinchy at dental appointments due to my recurring nightmares about crumbling and or loosening teeth. also, i always feel guilty when i go to the dentist because as a cocky undergraduate whenever i would get writer's block i would moan and moan and get drunk and tell everyone that i was going to quit writing and become a dental hygienist, like working in dentistry was the worst imaginable fate. i know better now.

• last night we looked at a house for sale in nunhead, for the uninitiated in south london neighbourhoods, nunhead is a little sketchy. not like detroit sketchy (i don't actually believe that anyplace in london can compare to detroit in terms of sketchy scary or bad but this could just be my american naivite) but you know, higher crime levels, fewer bus lines, etc etc. it was a nice house though with hard wood floors and a pretty garden. we're going to look at it again on saturday morning so we can see it with natural light.

• the french estate agent proved the international inability to pronounce my name once more. no matter how many times i stress the short i sound in that last syllable the citizens of europe remain unable to say carolyn. they can only manage caroline and are simply unwilling to attempt any other variation.

• no more news on my dad as yet. he should have come home from the hospital yesterday afternoon. i expect i will have an email from my mom when i get home. i can't yet tell how worried she actually is. her emails are always very low key even when she's at the highest code red state of emergency. plus she just ignores unpleasant things. she's spent the last, gosh, 10 months now, denying that i was ever seriously ill despite all evidence to the contrary. it's what she does, she's got a gift.

• oliver was sorely disappointed to see that i was not staying home again today. not because he likes me or anything but because when someone is home all day he has free access to the garden whenever his manic little heart desires. otherwise, he is locked indoors since there isn't really a decent shelter for him out there when it rains, an it always rains. this is london after all.

• we're going to copenhagen the weekend of 1st december last night jeremy called me to the computer and showed me a google map of a european city and said "know where this is?" and i said "no." and he said "that's the square in copenhagen where we got in a fight about change" (and he didn't mean like the idea of change as in changing jobs or moving or the possibility of a tube stop in or neighbourhood, no he meant change as in money and yes we did get in a very heated argument about it that ended with him saying "why don't you just shut up?" and me glaring at him and considering divorce, but we got over it and still remember that trip to copenhagen fondly which is why we are going back) back to the narrative, i responded by saying "oh yeeeah, you were being an asshole," and he said, "well you were being weird." so i biffed him on the head and then he panned out a bit and showed me the location of a restaurant we tried to go to but couldn't because it was fully booked. we'll reserve a table this time. somehow i think the secret to our love is wrapped up in this ability to have blow out arguments in a public square in a foreign city and then remember them with good humour. this is only a theory though.

• that's all, i just thought one more bullet point would be nice.