aggienaut | Entries tagged with cato

   Caticus Maximus Rex Julius Quintus Potatoe, AKA "Cato," king of cats, believed to be about 13 years old, has not been seen since mid December. It is believed that he is no longer with us. He of course left no disanimated remains, having, I am sure, achieved apotheosis and ascended whole to the celestial sphere of his peer mythical and legendary beasts.

   The last time I saw him was on December 11th. He seemed at that time as spry and himself as ever.

   And the last photo I took of him, he had decided to trap me by sleeping cutely on my arm:

Frodo the Magpie
   It was this past Friday I was informed of Cato's absence. That afternoon after I got home from work, my friend Tim who lives in my village here, biked over to pick up some beekeeping supplies he'd bought from my work. I was sitting on my front porch reading at the time,as it was a nice sunny summer afternoon. Very shortly after he arrived, he was standing just off the porch talking to me when a magpie swooped down from the roof, passing just in front of him. Magpies are notorious for dive bombing people so as first I thought thats what had happened, but moments later the magpie swooped down from where it had temporarily alighted on the fence down to his feet, and looking up at him cawed insistently like a kitten that wants attention. In fact we noticed it still had a bit of its juvenile downy fluff.
   We kneeled down to its level and found it had absolutely no fear of us, perfectly willingly climbing on our feet, our legs, onto our hands. As it was cawing like a hungry kitten the whole time, we thought it might be hungry, and as the trash cans were just at hand one by one we rolled them away from where they'd been revealing a delicious smorgasbord underneath (if you're into that kind of thing) of slugs, worms and beetles. Our pseudocorvid friend (Australian magpies aren't actually corvids (the crow/raven family) though European ones are!) happily snapped up all the beetles, wasn't interested in the slugs, and tried a worm but evidently didn't find it delicious.
   We sat and played with the magpie for about half an hour. It would let us pat it, even turn it upside down and scritch its belly. I was just thinking I'd have to make it a nest box to stay snug overnight or smoething when it must have heard or seen its parents or something and it abruptly flew off. In the days since then I've been hoping to see him/her again, calling out hopefully to any likely looking magpies I see around my house but no luck.
   I've decided to name him her Frodo, or maybe Froyo (:

This is shortly after we met him

Banshee Cat
   "What's with the black cat?" Trent my housemate had asked me months ago.
   "What black cat?"
   "The one thats sometimes sleeping on the couch on the veranda?"
   "I've never seen it"

   Well this past Saturday (day after hearing about Cato and meeting Froyo) I was sitting in the back yard reading and I heard a cat meowing insistently like it was calling for someone, and a black cat with a floofy tail with just a spot of white on the tip walked around the corner of the garage. I gently called to it and it was a bit startled but didn't completely evacuate the yard. He looked at me very cautiously, and retreated if I tried to approach, but eventually sat down some distance from me for awhile, before wandering off calling again.
   Later in the late afternoon / early evening he came by calling out again. I wondered if he was hungry and opened a can of tuna I had, placed it on the ground and retreated and he eagerly ate it. I couldn't see a collar but his fur is a bit long so it could be under the fur. I realized with an eerie chill that he was walking around calling out exactly like he was looking for someone he couldn't find -- Cato used to walk around calling out like that when he couldn't find me, but it didn't sound quite so mournful and desperate when Cato did it. Neighbor cat Bailey died relatively recently, I think my yard had been Bailey's cat-territory, I whimsically entertained the idea that this cat had been a friend of Bailey's and missed him. Or possibly more plausibly, a neighbor had relatively suddenly moved away just days earlier, perhaps they had been looking after this cat.
   Several times since then the cat has come by calling out it's lamentations. Hence I've name him/her Banshee / Bansheecat. It's all a bit Edgar Allen Poe this cat with its mournful lamentations coming by searching, searching, just after my beloved Cato had gone missing.

Current Music: Flogging Molly - If I Ever Leave This World Alive

   On Sunday several of us traveled in Birregurra Tanker 2 to participate in a planned burn in which they burned off a swath on either side of a highway for about 20 km to make a long barrier to any future unplanned fire this season. This was my first away mission in actually one of our own trucks with our own crew. Also, for once I wasn't the youngest crewmember! Usually it's me and a bunch of grey-hairs but this time it was me and two guys who seem about my own age, the wife of one, whom I think may be a few years younger, and this 18 or so year old with dark fabio hair. Two of the others were very new so somoene made a joke about "a truck full of newbies" and then Eddie, the other non-new guy, who was driving, said "Kris isn't new" and it was the first time it occurred to me that I might not be the newbie anymore!

