Catfish?

I thought that I was going to lose Parsifal for a minute this evening. He has developed a fascination with water, especially in the bathroom. He wants to get into the shower with me, traipses all over the vanity, leaving grubby paw marks, and last night I had to leap out of the shower to haul him out of the toilet. I need to explain here that the toilets are a very good design so that there is actually only a small hole where the water is and the rest is sloping porcelain. It looks as though someone has put a lot of thought into designing a pedestal in which it would be impossible for a child, or even a small animal, to drown.

However, Parsifal was spreadeagled around the porcelain part and I suspect that he was drinking the water, although I didn't wait to find out; I just grabbed him and put the lid down.

Tonight was worse. He had just used his litter and I had scooped it out and was flushing it down the loo when he jumped onto the rim of the bowl. I knocked him unceremoniously into his litter tray and in future will put the lid down before I flush, at least until he is bigger because, although I think that he is too big to be flushed down I certainly don't intend to take any chances.

He is being castrated the day after tomorrow and perhaps that will simmer him down a bit; he is the most curious kitten I have ever had and I have been owned by Oriental cats for over 30 years.

He and Poppy are also among the most affectionate kittens I have ever had. They are totally charming except at 5.30 am and I am going to have to shut them out of the bedroom for the next two nights - tonight so that I can catch up on some much-needed sleep and tomorrow night because they will be fasting and I don't want to be woken up at some ungodly hour by two babies reminding me that I forgot to leave any supper for them and they are both about to succumb to "night starvation". (For those too young to remember - that was the catch phrase for a malt drink called Horlicks.)

Vile Bodies

The water pressure is still playing up; it surges so that when showering one has to get wet, soap oneself during the pause and then hope to rinse off when the water returns. It sometimes takes two or three phases to rinse my hair after I have shampooed it.

It is nine days since the pump started to play up and the management has put notices by the lifts to say that they are aware of the problem (probably getting sick and tired of us phoning them) and the problem is being investigated. Considering how much we paid for our apartments it is NOT GOOD ENOUGH. But it is not all that much of an inconvenience really; at least the water is still running.

The babies went to see Dr Dave to get their final vaccinations. He was very impressed with the size of Parsifal's nuts and said that they needed dealing with immediately. The babies are 18 weeks old today so they are both going into hospital on Monday morning to be doctored. I am glad that they can be done together - it is not easy to fast one kitten while feeding the other one. Because of the traffic between my place and the hospital they will have to go in first thing in the morning or it will take me up to an hour to get home again.

The highway needs widening and parents need to stop dropping their kids off at school in their SUVs.

The computer lounge is open for the year and my first client - who had some lessons in 2009 - wanted to know how to put pictures onto Facebook. Luckily I had re-opened my account there so I had some idea how to do things there and we gave her an avatar and posted a picture from one of my thumb drives.

"For he hopped like a cricket ... "

The water has gone feral again. It started surging at about lunch time yesterday but did not cut out altogether like last time. Last night a security guard and someone who was presumably a plumber rang the bell and asked me if the water was still surging. It wasn't at that time but it started again very soon after. At least the cisterns fill up but I didn't attempt to have a shower this morning and last night's shower seemed to be OK. The plumber said that all he could do was to reboot the electronics controlling the pump so, like the gas, if the power goes off the water will probably do so too. Poppy went to sleep on his foot while he was talking to me. His wife's cat has just had kittens so he wasn't too fazed by her.

The babies are loving their new pagoda cat furniture. They were both on to it before it had even been unloaded from the trolley. Parsifal has perfected the Harrier jet jump; straight up into the air with all four legs extended and all his toes spread. It seems that he thinks that he is a mongoose and his mission in life, thwarted by being an inside mongoose, is to kill snakes. But he looks so funny that I can't help laughing when he does it. Click on the photo to enlarge.



And one of the kitchen lights, after fluctuating for days, has finally given up the ghost. It is acting like a transformer with its on again/off again performance. Grrrrr ... I will try changing the globe so that I can justify getting it fixed under warranty. It is swinging loose so I am pretty sure that it is not the globe, though.

