My favorite Cat Things

If Opera does it, it can only mean that it's something a cat-lady aught to do, and since it's almost Christmas, it seems appropriate to share: My favorite Cat Things.



#1 Purrfect Cat Lady's Apartment

#2 Cat Mobile

#3 From Modern Cat Lover
this is just perfect for the living room

4# Cat Obento-box, japanese-style lunchbox: I miss Japan

#5 Cat wall stencils to decorate the living room in my Cat Lady Apartment

#6 From Etsy, cat-necklace that is simply adorable

# 8 Another one from etzy. vintage cat figurine. Utterly cute!

#7 Such a cute game, Nintencats: a game for all cat-ladies in training

#9 The perfect tote bag speaks the truth

# 10 Cat-bank! Yes, yes, yes!

But the Cat is my most favorite thing of all! <3

The Bathrobe of Shame.

Location of The Cat: In the window.

They say hindsight is 20-20, but I cannot see the exact logic behind my reasoning that it would be okay to fetch the mail, dressed in my bathrobe.

I might have dwelled on the fact that it was reasonably late-ish, and that the chances of meeting any of the neighbors was low. It was also slightly dark outside. Another component might have been that the mailbox is only 150m away and it wouldn’t take me long to shuffle down there and back. I also thought that the Cat was inside and thus wouldn’t complete my outfit by following me.

The Cat wasn’t inside.

Somehow it had slipped out.

Somehow I had failed to notice.

And somehow, for some reason, the neighbors had decided to stand outside in the driveway and chat.

So there, with my hair as fine as Bridget Jones’ in the first scene in the first movie, with my gray-fleece cat-pawn patternbathrobe, in an old pair of shoes and with the cat following me, I thus completed my image as the Crazy Cat Lady. (I'll have you know I've had that bathrobe for years, and it's very warm and comfortable!)

Their small chatter stopped. There was something like a nervous cough, even a snigger? Somebody shuffled their feet. I hurried past, my eyes glued to the ground. The Cat darted around my legs, tail tall. I grabbed the mail as quickly as I could and shuffled back up towards my house, as quickly as I could.









Now, my only choice may well be to fully embrace this image and explore its every expectations and obligations.

I simply must:

P.S In addition www.intel.com/museumofme has confirmed it by its statistical analysis of my facebook page which states CAT is the word I’ve used the most

Who is the Cat Lady without her (beloved) cat?

Location of cat: at home, where I am not :(

In my pursuit of academic achievement I’ve landed myself in a long-distance course run by Høgskolen i Volda (akin to a college). I’ve travelled many a miles and I am now situated in my grandmother’s old home, currently functioning as a student’s refugee/family summer home.
However, what this place lacks are cats. Specifically: my wittle poopsikins.

Last night I found myself ambling sleepily towards the door, certain that I heard my dearest smookins mewling sadly outside it. It is now come to this: I am imaging my cat when it’s hundreds of miles of way. I’ve become co-dependent.

This realization lead to my wondering what sort of cat-lady manifestation were visible. Could my clothes betray my shame (??!) to the outside world? Was my bag a cat-lady’s bag? (It defiantly was my grandmother’s and it has already harvested acclaim from a shopkeeper (unless she was trying to make small-talk)).
I’ve already mused about the content of my purse and phone, it was due time to wonder about the rest of my get-up. (Or as the social study students would call it: symbols/identity markers).

I now present to you, uncensored, my belongings today so that you may all pass your verdict (if nothing else, on my fashion sense, or lack thereof)

This is my pencil-case, it has white and red shiny gems and incredible cute kittens on it. If nothing else, this display shows my ineptitude with photography and graphic displays!

I found this bag outside my grandmother's bathroom.It's grey and pretty nifty. And could fit a cat, quite comfortably. The scarf is from Oasis, and seems in lieu with the recent trend I like to call Cambridge-style.

This is the view from the ferry!

This is a pin from Etsy (what girl doesn't love that website! It's fantastic and has so much neat stuff). The jacket is from TopShop. I adore this cat-pin and tbh, I'd like to have more! Though that might make me a crazy pin lady instead.

