A Monday morning in January
“Morning,” I say sleepily to MindReader, at 7 o’clock in the morning on our first work-Monday in January. When the mornings are as dark as this, we leave our wooden blinds open and watch the grey-pink dawn blush over the rooftops.
“Hello,” he says, pulling me close to him.
“I’m tired,” I say, as my teasmaid hisses to life, filling the room with the scent of strong coffee. “Shall I wear my white shirt or my green spotty pussy bow blouse?”
Just then we hear a thundering up the stairs. Benny is not a quiet cat. And is also a little bit crazy, it seems. He has mad hours, where his eyes go like saucers and he chases pencils and hides in the TV cabinet and uses the back and sides of the sofa as a race track while we sit there, sitting rigidly with our feet not touching the floor. The rest of the time he likes to be picked up a LOT, and sleep on the back of the sofa with his head on your shoulder, and wait quietly for you on the toilet lid while you have a bath.
“Meowwwwww,” Benny wails outside our door.
“He heard us again!” MindReader says, pulling the cover over his head. “He heard us talking!”
I laugh. “We’re prisoners in our own home.”
“Shh don’t speak,” MindReader says. “Don’t attract the beast.”
And the winner is… (courtesy of Random.Org)
Nathan Pralle!
Cat ownership = awkward situations
“I’ve never met a cat like him,” DoctorSister’sHusband says as Benny hangs over his shoulder, his paws wrapped around his neck.
“He’s quirky,” I say.
“He’s getting heavy. It’s not unlike holding EarlyNiece,” he says, putting him down.
“I think they weigh about the same,” I say. “A stone?”
“About that,” DoctorSister says, jiggling EarlyNiece on her knee.
We are enjoying a particularly civilised afternoon of sandwiches, cakes, tea, cats and babies and I can’t remember the last time I felt quite so content.
Cat ownership is going well. We kept Benny’s litter tray in the living room last night and he used it, so this morning we moved it to the downstairs toilet where we want it to live. What? It’s where we pee. AND it has an extractor fan. WIN.
There is a rustling as we see Benny picking his way across the living room. He lifts up his front paw and gingerly starts to climb into EarlyNiece’s car seat.
I exchange a glance with MindReader. “Well, this is awkward,” I say as Benny rocks gently in the car seat.
Eventually, he gets out and flounces out of the room and into the downstairs toilet.
“I’ll just use the loo,” DoctorSister’sHusband says, standing up.
I exchange another glance with MindReader. “Er, Benny’s just in there…” I say.
Benny meets his cousin EarlyNiece!
Benny takes laptop literally
Benny-Eve, Benny-Mass
“Today was the BEST DAY EVER,” I say to MindReader.
I was up early, ran down the stairs to MindReader in my new Christmas pyjamas and shouted, “it’s Benny Day!”. We dropped £70 in Pets at Home on litter trays and scratching posts and the entire time, I was grabbing MindReader’s arm and saying “I can’t BELIEVE it’s our turn. That we’re getting a pet. And not just here to look at the rabbits and go home again!”
We filled in Benny’s adoption paperwork and, to our surprise as well as the Internet’s, we decided to keep him as Benny (though my competition remains open) as this is, resolutely, his name.
Stories of cats not coming out of their carriers and needing to be kept in one room for a few days faded into obscurity as Benny bounded out, settled onto a beanbag, hoofed up a bowl full of food, followed MindReader to the kitchen, sat on my towel while I had a bath, pulled a t-shirt off the radiator and sat on it, visited the windowsill in the spare bedroom and licked Max’s face.
He follows us around. After an hour of cuddles I gave him a house tour which was surprisingly easy given you cannot leave any room without him coming. If you pick him up he will put his head in your neck and stay there for as long as you like. If you sit down he will come and knead your clothes with his huge paws, but if you start eating he will go and sit on the floor like a dog. He makes a LOT of noise moving around, he stomps and sounds just like a person coming down the stairs. If you call him over, so far, he will always, always come. He is absolutely huge and has paws like a tiger.
“He’s a bit stupid,” MindReader says to me as we watch Benny sitting on the sofa, his eyelids slowly drooping.
“Is he?” I say.
“Two strangers arrived, put him in a box and brought him to a strange house and he’s just got out of the box and fallen asleep!” MindReader says.
He isn’t keen on the idea of a Benny-Warming party, either
“Ralph?” I say to MindReader as we step out of the train station on our way to work. A freezing cold breeze burns my lungs.
“No, Ralph is a weird name,” MindReader says, holding a door open for me as we venture out into the rain.
“Ralph is definitely a tall, thin name. And while Benny’s tall, he’s round isn’t he?”
MindReader gives me a funny look. “He’s a cat.”
“Yes.”
“Five days to go,” MindReader says.