   To do the burn they had the trucks lined up going along thoroughly wetting down the stone barrier wall and grassy fringe which ran 20-30 meters parallel to the highway, while behind the truck parade ATVs with drip torches set the grass on fire, followed by several follow up trucks to make sure the fire behaved itself, as well as sometimes a truck going around and standing by on the far side of the wall.

   After lunch I we rotated me into the radioman position in the truck's front passenger seat instead of out back with a hose. Because that only required me to actually do something once after twenty minutes or so I and it was mid afternoon after getting up really early I found myself desperately fighting not to fall asleep. I much preferred being on the back! The people who feel important being the radioman can keep it!

   Yesterday, Monday, it was once again cold and rainy. I really need to actually keep a tally of how many nice days we get in summmer here it sure feels like it's a number I can count on one hand. Especially if you don't count the days the slap a "total fire ban" on because on such days I can't work. Tomorrow it's supposed to be 84f and raining and they've slapped a TFB on it. Basically the only nice days I get to do work on are the few that fall in the narrow band of the 70s Fahrenheit.

   But so a funny think that happened yesterday. When I came back to home base to move some empty beehives from one place to another (because el bossman is going to put cows in that field), Cato came out to greet me, and he was looking very wet and bedraggled. So I invited him into the truck cab and closed the door and spent a few minutes patting him until he had quite the purr on. I've tried driving with him in the car before and he gets thoroughly freaked out. But having gotten him really calm I turned the truck on, then gave him a minute or two to get used to the vibrating truck, and then drove at cat-walking speed to where I was going to pick up the hives. He jumped up and spent the short drive with his hind feet on my lap, his front paws on the door or dashboard, looking around in fascination. When I arrived I opened the door and he jumped out and seemed astonished to have teleported. When I had driven him before it was a few hundred meters around a tree line, to a place he'd probably been before, but I think the locaiton change might have been too compelte for him to wrap his mind around, compared to this move of 40 meters where he could see where we started

   While I loaded the boxes on the back of the truck he looked around and settled on sitting under the back of the truck. This only took me a few minutes and when I was loaded up I got back int he cab and called to him. He came and hopped in! The one previous time I had driven him he had declined to get back in and had walked back to the workshop. I drove the 40 meters back, he still looking out the window in fascination. He hopped out when I opened the door and looked around again as I unloaded the boxes. Got back in the cab, called him, and he hopped back in! We did this for three loads. Adventurecat!

Cato, original reference ROOK AT HIS WIDDLE TOOF!!

Finally have all the entries of the long distance telephone pictionary game in

Presently I'm tied for last in the LJ Idol poll! Which of course means I'll be eliminated unless I get some more votes!!! Please go vote for me, even if you don't have a dreamwidth account you can still vote over there with your livejournal account.

And here's a random saber toothed cat kitten and adult. The adult looks like he needs coffee.

Meanwhile in the Dungeons and Dragons came my character has bought an elephant (which I've named Bartleby). Its not something I had contemplated in the slightest until the dungeon master said a stablekeeper had one for sale and I was like.... yes! My character has also bought a lance to use on it and switched out his javelins for bolas so he can entangle people. I'm really looking forward to getting to use my new toys!

Also in the D&D game some kind of discussion of centaur anatomy inspired me to doodle this centaur trying to preserve her modesty by covering her human breasts and her horse teats.

But seriously, please go vote for me (:

I've got a million pictures of Cato on my shoulders but I think this one came out particularly good.

   Just a mundane week here. It's a depressing time of year, as Autumn sets in, but we don't even have the autumn holidays one looks forward to in the states - April being the southern hemisphere October, we'd be thinking about Halloween at this time if this was the states, but nope nothing. Though I am thinking about making eggnog, since I read somewhere it should be aged a few months and want it ready for the heart of winter in June/July. Because terms for the different cream-levels of milk are different here I had to talk consult with cooking magician Koriander for recipe adjustments.
   Normally this time of year I have projects abroad to look forward to, but this year all the organizations I usually work with are saying they don't have budget for any new projects -- I vaguely suspect I can blame Trump for this (the money all cmmes from USAID). Other than a possible project in Haiti, anywhere I go will have to be on my own dime and time, yuck. There's a traditional wedding in Kenya I am invited to and would really like to attend but it's expensive getting oneself to Africa... and it's the exact same day my uncle is getting married in the States so I might be in trouble if I go off to a wedding in Africa instead ::hides::