I also found this hat at in this old house. I like it because the flowers reminds me of Ms. Schrodingthingy's hat from Boardwalk Empire. A horrible trip to the hairdresser has forced me to wear hats

This book was published in 1967 and is a product of its time. It's all about this dashing young woman first arguing with her hot lawyer boss, and Standing Her Ground and I suspect she'll end up marrying him! That's atleast what the back of the book promises

A Cat Lady's Highschool Reunion.

Location of cat: Messing up my freshly laundered sheets.

Highschool reunion.

The most dreaded social event for any would-be-cat-lady. To be honest I was not all that keen to go, but I put on my dress, removed all the cat hairs from it, did up my hair and put on my shoes. I had long planned on what I was going to say, perhaps I aught to dress up my life some, but, alas, I've always been a terrible liar. So I drummed myself up to face my former class-mates and make some sort of summery of my past ten years and, inevitably, compare notes against my own success-or lack there off.

There were several question I answered deadpanned: “Yes, I'm still living at home (with my cat )” “Yes, I'm still unemployed”, and “Yes, I'm still single”.

Those few statements were enough to put must people at pause, and I can understand how they are hesitant to respond to that as the responses fit with none of the popular topics. Almost tall my former classmates (of those who had showed up) had at least one child. Some had three. One was expecting her fifth. And more or less, that is what they talked about. The woes of leaving your child in kindergarden for the first time, the dilemma between one-time diapers and the other kind. When these topics had been throughout groused, the next conversation was renovation. Horrid trips to IKEA, the woes of ordering kitchen appliances and having them fit. Car-insurances. Wedding plans. Phones with pictures of their children and spouses were passed around.

I wisely kept my 100-and-so pictures of my cat to myself.

Yes, the guy who had once nicked a camera only to take pictures of his own ass, had grown up. It was somewhat disconcerting to see that even the rowdiest of the “class clowns” had shaped up decently and was well off in some high-end firm, while I, myself, was still stuck in limbo between education and not really-sure-what-I-really-want-to-do-the-rest-of-my-life. The reunion made me feel old and that I was lagging behind in Real Life with at least two children and a house-mortgage. Somehow these things might have been easier to explain away if I could show to some sort of amazing accomplishment-like winning the Nobel Prize in Literature or working with NASA.

I feel somewhat embarrassed to confess that when I heard that one of my former school-friends, had never had a job after graduating college, and was a stay-at-home-mom (with her fifth kid on the way). I'm sure it's the greatest life in the world for many, and I mean no offense when I say that I want a bigger world then ten years of staying at home.

At least I've traveled,
I've studied abroad.
Learned a foreign language.
I've met loads of great people

At least I have my cat. <3

Dining like a Cat Lady

Location of The Cat: The great outdoors. (AKA the backyard)

Today I was enjoying my supper when The Cat, as if it was the most natural thing in the world, leapt unto the table and joined me, supping from my plate. It struck me then, that I didn't really mind, and my second revelation was «It's really true, I'm a Crazy Cat Person».

Since then I spent a few minutes musing over all the little every-day-things I do, and how all these things clearly foreshadow my becoming a Cat Lady. I compiled a list, which I am now sharing with my fellow readers so perhaps, if any of you are cat-owners, we may compare notes and I may get some indication of where I am in the metamorphosis. (Or Cat-Lady Graph)

1)After getting yourself buckled into your car and ready to go, you'll still kill the engine, go out (even in rain and snow!) to let the cat into the house, as it has decided it wants to go inside just as you were leaving.

2)You will be quite content to hold the door open for several minutes, even with rain hitting your face, as the cat ponders where-or-not it shall step outside today. You know it won't, due to the rain, but you still do your duty as door-opener.

3)You talk to your cat, several times a day (in that same little sing-song-soft voice you use with babies and small children). You ask it questions, about how its day was, where it has been and what it has done, you accept its answers. If you are really a biddy (like me) you might even sing to it.

4)Everything you own is covered with cat-hair because you don't mind if the cat sleeps in your freshly laundered basket or even crawls inside your wardrobe to sleep on your clothes.

You also don't remove the cat when it jumps into your bed to shed half its weight of fur on your newly washed Egyptian Cotton bed-linens.

