Imaginary time capsule

Another day, another bunch of job applications sent off. That paranoid moment when you fear that employers disregard your application because you've got an unusual name and they might think you're some dirty furriner. I mean, that might not be the issue with me at all - I've got a pretty "safe" Germanic and English name anyway. I still take care to point out on my résumé that Norwegian is my native language though, just in case.

But anyway, that's me fretting as usual. I take heart, if I don't find anything very soon I'll go back to retail or the grocery store, and I'll keep sending applications for other jobs.

So anyway; Last night I did my last shift at the cat shelter. It was a melancholy goodbye. The official explanation is that my new non-student life means I've got less time and resources to do volunteer work, and that's certainly true, but I can't deny that me and the organization no longer seem to see eye-to-eye on certain practical and political matters.

Over the course of the summer (while I've been away) there have been run-ins with the police, a lot of bad publicity in the local press, and I don't think my superiors have handled the matter in a good way. I know everything they've done, they've done with the best of intentions - to help abused animals, and I'm not saying we shouldn't fight for them, tooth and claw; But I believe there are better ways to do it, I don't think civil disobedience, breaking the law, and inhabiting every damaging animal activist stereotype out there will help our cause in the long run. Now my boss has to pay a hefty fine; that's money that could have been spent on food and spaying and medicines, and now it won't because my boss wanted to make a point. Not to mention the money contributors we've lost because "we're just some fundamentalist animal activist whackjobs after all".

Let me move on to my usual rant here: ( Why blaming the police really doesn't help )

See? I still care about important things. Politics, even. That doesn't change. It's just that writing about comics or TV shows is much kinder on my blood pressure and RAGE METER.

Man, I've just got the best support group ever. I've got my family to calm me down, my buddy Åsmund to copy the relevant pages I'll need for my paper (on Monday though, so it'll be a tight fit but if I get a head start over the weekend I'll pull through), people send me things to cheer me up (leaper182's been sending me delightful snippets from her Lupin III fanfic and also evidently told Jigen to come and be my muse, hee) and people are just, whoa, amazing.

Yeah so while I'm still quite jittery (I always am in exam periods, I've had worse freakouts than this) things seem to be shaping up. Thanks everybody. It takes a village and all that.

But I've got big news: I've acquired a cat. I am now an actual Owner of Cat. Which incidentally is why I'm sitting on my bed with an aching back and writing this on my wonky old laptop with the broken space bar - the little furball's dozing off under my desk - thusly:


Notice her cool disregard of the blanket I so lovingly put down for her. And yes I promise I'll get some better pictures once she's settled.

Yeah I... I just couldn't let Linni spend her life in the shelter. She's always been special to me - did you know she came in the same day I began working at the shelter? Yeah, it's been that long.

( Backstory and vital statistics )

So I'm following all that advice I've been giving to customers (it's kinda funny being on this side of the process, last time I had to deal with an acclimatizing cat I was hardly out of nappies) and I'm hoping she'll dare to venture out from under the desk soon (I've tidied and placed blankets on all the high sweetspots I know cats are fond of and she goes to sleep on the cold floor. This will be a learning experience I think) but here we are. Day one.

So today I got severely beat up by a kitten. Then I spent three hours looking for it. A visitor to the shelter found it hanging upside-down Spiderman-style under a sofa. Then it disappeared again.

This was honestly my one project at the shelter today, and all I've got to show for it is a sliced-up hand. I'm not used to kittens who know how to fight. Crafty little bugger.

The most frequently asked question I get at the cat shelter is "Why is this cat here?" I don't know what people expect to hear, but most of our cats are strays, we are in the dark about their pasts. Some cats come to us because the owner has to move or because of allergies. Some of them write us long letters about what their cats are used to at home and give us detailed accounts of their lives.

Those cats are easy to explain, but Lilo? Lilo is one mysterious cat.


One day, Lilo was simply there, at the shelter. In one of our cages in the kitten room. There wasn't even a note. Just a calm, slightly emaciated cat with matted fur. Sure, we've had cats dumped on us before (usually people leave them at our shop downtown) but this... this was a stealth operation.

Since then Lilo's had a shave, a warm bed, a lot of food (I tend to spoil her by sneaking some fatty kitten food to her) and a whole lot of cuddling. Today I saw a post-it note hanging on the wall explaingin that she's got a new owner that'll pick her up on Saturday. Darn, I'll miss our little mystery cat.

Case: There's an old geezer in Bergen who brags about hurting cats who walks on his property. Today my bosses at the shelter posted about it on facebook. People are understandably upset, but the variety of ways they react to it is driving me crazy:

A) Sharing the man's telephone number, urging people to call him and "try to reason with him" (I'm not entirely certain that's what they're actually going to do when they call).

B) Accusing him of being a pedophile (?)

C) Saying "No reason to go to the police, they never take these things seriously anyway." (One of my BOSSES said this. WHAT.)

D) Going "If anybody hurt my Felix I'd kill them!"

D) Telling off anybody who suggests that any of the above might not be the wisest courses of action.