Water, water everywhere

The water came on again at 8.05pm, four hours after it cut out. I met the plumber in the lift after going over to the loos in the shopping centre with a 4-litre bottle and filling it up in the handbasin of the "Ladies' toilet". He was looking for the control room which he eventually found at the other end of Level 4 where the residents' car park is.

Because he knew which apartment I was in he came up to check that things were working again and he said that someone had somehow overloaded the pump which had retaliated by turning itself off. The official plumber is coming today to find out why it happened.

After a couple of lovely autumn (?) days we are getting back to heatwave conditions again. So far the air conditioning has kept on working but it must be about the only thing left to go wrong.

... and I can almost always tell the kittens apart - finally. Their faces have differentiated enough that I no longer have to look under their tails. I'll try to take some photos but they rarely stay still for long enough to focus my camera.

... but not a drop to drink

The tilers came and fixed my shower recess this morning. I hope that it works; I can't actually use it for at least 24 hours but they have lowered the drain thingy which has been standing proud to the tiles. I have always assumed that was the problem.

However, now I have no water! Last night the pressure was pulsating - full on one minute and then down to a dribble the next. Now I have none. I phoned poor, patient Natalie who promised to contact the building manager who, I gather, co-ordinates things like that. The window cleaners were abseiling down the walls yesterday although they didn't clean my windows and I do wonder if they did something to the storage tank. I assume that there is a storage tank on the roof to create water pressure to the apartments.

The babies are still a delight and I am constantly amazed at their creativity; everything is, or can be turned into a toy. I accidentally kicked one of them a couple of weeks ago and felt dreadful about it until I realised that the way they beat each other up and crash headlong into the furniture must hurt them much more: but they just pick themselves up and carry on regardless.

D1 is moving in to her new apartment the day after tomorrow and has been busy packing up her stuff ready for the movers. In the mean time she has had it painted and carpeted so that it will be all new and fresh for her. Hopefully things will go smoothly and she will be happy there.

Who is the cleverest of them all?

The kittens are starting to look like little cats now; they have lost that fluffy roundness and look more like tiny panthers. I can usually tell which is which now; Parsifal has a sharper nose and he is fractionally bigger than Poppaea. Poppaea has a huge IQ though. She has figured that there must be a way down to all the interesting things beyond the balcony and although she has tested the limits and found that she can't break through, I will reinforce the brick mesh with a second layer ... for my own peace of mind.

We have an appointment with Dr Dave on 15th February for their final vaccination and at that time will discuss sterilisation; unless, of course, Poppaea starts to call before that time in which case it will be off to the doctor pronto.

Someone is coming on Monday (today is Thursday) to drill out the drain fitting in my shower recess and lower the whole thing in the hope that it will fix the problem I have been having. In the meantime, my makeshift solution is working very well so I am not too fussed about it any more.

And my smoke alarm has been replaced and I now have the booklet which came with it, since it is different to the faulty one and I can stop it chirping by sliding it away from its connections.

A repair kit for the leather couch is on its way from New Zealand. I can't blame the babies for the damage - they have their claws clipped every week; it was Bast who put the scratches there and there is a bit of damage from the move which needs some attention.

D1 is moving into her new apartment next week. Settlement was moved forward and the painters and carpet layers are customising it at the moment. Just to cheer her on her way I sent her this video clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7Bvd33V9dQ&fmt=18

Smoke alarms and showers

My smoke alarm has been chirping again; not as much as it did on New Year's Eve but enough to let me know that all is not well with it.

The maintenance person came today to try out a new fitting for my shower recess to see if it drains better. If it doesn't work then it will have to be re-tiled with smaller times. A hassle but probably better than having to squeegee it out every day in order to let the floor dry. While he was here I asked if he was the person to speak to about the smoke alarm so he tried resetting it which sent it crazy. He removed it from its fitting on the ceiling and has promised to return with a new one but even so, it has chirped once - unless it is one of the other ones and my directional hearing is playing tricks.

I am including a photo of Parsifal pretending to be king of the computer. He loves to play Freecell and makes it extremenly difficult for me as he sits up and tries to catch the cards as they move, completely blocking my view of the screen. Click on the photo to enlarge it.