5)When your cat does something cute (let's be honest, everything your cat does is cute) you document it with your camera-phone and only sheer iron will keeps you from posting every picture on Facebook. (Instead you start a blog)

6)The cat goes to bed when you go to bed, it wakes up when you do (unless it's snowing outside). You don't mind if it sleeps on your face.

The list, (of shame?) of course, goes on and though I'm not dressing up in a huge cat-patterned fleece-jacket, I do have a dress with a cat print. Perhaps there is no cure, I may well be destined to be that crazy-cat-person-member-of the family, and my siblings will draw lots to see who has to have me over for the holidays, I'll only eat out of cat-food bowls and scare the children.

Must I do away with my habits? Is it really possible to be a Cat Lady and be considered a normal, contributing member of the society?

Home is where the cat is.

Location of Cat: Just waking up.

It's been a quiet few weeks, readers, because I've quite frankly been struggling to find something to write about when my days pass in a summer-lull and the days blend together until the entire week feels like Friday.

But, a few days ago I read that people had camped outside our local bank for the entire weekend to secure themselves an apartment in the new complex they are building. This building is situated in the middle of my town, a town which features newspaper headlines like «Pig on the lose» and I find it about as interesting as a piece of lint.

I must confess that when I read about these enthusiastic first-time buyers who wanted to live in my little home town-I panicked. I couldn't imagine how I would ever mange to leave the nest if people flocked in from the “great” cities because this little corner of the world was the only place they could afford!

My nest-syndrome now plays out in a sudden desire to redecorate my room. When in doubt-make changes. In the past few days I've made some acquisitions, gotten rid of furniture when I bought when I was 14 (!) and dredged up a lot of treasures (or so I hope)!

As many of you I have also experienced living in dorms at University. The first dorm I lived in was a piece of fungi and asbestos infested communist-inspired little den where I shared two toilets, one shower, two hot-plates and one oven with five other girls. Luckily, these were the best room-mates ever, being a lawyer, a priest, a zoologist, a doctor-to-be and a food-geographer. My next flat featured girl-who-only-eats-mac-and-cheese and girl-who's-entire-room-is pink and other less dubious flatmate which I seldom saw. All in all, living like this and moving every year leaves you devoid of a sense of style because the only thing you own are things you can fit into four boxes and a trunk and you've lived in these tiny dorms which doesn't allow for any sense of decoration besides choosing your own posters and the colour of your bed-spreads.

My two posters in University





























So, I do not think I have a sense of style, but I sorta know what I like and what I don't like. Unfortunately living at home means I won't be able to use the plates and cutlery I'd like, the color scheme in our corridor is abysmal and the less said about the kitchen is better. The only upside is the well-stocked fridge and the no-rent.

And of course, the cat.

Every furniture has been pre-approved by the Cat

Childhood dreams and cat-hotels.

Location of cat: in my lap.

In my previous post I made you all the unfortunate victim of my bitter-un-employed-I-want- my-dream-job-rant, and I fear this post will not deviate much from that path. I am in a grove, as it were, or perhaps it is more accurate to describe it as a ditch.

I was always been a pragmatic child and never harbored dreams of becoming a dinosaur (like Calvin), a princess, or joining the Ninja Turtles Team and as a little pig-tailed girl I had many plans for how I would shape my adult-hood.
At first I dearly wanted to be a policewoman, though I imagine this stems from the kindergarten trend where we –all- wanted to be a policeman (or firefighter) and drive a car with a siren. A few years later I was determined to be a concert flutist (despite never having touched a flute in my life), a private detective, and for several years I also nursed a desire to be a vet, because I’ve always had a fondness for animals. (When we got our first cat when I was around seven years old, I felt that all as right in the world).

As I entered Junior High I was determined to be a lawyer, just because it seemed the prestigious thing to be and because I felt it was important to have high aspirations. Sometime shortly after I realized how much paper-work was involved in the legal quern, I declared my intentions of running a cat-hotel in my grandmother’s barn (and this may still be my plan)

To be quite honest, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do from 9-5 for the rest of my life. And as I stew in this ditch of unemploymentness, I still don’t really know what I want to do. I am however, set on the path to becoming a teacher, because I feel it’s important to at least have a path to walk on (and not really knowing which road is less travelled).