“Nothing can go wrong between now and then, right?” I say. Though really, I should have said nothing more can go wrong; in the past week, MadFather’s broken his ankle and had surgery, I have exhausted myself ferrying him around and have woken up with my Christmas Cold that graces me on the 22nd of December every year.
I stop dead outside the train station, amidst the Christmas shoppers and tired commuters ready for their Christmas holidays.
“What if Benny dies before we fetch him on Tuesday?” I say, as a man with a Selfridges bag steps around me. “What would happen then?”
“Well,” MindReader says. “For starters I expect there’d be a state funeral.”
Christmas Giveaway
The chaps over at Oo Shirts are offering one of my readers two t-shirts with anything you like on them. I don’t normally go in for giveaways but I thought this was a really nice one as you effectively get to choose what it is. I of course could inflict a Billygean.co.uk: your number one source for colonoscopy chat t-shirt on you, but I don’t think anyone wants that.
The two t-shirts must have the same design on them and be shipped to the same address. Other than that, they can be different sizes, colours and styles. The winner will be required to provide a short review of the t-shirt that I can put on here once you’ve received it.
The winner will be able to design their t-shirts at the design lab. There are some very cool designs. And you can put ANYTHING YOU LIKE. ON A T-SHIRT. Even images! How cool is that!
To enter:
Leave a comment below.
For an extra entry, tweet about this competition providing a link to it. As long as you put @Billygean in the tweet I should see it, unless you’re protected in which case ask me to follow and I will.
For an extra entry, share this post on Facebook (and show me you’ve done so)
For a final entry, suggest a new name for Benny.
So that’s four possible ways to enter.
Rather than choose the best Benny name, I will pick a winner at random at 9pm January 1st 2012.
Good luck!
Scenes from living with MadFather again
MadFather broke his ankle at the weekend and, after I had taken him to A&E, he came to stay with MindReader and I, because we just don’t move in with MadFather enough. But this time, he has moved in with us.
MadFather and I are watching Contagion.
“I can’t imagine being like, oh I’ll treat people even though I’ll catch this deadly flu,” I say.
“I know,” MadFather says. “It’s admirable. Exposing yourself like that.”
“Mmm.”
“Of course,” he says. “I expose myself all the time.”
***
“So when is Benny coming home?” MadFather says with a smile.
“The twenty SEVENTH,” I say. I have even written a helpful “OMG!” on the calendar in red.
“What’s he like?”
“I love him I love him I love him,” I say.
MindReader comes in from the kitchen. “Can you not say that?”
“What?”
“That you love him. You don’t love him yet!” He says, leaning against the doorframe.
“I do. I loved him from the moment we met.”
“You’ve been obsessed with him a bit longer than that,” MindReader says, smiling. “You met on the internet really didn’t you? You big geek.”
***
“I’m having an old English breakfast for lunch with NewFriend!” I texted MindReader today during our lunch hours.
“Oh good,” he replied.
Later, when chuntering about my old English breakfast, he asked me if I meant an all English breakfast, a full English breakfast, or an Old English Sheepdog.
RSPCA say…
“So it is quite a busy road,” the RSPCA lady says to me, after we’ve done the formalities. This woman, she has four cats and three dalmations. Briefly, I have an insight into what my life might be like if I’d never bumped into MindReader at law school.
“Yes. It’s worse this time of year,” I say, which is on my list of Things To Say.
“Well, you can only do what you can do. One of my cats wandered half a mile away to the nearest busiest road and got run over.”
The thought of BennyBear being run over fills me with sadness. “That’s awful,” I say.
“He’s, what? Three?” she says.
“Yep. And he was a stray…”
“So he’s got a good head on his shoulders,” she says, and it is bizarre to meet somebody who talks about animals how I do: as if they are humans.
“He has,” I say, resisting the urge to say that he will be going to a Russell Group university.
“Now, will you get a cat flap?” she says to me.
“Errrr,” I say, stalling. In all my road panic, I’d completely forgotten she might ask that.
“Or are you just going to let Benny go in and out and open the doors for him?” she says gently.
I sense this is the right answer. “I think Benny will probably demand we open doors for him,” I say, and she laughs.
She quizzes me about worming the cat and which vet I will use, and, because this is Type A Gets Cats, I already have a flyer from the local vets.
“I think we’re done here,” she says.
“Have I, have I passed?” I say, like, VINDICATE MY PERSONALITY WITH A GRADE, PLEASE.
“Of course!” she says.
She stands up, and then stops, facing the television unit.
“Who’s that?” she says slowly, looking at Max.
“That’s Max,” I say, thinking of my Nanna. “He’s very tame.”
And, because she is also mad, she says, “he doesn’t bark much.”
“He’s lost his voice,” I say with a smile.
I see her out.
“So I’ll call the cattery and tell them you’re fetching BennyBear on the 27th, is that right?” she says.
