Shelf

The Cat Who Stares at Gnomes

It's properly summer here in Hastings, and that means I like to spend my evenings out on the balcony to my flat, looking over the communal gardens, sitting in my garden chair reading. (Incidentally, I've just finished Kim Stanley Robinson's 2312, very highly recommended if you like cerebral wide screen space opera with no plot.) It also means that as soon as I sit down, there's a black and white presence sitting in the flowerbed directly beneath me, staring up at me.

Victory!

But of course, the Norwegians have got there first...

PS. This is strip No. 600!

Aaaaaand he’s back!

Stationery nerds will be interested to know I’ve changed my pens again. I was using a Tempo pen for the lettering in the Sunday strips, but now, after much searching, I’ve finally found a calligraphic fountain pen with a thin enough nib for me to be able to letter the strip properly. Bear with it for the first few strips while the nib gets trained to my writing style.

The Inking is now done with Sharpie fine liners! Gasp! All that fiddling around with expensive Japanese imports and I end up using a pen you can buy for a dollar at WalMart.

Schwif

I’ve had this happen before, opening my curtains first thing in the morning.

Go.

Gizmo was the exact opposite of this; he loved an audience. The litter box is in the bathroom, next to the toilet for humans. Being the kind of cat that follows you around the house, he would follow you into the bathroom, and one you had plonked your self on the toilet, he’d sit in his litter box and join in. Then, like all male cats tend to, he’d scrape the litter over his doings, and then continue to scrape the tiled floor, the walls, the toilet roll, and anything else he could find in the room.

Schrödinger

 This is of course, similar to the Schrodinger’s Cat thought experiment, but nowhere near as cruel.

At last, I actually have a photo of the real Cat Who Stares at Stuff. The stuff he is staring at today is me, taking a photo of him. However, he’s in his favourite place, where he can gaze at everything that happens in the balconies above him. The laundry on the second floor is his favourite.

Off the wall

If in doubt about ending a sequence, I usually bring in Smudge and her wall. And just for once she gets bested.

Incidentally, this is proof that The Cat Who Stares At Stuff isn't a stuffed toy, as some readers have speculated.

Contest

Not quite up to the quality of this staring contest from the BBC's Big Train sketch show, but good enough...

The incredible elastic ears of Scrumpy the rabbit

Yes, Scrumpy's ears are getting longer and longer every time I draw them. Maybe it's because he uses them so much, they're stretching with overuse.

In sadder news, Gizmo died on Tuesday last week, his renal failure having finally caught up with him. It's been a tough month, losing Smudge and Gizmo within a month of one another, but not a surprise. It's hit us both hard, though - today's been the first day I've had the strength to write about it. Linda and I would like to thank everyone at the Chase Vets Practice in London Road for helping us to make their last few months so comfortable.

Smudge and Gizmo, 2010

A house that is suddenly without cats feels so empty. The water fountain no longer burbles merrily away in the corner of the living room. There are no food bowls to trip over in the kitchen. Gizmo no longer perches on the far edge of the bath whenever I take a shower. Smudge no longer gives running commentaries while trying to talk to Linda's parents on the phone. There is no furry body blocking the view of my Mac as I type. Every now and then I catch a moving shadow in the corner of my eye and have to remind myself there's no longer a cat there to cause it.

Over to Linda, who wrote this obit on Facebook on Tuesday.

Hi, Everyone. Andrew and I are saddened to tell you all that our little big scrawny ol'Snaggedypuss boy Gizmo went to sleep this afternoon at the vet's office, with me holding him as he went. He might have been about eight or nine years old. He came to us about two years ago, when a friend had to give him up to keep him safe. He was a great source of fun for us, and I've never seen a cat who was better able to imitate Stevie Wonder or someone who should have been spread on the top of a grand piano, singing torch songs.

His hind legs were weak when he was a kitten and never got any better, so among other things, when he would crawl up into your lap for a cuddle or a Stevie Wonder pummeling session, he would sit, not on his haunches like other cats, but flat on his butt. He only had one tooth, which made him all the more lovable because his tooth was on the lower jaw in the front, so he had a snaggle tooth. He was bright eyed and earnest, and had a peep that sounded like a dog's squeaky toy. I think, though, before she died, Smudge must have told him he needed to learn how to meow, because for a little while, he was able to MEEEAAAAOOOOOUUUUWWWW in a very deliberate fashion.

I am at a loss...I have had an animal in my life constantly since 1995, and for the first time in nearly 20 years, I am alone with my human companions, which is fine, but there is some life missing. As I always ask, please donate to your favorite animal charity in Ol' Momo's name.

Spider sense

Cats can tell when they're being watched while they're asleep. And The Cat Who Stares At Stuff must send out stronger beams of whatever it is that cats can sense than anyone else.

Laundry

As previously mentioned, laundry holds a particular fascination for The Cat Who Stares At Stuff. And sometimes he can gather a whole group of other cats around him, all staring up at the same thing.

The Cat Who Stares At Stuff

Say hello to a new character, The Cat Who Stares At Stuff. He (or she - no-one is sure) is just that, a cat who stares at stuff. That's all he does.

Like most of the characters in this strip, The Cat Who Stares At Stuff has a real life counterpart. He (or she - no-one is quite sure) is a black and white cat, called The Cat Who Stares At Stuff. He may have a real name, but as he doesn't wear a collar, and I don't know who he belongs to, he's just The Cat Who Stares At Stuff to me. He can usually be seen in the communal garden to my block of flats, absolutely motionless, staring up with glazed eyes at something in one of the balconies. He can spend an entire afternoon just watching laundry flap about in the breeze. I've seen him stare transfixed at a dustbin lid for an hour. I've even opened my bedroom curtains first thing in the morning to see these intense green eyes staring up at me. It can be most unnerving.