As many historians, and probably many in all walks of life, I’ve always had a carried torch of becoming a writer. I have great boots of creativity that usually play out in video-games, and as I visit my old school-essays, I also realized I’ve a great fondness for killing people in my “novels” or essays. I was also keen on fantasy-fiction and can starkly recall an argument with my teacher about the “proper genre” and how he stated that fantasy-fiction was defiantly not one.

I am quite certain there are many who can relate to having their “dreams” quenched by a hooked-nosed teacher, or been told to not pursue a certain career because it would just be “too difficult for you”. And as I sit here, musing about how different things could have been, I wonder if teachers realize the authority they have over shaping a student’s future. The prospect of this authority is rather daunting and I have an inkling it is not covered in the didactic curriculum, but should I find myself unsuitable as the "Jedi-master" least there'll always be the cat-hotel.

Maybe, however, I can combine some dreams?
http://www.pet-detective.com/

I have a Dream.... of a stuffed cat?

Location of Cat: Snuggled up in bed with no intention of getting up

I have a dream….

….that one day I’ll have an office with a wide-oak desk, with a green, tiffany bank lamp. Shelves from floor to ceiling will cover the walls, lined with leather-bound and expensive looking books. There will be a fireplace, and a little basket in front of it for my cats. My chair will be a throne, and my crown and gown will be made of tweed with little patches for the elbows so that the fabric is not worn away through my many musings of History.

But this is not to be. My desk is a home-made one, my chair from Ikea and my books stowed away in boxes in the basement. I am currently an unemployed (though, in my defense I do have a summer-job lined up as a Viking/Iron Age woman but that’s a blog for another day) historian. The world is full of history, but there is not a great deal of employment for historians. What do historians do, you might wonder, aside from rant on their Cat-blogs? Historians, in a nut-shell, challenge the paradigm set by their historian-ancestors and, if successful, decide the way in which their society think about their past (and make them feel good about it). They also drink a lot of tea and wine and have permanently bad hair-days. In fact, in University, I had a professor who wore the same sweater –every- day. At least two of the students would mimic this trend and wear the same clothes the whole year around, the only thing changing was their bear growth as the semesters progressed.

The historian’s throne is filled with a few, hairy men and women who quite often sit it in until they are carted out in a black bag. (I had this dreadful dream that, when this happened to me, they’ll wheel my stuffed cat out too, though I am not quite sure why I’ll put wheel on (or even stuff my cat), but I am fairly certain that I will!) And a historian’s dream is to get published, with a proper book read by more than the cult of their academia. As an author of a blog, it should come as no surprise that I am quite keen on writing, though I find my skills and lack of a publisher, lacking. (Ideally I’d write a book about the history of cats!)

So these days, I suck it up, and search for the Dream Job, while hoping to make myself more into a round peg so that I can fit into the round holes that it is the Norwegian University systems. If I sound to you bitter, dear readers, it is not your imagination and I fear it is another gentle nudge from Real Life towards Cat-Ladyness.

More like this:

And less like this:

A Cat Lady's Purse

Location of cat: Still asleep in my bed.

The contents of a woman’s purse is an archaeological excavation into the ritual of her daily life and a mystery to many men, (and at times even to me). While a man may manage to navigate his daily ritual with just his keys, wallet and phone- all which fits into his pocket, few women will ever feel comfortable leaving their house without their purse (and let’s be honest, guys, quite often your items will find its way into the girl’s purse because you realize how unpractical it is to carry it around). I’ve seen women cart around hair-brushes, huge cans of hairspray, make-up bags and bottles of perfume and an additional pair of shoes. Some of them have bags so large they can hardly manage carry it.

My purses are no different, yet quite a lot smaller. For me bags are not as much a fashion-statement as a practicality, my thumb rule is always: function over fashion.

Yet, as a member of the female gender (and in fear of antagonizing any stalwart feminists with my stereotype) I must simply confess the universal truth: love purses (and shoes!). But mostly purses and bags of all shapes and sizes. And it is an unfortunate truth that the more I love a bag, the more expensive it’s bound to be. My favorite is one is from the Cambridge Satchel Company (if my Cat Lady career fails me, I'd like to be a tweed-wearing English-style professor), but some are decorated with cat motives, such as the lovely white bag from Cicca(another brand I love due to its cat-iness).