“Yes, that’s right,” I say, counting down in my head to my very own Christmas, two days later than everybody else’s.
“‘Cause what is simple in the moonlight, by the morning never is.” – Bright Eyes
December 16th, 2006.
“Aw,” I say, “it was a good night.”
It’s four in the morning. I can see my breath, though I don’t feel cold; something to with being full of alcopops and cider and black.
“It was rubbish,” MindReader says with a laugh, as we walk past a frost-covered lavendar bush. He’s only in a black t-shirt, his freckly arms drawn close to his sides.
“It’s just here,” I say.
“Well,” MindReader says, stopping. He rocks back on his heels.
“Thanks for the walk home,” I say.
I wonder what his body would feel like. Would his hands be warm or always cold, like mine?
I shake the thought from my head and we look up at my student house. Shabby and run-down, the porch door slightly ajar as I always forget my keys. The light in the bedroom on the left – Mike’s light, Mike’s bedroom – blinks on, the amber light seeping out into the navy-blue evening.
MindReader raises his eyebrows and looks at me, his hands thrust into his jeans pockets.
“Goodnight then,” I say. “Sorry about the walk back – in advance.”
He makes a movement towards me. The hug is over before I’ve even registered it. It is shoulders only; our hips facing resolutely away from each other. He pats my shoulder like my he’s my grandma.
My entire body is covered in a light sweat as we pull away.
“Night,” he says, turning. I watch him walk away, his blond hair catching the light of the streetlamps. That bum, I think. That bum!
I let myself into the porch and stand for a moment.
I think I’ll not see that boy over Christmas, I say to myself. I need to get over that crush. Four weeks should do it.
***
Today
MindReader takes his coat off in the hall.
“Oh you were wearing that t-shirt five years ago today!” I say, my head still full of the memories of that freezing night.
“Okay. Creepy…” MindReader says, kissing me, full on the lips, and leaning back to smile at me.
—
More like this: here.
Benny, part 4, or, Distraction Therapy for Backs
Benny, part one, two and three.
“Owwww,” I say to MindReader, clattering about pouring two coffees.
I seem to have done my back in. Halfway up, right in the centre, absolutely kills whenever I move.
“Stay still,” he says to me. He takes my heatpad out of the microwave and disappears into the hall. I am adding sugar to his coffee when he comes up behind me and ties the heatpack to my back with one of his scarves.
“Oh, thanks,” I say, geuinely touched. “But I look obese.”
“You look a bit ridiculous,” he says with a smile.
As he carries our coffees into the living room we hear the familiar chime of my ringtone (The Mr Men Theme).
“Who’s that?”
“Don’t know don’t know don’t know,” I say, “RSPCA?!”
“Oh god.”
“Hello?” I say, walking gingerly upstairs because MindReader will try to make me laugh on the phone.
It is the RSPCA. The woman (who is also a dog walker – another Dream Career) is coming on Saturday at 12 o’clock.
“Ah, I know where you are,” she says, after I give her my address. “I used to go to that gym near you.”
“I know the one,” I say, and all the time my brain is going SWEET TALK HER. SWEET TALK HER. YOUR FUTURE IS AT STAKE. Because I am rational and normal.
“It’s nice round there,” she says.
“Mmm,” I say, wondering whether to mention The Road Issue. But then, she knows the road, doesn’t she? She wouldn’t come if the road was too busy. Would she? I decide not to draw her attention to it.
“Anyway, it’s just a formality,” she says, “we’ll just have a chat and I’ll look around a bit.”
I wonder if she really means it’s just a formality. If so, why is she coming? Why can’t I just go and get Benny NOW?
“Umm okay,” I say. “I’ll put the kettle on.”
(Because I want you to like me).
“When are you picking Billybob up?” she says, sidestepping my weird tea party invite.
“It’s Benny Bear,” I say with a laugh.
“Oh what a lovely name, will you keep it?”
I try not to snort and say no. “Maybe!”
“When are you bringing him home, anyway?”
SHE SAID ‘WHEN’, NOT ‘IF’.
I refrain from saying “SO HE’S OURS? HE’S OURS?”
“The 27th.”
“Oh, a late Christmas present, how lovely!”
“It should have been earlier,” I say. “But we are away over Christmas so I’ve arranged to pay his cattery fees.”
And then I go all psycho.
“THAT’S HOW MUCH I LOVE THIS CAT,” I say.
“Right okay,” she says, and then pauses. “See you Saturday.”
Click.
She probably won’t come, I think, hanging my head.
I sit on our bed and go over the conversation. Just a formality, she said. When are you bringing him home?
I walk downstairs and skip into the living room. There is some dance music playing on an advert on the TV and I do a stupid dance in front of MindReader in my heatpad/scarf/pyjamas combination.
“They’re coming on Saturday,” I say with a big grin.
“Back cured then?” he says.