   For four days this week the weather was actually extremely nice, highs in the upper seventies, sunny. Even in the evening it was comfortable! I don't think we've had four days in a row of nice weather all year. Went to trivia in Geelong town on Tuesday for the first time in possibly months just to see everyone. Wednesday I finished the labels for my honey -- In the picture above you see the front and back of the label as seen on the smaller 500g pale/bucket/jar/thing, as well as my really messy table (the two wine bottles immediately behind it are Udi's wine actually). The honey is a different color in the bottom 1kg bucket because thats the one that's been sitting on my kitchen table for months and has crystalized. Its currently the same size label on both buckets, but it kind of covers the whole side on the smaller buckets and I may get smaller labels for the smaller buckets in the future. Any thoughts on anything even as subtle as font choice are appreciated. I set the expiration date as "5:08pm 01/02/2099" as sort of a joke -- the health official I talked to had said honey doesn't need one but it's worth putting on since people expect one on food products, and I can set it at absolutely anything I want.

Logo and the nearby landmark it's supposed to be reminiscent of -- this is the "cover image" our designer made for our as-yet-uncreated facebook page.

   Also I might increase the opacity of the three hive logo that is currently under the name on the front label, since it's currently so faint it kind of just looks like a stain.

   Thursday I brought a load of honey to the cafe my friend Joe and his wife run and sold it to them. It was interesting negotiating a price with my good friends since instead of trying to hardball eachother we were like "so.. what should the price be?" "::shrug::, what do other people sell you honey for?" "ummmm let me check" ... I think in the end I matched the prices of the higher priced other local supplier -- $14/kg from the store to me, to be put on the shelf at $22 (for the 1kg units, for the 500g $15 on the shelf and same $14/kg wholesale) I think the Apiary has 390g jars on the shelf for $14, I've always thought their prices were ridiculously high. But hey if people will pay it... and since it has an infinite shelflife I'm happy to set it at a high price that may sell eventually over a lower price that may fly off the shelf.

   Felt like I was comning down with a bit of a cold so used 5 hours of sickday to take the rest of the day off. Was just sickish enough to be mildly uncomfortable all day.

   Friday I had to drive down to Melbourne to get one last load of hives from the sterilizer. Man it's a whole long day of driving to go down there and back. It was a good my-health-may-not-be-100%-yet activity though ... but then my health was bound to take a thorough shellacking because my friend Trent is going abroad next week for potentially years so we were bound for a night of heavy drinking at his favorite place Friday night. Rheingold's is one of those Kitschy permanent-Oktoberfest style German restaurants, located in the basement of an old bank so it feels a bit like a dungeon. One pays one amount for all-you-can eat dinner (they roast a whole pig, as well as provide sauerkraut and other such appropriate things. I found I was strangely loving the sauerkraut), and one can pay for drinks as one goes or like $60 for all you can drink tap beer -- which I did the math and I'd have to drink three liters to make that worthwhile which is NOT about to happen -- but many people go for it and try to get their money's worth and hence end up ridiculously drunk. Really funny animated-gif picture of Trent being goofy as the roast pig is paraded by behind him. A large group of students (of medicial imaging apparently) from a local univsersity happened to be there too, all dressed up in lederhosen and such. It was a really fun evening. As we were leaving a cold wind was beginning to gust but it still felt nicer than most evenings all summer.

   In the morning I woke up on my friend Greg's couch to sideways rain pelting down outside. Driving home through it was wild, as the car got buffeted and in places it looked like the water was just flowing across the country roads in a roiling mist -- I passed at least one car that I think had decided to stop and wait it out. All weekend it's continued to rain and generally be cold and yucky. Fortunately I didn't need to leave the house. I'm actually glad when we get this shit weather on the weekend because unlike the rest of you, my work is not a fun place to be in poor weather -- I'm either outside or in a non-temperature-controlled shed.

And here's Cato looking more sweet and innocent than he ever has before! Normally he likes to strike such stern poses.

Random pandora discovery song of the week: Save This Penny - Medicine --I really like this style of music, I guess one would call it "folk" but I think if I told people I liked folk music they'd picture something hokey going on with banjos, so I find it hard to describe.