I'm just - argh! Of course I think it's horrible, of course I hate this man, and of course a little voice in the back of my head is suggesting to let Anonymous go get him, or throw a brick through his window or something. It's just - I don't want our wonderful organization to turn into... whatever this is. People are so disillusioned with the police the majority just whine about it and go about their daily business, while the rest turn into prank callers. What is wrong with this picture?

And here I am, whining about it, because I don't know what to do either. At last the police has been notified, but other than that...?

If the newspapers pick up on this thing (somebody's called a major national newspaper) I desperately hope they focus on what ridiculous animal welfare laws we have in Norway (for one, do you know which department's in charge of animal services? The Food Safety Authority! No, seriously. And do you know when it actually became AGAINST THE LAW to have sex with animals in Norway? Last. year.) and bring it to people's attention, complete with the system taking care of this man... Not "Hohoho look at all these crazy cat ladies, they burned a guy's house down! Animal organizations are idiotic herp derp" or something.

I guess the case is on hold till Monday...

Now here's something I've never seen before:



That's right, two adult shelter cats (Priscilla and Umulius) from wildly different backgrounds sleeping in the same basket!

I showed the picture to my colleagues and they were as amazed as I was! Really, this never happens at the shelter - well it does among the kittens, but they're kittens. All our adult cats, unless they're siblings, are very territorial. That basket, for instance, just about belongs to Priscilla. That's her territory.

And yes, that isn't a trick of perspective: Priscilla is a regular-sized adult cat, Umulius is HUGE. He's like a supersized cat. He looks like he's half cat, half bear. And a fun fact: Umulius' name is derived from the Norwegian word umulig - "impossible". He's called that because he has the worst violent mood swings I've ever seen in a cat. I guess an English version of his name would be "Impossibilius".

And now, I'm going to work on my bachelor thesis. Huff...

You have to understand. When I had decided to get dreadlocks I spent a lot of time in online communities for dreadheads, and they taught me this one thing: That you have to be prepared for nasty comments and subtly insulting questions from strangers.

And I did my best to prepare myself for this. And I've kept on preparing myself. On and on and on.

And... nothing. A few disapproving looks from elderly ladies at the post office, but otherwise nothing. The only strangers who've actually commented on my hair have been positive (though not Norwegian. I think Norwegians are too polite to talk to strangers in any case).

But YESTERDAY! I was dealing with a customer and her adult daughter at the cat shelter when the conversation took a surprising turn to my hair. They asked me polite questions about it, until the customer (an elderly lady) asked me, "I suppose you don't wash them?"

OH YES, I thought, swelling with pride. This is what I've trained for! "Oh I do," I replied cheerfully. "I wash my dreads as regularly as I did my hair before I got them." (which technically is a lie. I used to wash my hair twice a week, now I do it once a week, but with better products).

"Oh," she replied. "But how?"

This... I hadn't prepared for. It stumped me so totally I had to segue the conversation over to something else (though in hindsight I should have gone "I use this fantastic invention, shampoo, and I work it into my hair and then I wash it out with this other thing, I think it's called water..."). How do I wash my hair indeed. That's another one I'll need to prepare for in the future.

Highlight of the week: Teaching a big mustachio'd fella how to set a cat trap. Showing the intricacies of the lever and the hook and where you put the tuna so no tails get caught in the falling door makes me feel something like Bear Grylls. I even saw somebody had assembled it wrong so I took it apart and fixed it, just like that. Why is it I still can't assemble an IKEA commode?

Also I might have mentioned these twelve-yearold girls that come by sometimes and sweetly ask if they can help out. They're amazing, they keep asking me if there are any menial tasks they can do - what sort of twelve-yearolds do that? Today I've had them brush the cats, brush and wash the cat trees, clean the windows, wash the dirty bowls, scrub the floor, cut grass... You know, all the things I'm supposed to do! And then they come running and smiling, "What else can we do?"

There must be some strange and unnatural experimentation performed on preteens in that valley.

Another peaceful day at the cat shelter. Knut was there, jovial as he always is when he's not mauling anyone. I read in the log book another worker had to get a tetanus shot as well last week because of him. That's what happens when you pick up Knut.

There's been some exciting changes at the shelter itself though: We finally have a fenced-in backyard! For the first time the cats can be outside!

Of course, we don't own the entire backyard since there are residents in the same building. One of these residents is a very nice girl with a very big dog. She lets it out now and again, and while all the cats come scurrying inside, Mini, God bless him, runs out to chill out. Pointedly.



"Psh, a gigantic Rottweiler? And?"

( Updates on some previous cats (pics taken with a proper camera) )

Why is it that all the problems always crop up at the very very end of my shift? I've had a nice shift today, really I have, but then everything went belly-up at the last minute and I'm in such a bad mood now.

Ah well. Remember Felix, the most unapproachable cat ever? He licked my hand today. Granted I'd just been handling food, but hell, Felix willingly interacted with a human. And then I tried to touch him and got mauled to death. Baby steps...

I also completely failed to take any pictures today (I like to pretend they interest you all), but instead I got a short little low-quality mobile movie of Emil (my first cat-shaving experience you remember) being weirded out by my bottle of water.

Music added for mood enhancement.



Hell yeah, check out my sweet carpet purse.