Today I decided to empty out one of my many bags and to examine its content to see if there are any items which have ended up there as a part of my Cat Lady evolution. What I discovered was that my love for cats was apparent even at the core of my wallet.

The first stark give away was a bonus card for, yes, Cat Food. (I’m just another purchase short from a free bag of cat-food!) In addition to this there was a recite from the Vet and a worm-pill for the cat. My key-ring has a cat-motif (my affection for cats have not gone unnoticed even by my Japanese friends), and I found several pink Hello Kitty Band-Aids (in my family we are always prepared for almost any eventuality, at least those that can be solved with a band-aid).

My phone was no different: most of my apps are fairly un-cat related, except for a few games: Sushi Cat, Cat Towers and Simon the Cat musical game. Yet, of the 187 pictures on my phone, 120 or so are of my cat. A few are of my lovely niece reading… a cat book I got her (I also got her a stuffed cat as her birth-present figuring its best to start the grooming early!)

After examining the contents of my purse, I have this image of my self as an old lady, ambling along the road to the store with one of those tartan bags on wheels with my old cat in it. Oddly enough, I do not find the picture all that uncomfortable.


Here are some links to the aforementioned bags.
www.cicciadirect.co.uk
www.cambridgesatchel.co.uk

Going to need a (Cat Lady) montage

Location of cat: In the window.

In the last few days I’ve been excommunicated to my den to work on my exam papers. The Cat, of course, has been my steady companion and constant distraction with its bouts of adorableness.

However, in an effort to distract myself from terms such as “Darwinian selection models” and “empirical quantitative data” and, in my endeavor to mitigate my Cat Lady Metamorphosis, I have taken up jogging and cycling with outward-bound enthusiasm. As I am daily bombarded with stories of couch-potatoes-turned-champion, I felt that I too would give it my Eye-of-the-Tiger-best. But, what really got me going however, is one of those stories from my daily life that makes me go “Awww”, somewhere between embarrassment and Cat Lady Pride (incidentally I have a t-shirt with just declaration, but that's a story for another time)

I was out airing my brain and, as it is wont to do The Cat followed me, leaping ahead and around my legs with all the enthusiasm of a bright-eyed-puppy (The Cat is nearing 8 years old, but never seems to leave the porch so it’s always around when I leave the house). Fearing for The Cat’s inability to find its way home (I’ve plucked it down from trees more than once and its tendency to meow at birds, thus scaring away its prey, makes me fear it may one day fall victim to the “Darwinian selection model”) I follow a regular route around the neighborhood. This was a particularly sunny day and a broad, middle-aged woman was out tending the garden when saw me approaching The Cat with its periscope tail trailing after me. She put down her watering-can and came to meet us.

“Awww, what an adorable kitty! Out talking a walksies” (yes, she did talk like this). I muttered a reply that I hope was pleasant enough, when the woman quickly continued “my friend told me she’d seen some young woman about walking her cat.” I could do nothing but confess my guilt, as the Cat was distracted by sniffing some moss and offering no support what-so-eve. “Isn’t it just the cutest thing?” she said with the voice of a woman longing for her first grand-child.

I quickly excused myself from the conversation, with a lot of “Yes-the-weather-is-fantastic” and “I-really-should-be-going-I-have-a-cake-in-the-oven” not certain if I should celebrate this recognition or bury my head in shame.

For the sake of my own spinster-hood I have decided that hence-forth the Cat is better left to do its own “walksies”, with the result that I run away from the front-door as soon I sense its gusto for attention. I do, however, wonder what impression that is giving my neighbors.

Videogamecatgirl

Location of cat: Fur-ball on the bed.

Our father had the unusual, for him, foresight to attain an AMIGA game station in the early 1990s. The foundation for my fascination with gaming lay mostly in my admiration for my older brother and my desire to play with the same toys as he (which is also, in an effort to play with my younger brother, I have an eclectic collection of Ninja Turtles and My Little Pony’s). This love for videogames was cemented one fine sunny day in spring (incidentally it was that very same day I ended my career as a football player) when our family got a Super Nintendo and the tunes for Super Mario World chimed in.

