Chaz has left the building...

[desperance]

...through his eyes, nose and throat, largely. Damn this coldy thing! Damn it, I say! Soon as I think it's over, it comes back and clobbers me again.

Still'n'all, only a coldy thing. There's worse abroad.

And sometimes I am privileged to be a cat-cuddler. Barry spends quite a lot of time these days sitting on me, but he really only wants to sit, and maybe sleep. Mac, of course, is different. Mac does Active Sitting.

First, he bounces into my lap, because bouncing is what he does. Then he sits for a minute, very alert and purry. Then I can resist no longer, and stroke him. And he bites me. So I tip him onto his back, cupped as it were in the crook of my arm, like a baby; and he wraps his paws around my arm and does the disembowelling thing a bit with his back legs and chews mightily upon my hand.

Occasionally, one of his claws will break the skin, but that's incidental.

After a minute of mighty chewing, he sort of slows right down and just holds finger or thumb between his teeth; now that he has this prey defeated, he can look further. And what does he see, when he looks further? His own tail. Wafting to and fro, usually. So he hangs on to my arm with one paw and swats vaguely at the tail with the other.If I'm careful, at this point I can actually slip my arm free to, oh, scroll down my friends page or whatever, while he gets more interested in his tail, the snaring and chewing thereof. Wicked little thing keeps getting away, and has to be snared again; and the more that happens the more the tail lashes to and fro and the more interesting it is, and I have no idea if he connects the two things in his little head, whether he's doing it deliberately or whether he really hasn't realised that he's actually attached to that evil thrashy thing. Which is of course what it looks like, and what causes me to giggle.

So I go on cuddling him like a baby, and sometimes he gets this twitchy little kick in his back legs that he really can't stop, and eventually I can't resist tickling his tummy, and then we're back to wrath-of-cat and all his claws and teeth until I cast him from me.

And this, dear reader, is how I pass my time when I am full of cold and empty of work and really just sitting here, y'know...?

Comments

[wishwords.livejournal.com]

*whine* Come to my writers' group with me. We could commiserate on all the woe and talk kitties. I'm being wimpy about going tonight.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Going? Going out? There is no out. There is only in and not-in. Which latter we do not do, when we feel like this. Today I have been out exactly as far as the postbox, which is fifty yards around the corner and actually felt like a bit of a trek, further than I wanted to go.

If we were together, we could go to your writers' group together; being as we are, alas, separated, we must both stay home and commit nurture. Very soon now, I'm going to go and do bed-nurture. Which is a totally political move, as who else comes to bed when is a matter of negotiation, breakdown, all-out war, sneaky subversive missions, reluctant reconciliations, cold war and can-we-call-it-peace-if-Barry's-still-growling?

[wishwords.livejournal.com]

I went and as usual I'm glad I did. It always makes me feel better.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Cool. So what sort of writers' group is it - mutual support? Challenge and experiment? All of the above? I would actually gladly have come with you, cold or no cold; having benefited hugely from various groups myself, I'm endlessly interested in the way(s) they work.

[wishwords.livejournal.com]

It's mostly mutual support. Last night two of us brought stories we were stuck on and everyone brainstormed over them. We mostly just chat, share ideas or articles we've found, critique each other's work and such. I really like it.

[cinderberry.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure Sabine doesn't realise the evil thrashy thing is attached to her. She gets a real surprise when she manages to catch it and give it a good chomp, and it hurts, and has to be licked better. Every time.

[athenais.livejournal.com]

Oh, waaaaay too cute!

[julesjones]

For some reason, I seem to get a kitty-fix that lasts for several months simply by visiting predatrix and Tiggs and Marco for a week...

On the other hand, Marco, while somewhat inclined to stepping on keyboards on his way to and from the windowsill, does allow me to say that I have a beautiful blue-eyed blonde himbo staring at me in adoration...

[moral-vacuum.livejournal.com]

Cat therapy = good

But if my cold was anything to go by, look forward to FIVE WEEKS of ghastliness .

[annathepiper]

I got hit with a cold last night myself, and wound up coming home early today from work as a result.

And got snuggled on by the kittens.

Didn't do a damn thing for the cold, but it was certainly nice. :)

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

I am considering the possibility that your Mac and my Jemmy are somehow related. The piratical one is currently scrabbling around on the couch, searching for the yarn (with attached knitting) that was there just a short while ago.

Sympathies on the cold. Zinc lozenges?

[desperance.livejournal.com]

I just had happy time in the bathroom, trying to dissuade Mac from digging out the sealant between the bathtub and the wall. Partly because he wants to eat it, and it can't be good for him; partly because - well, waterproof sealant, there for a reason, y'know...?

A friend of mine with a background in organic chemistry started trying to convert me to zinc as an anti-cold measure, ooh, twenty years ago? Something like. I was thoroughly persuaded, but I'm not good at preventative measures. And I do not know these lozenges of which you speak. I'll ask around...

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

Word is you suck on them like cough drops and they shorten the duration of the cold. Of course, they work best when taken right from the start, like everything else, but they do help at any point.
There's an especially nasty cold virus over here these days, and it sounds like you have become acquainted with its cousin.

I must admit Jemmy's calmed down a tiny bit as he's become older, and I hold out hope that by the time he's five or so he'll be a little less ready to buckle his swash and set sail, although he's not likely to be as mellow as his not-sister Minerva even then.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

You have the bestest icons!

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

There are even more lolphilosophers at flickr, which is where I found Mary.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Thank you - that is entirely evil. I've posted about it, obviously...

[bookzombie.livejournal.com]

I like the phrase 'active sitting': that's very much what Snowy does. Bob's a little more passive, but he has his moments...