Current Music: Count This Penny - Medicine

   If I may be so bold, I'd like to combine two fairly unrelated things in this entry. First I just wanted to post the pictures above and below of Cato posing particularly dramatically. And as long as I'm posting I've been wanting to rant a little bit about the Viking television series so I'm going to go ahead and do that. (Though I'll point out that viking cats are definitely a thing, we can call Cato "Bjornekatt Loðstjärt."(Bear-cat shaggy-butt))

   Now if I have a bunch of criticisms of the Vikings show it's not because I loathe and despise it but because vikings are near and dear to my heart and the show is almost excellent, except for a few things that really grate upon me, which is why I need to get it off my chest.
   I don't intend to include any spoilers in here except for maybe general comments on the personalities of main characters.

   (1) First of all, worst of all, that friggen "seer" is totally fantasy cliche and stolen whole cloth from the movie 300. I like that supernatural things occasionally happen, but I prefer it when they're portrayed kind of ambiguously like it could have just been a coincidence or someone's imagination, but this permanent character who doesn't look like a realistic normal human, doesn't act like one, and I cant' forget that I saw him looking and acting the same way in 300 is just a huge affront to my willing suspension of disbelief and enjoyment of the film.
   (2) What's with the awful haircuts? I googled around about the historical accuracy of the series before writing this and found some stupid puff pieces about how "yes they did have hair braids like that!" ... conveniently ignoring that I'm prrrrretty sure no one could be bothered to painstakingly shave fashionable portions of their head with the tools at hand (which is to say knives and water that would have to be heated over a fire). I feel like in later seasons they toned this down but in the first season it looked like a bunch of bikers with too much time on their hands escaped from hair design school. Also, it's one thing to have it shaved clean but Ragnar's son Bjorne looks like he has his hair shaved evenly at like a no 4 setting on a clippers, which would also be very hard to maintain without, you know, a clippers.
   (3) The immortality of main characters. It's a classic failing of MOST series that eventually you come to realize none of the main characters will ever die. Without giving too much away, several times main characters appear to be killed in battle, shot up with arrows, hacked and then run over by horses, limp corpse carried away... then it turns out they're alive! And walking talking frolicking about in the next scene. Instead of being on the edge of my seat when it looks like a main characters is about to die in battle, as you'd think they'd want the audience to feel, I just roll my eyes and when sure enough it turns out they're actually alive I groan aloud -- not because I specifically want any of the characters in question to die so much as just, come on man.
   (4) the world revolves around them -- it's also a weakness in a series when you start to feel like there's no world outside what's presently on set, and that they're the most important people in the world. In particular, when the viking king comes and hangs out for most of a season or two and has no retainers, seemingly nothing better to do, it seemed pretty odd to me. Doesn't he have at least a town of his own, and I don't know, a best friend? He just floats around like the secondary character he is and it starts to feel like they haven't filled out the rest of the viking world at all.
   (5) I really think they should have cast said king as Ragnar instead of the guy they did. He actually does seem to have the force of presence expected. The guy playing Ragnar seems like he's trying to channel Johnny Depp but it doesn't work for him. He doesn't have a forceful presence, he has a weird retreating twitching not-making-eye-contact not making decisions presence that doesn't seem to me to fit the part.
   (6) Ragnar Lodbroke means "Ragnar shaggy pants," WHERE ARE HIS SHAGGY PANTS
   (7) The tattoos. Did you know, there IS one reference to vikings "being covered in green drawings," by the Arab diplomat Ibn Fadlan who encountered a group of Varangrians (that is to say Norsemen who had settled in what is now Russia) in Bulgaria. Being as this is the only reference in any record, it is far more likely they picked it up in Russia (there's Siberian tribes known to tattoo -- seriously check out these cool tattoos) than that somehow no one in Europe ever thought to mention it and no tattoo implements have survived among the many oddments that have (I call this occam's tattoo needle).
   (8) This doesn't really bother me like the other things, but while I'm mentioning things, despite the two human sacrifices in the series being portrayed as voluntary, and indeed the priests refusing to take a non-voluntary sacrifice, and there are historical references and evidence of sacrifices, there is no historical reference or evidence of a single voluntary sacrifice.
   (9) Cato reminds me that there's no cats. Hmm that's a good point there really aren't.

   But other than the above points I must say I do find it rather enjoyable. I do really appreciate that they make a lot of references to the sagas and historical events. Presently once a week my friend Billie and I get together and I bring a bottle of mead and we watch a few episodes.