As the gaming technology grew more advanced, so did our collection of gaming stations: from Gameboy, Gameboy Color, Gameboy Advanced, (which kept us entertained through the many summers spent in car-trips along the stretchy coast of Norway) Nintendo DS, Super Nintedo, N64, Nintendo Gamecube, Playstation 2, Xbox, Xbox360. To think about amount of coin we spent on games that now lie and gathering dust under the bed, which my cat favors, makes my wallet churn. I carry a torch for a renaissance in retro-gaming and hope that our 8-16 and 32 pixeled collections may someday bring us a fortune.

I have held on to this tradition of playing video-games, albeit I stay clear
of any involving driving cars around a circular track or killing zombies (killing aliens, monsters and Nazis is perfectly acceptable. I am currently ambivalent about mutants, or zombie-Nazis). What it is about videogames I like, you may wonder. And the truth is: (and here is to hoping there are no psychologists reading this), I like sniping monsters. Preferably in the head or the groin. Puzzle games vexes me with their ability to leave me confounded ( and I am still convinced that cake is a lie) and feeling intellectually inadequate, but my ability to hit a robot in the head across a well-lit storage-room, fills me with a sense of achievement that is only echoed by my cat’s approval of my ability to open the door to let it out (yes, it has trained me well). My cat quite likes it when I play video games, because it sees this as the perfect opportunity to steal my attention away from the mutant/bandit/giant-lizard-dog-thing/alien/harvester that is trying to kill my protagonist.

Yet, the cat is simply too cute to chastise for getting my character killed, (though there is an urban story in my gaming community about a parrot biting the hand of a player, causing his character to jump into a deadly electrical trap and killing the majority of the other players in his party). After all, we can always load a previous save, experienced by our failure and knowledge of how to defeat the monster, but not marred by them in any way. Sometimes, however, you just need to call your brother in to defeat the Fatman on rollerblades who is throwing bombs at you.

This is a feature I dearly would like Real Life to have (the ability to call your brother for aid and reload to earlier points in your life, not the Fatman on rollerblades who throws bombs at you, though I suppose that'd make for an interesting event!)

It is a truth universally acknowledged that most girls, or rather women, will at some point fear that they are turning into a ”cat lady”

It is a truth universally acknowledged that most girls, or rather women, will at some point fear that they are turning into a ”cat lady”, an eccentric creature who is known for her affection, dare I say obsession, with cats and cat-related object.

In the past few days I have been forced to admit that I am looking forward to the British Royal wedding between Kate and William. I fear this might well be another step in my metamorphosis towards becoming a “cat lady,” and I felt it would be advantageous to share my concerns with the world in case there are other souls out there who have the same struggles. Worry not, girls, you are not alone.

Now, before you turn your gaze to your keyboard and prepare your flame-wars, let me stress that I have all respect for men and women who care for and nurture unwanted pets. I regularly donate to animal shelters and RSPCA. Nor is it an attempt to ridicule people who surround themselves with four-legged friends, it is simply, my own musings of the life I live.

In this blog I bid you to follow me as I navigate the treacherous waters of being single, in my mid-twenties with no obvious job prospects and an expensive education (I’m an historian by education) And yes, I do currently live at home. And I have a cat which sleeps in my bed and I talk to it in a silly high-pitched voice usually reserved for babies or kittens.

Before we continue, or rather before I end my first-ever public post, let us see what Wikipedia has to say on the subject:

“In the West, single Women who own cats have long been associated with the concept of sprinsterhood.[4] In more recent decades, the concept of a cat lady has been associated with "romance-challenged (often career-oriented) women who can't find a man.[5] (how starkly that applies to my own situation!)

The term is also used to denote an animal hoarder who keeps large numbers of cats without having the ability to properly house or care for them.[6] “A stereotypical cat lady, or cat woman is a single[1] woman who dotes upon her cat, or multiple cats.[2] The term is considered pejorative.[3]”

As it seems that at least one of the definitions can be applied to me, this will be a daunting affair.(I'll leave it up to decide which one fits the best!)