Maru's Mun Journal

Sometimes, you get these eerily realistic, rational and sensible nightmares that are even scarier than the ones with mummies and Cthulhu and the like?

This morning, I dreamed I had got some fancy fireplace installed in my flat (with a gel fire or some such thing), and Mephi managed to lie in the updraft between it and the chimney (unrealistic part: don't ask me where THAT suddenly came from!) and when I picked him up, he was all listless and just opened an eye and then went on sleeping, so I decided he must have suffered carbon monoxide poisoning (I said it was a terribly realistic and rational nightmare!!), so I put out the fire, grabbed him and my purse and keys and just ran outside and flagged down the next person with a car whom I vaguely knew, some business associate of the Metropolitans', and asked him to take me to the Veterinary Hospital attached to the university, which is between the big famous park ("Englischer Garten") and the university itself, and then we were at the top of the steep bank overlooking the river Isar, looking down at Munich (which was a bit more monument-studded than it really is; this WAS a dream, after all), I wasn't sure any more that it was where I thought it was, or whether it had been moved in recent years since I'd been a student, as lots of the university departments had been moved around and expanded, for example into the buildings vacated by the major branch office of Radio Free Europe that had moved to Prague (it really has -- what a bloody sane nightmare!!) as had several, including the one where I'd been based as a student, East Asian Studies AKA Japanology. Anyway, in the nightmare, I was staring down at the city and all its monuments, and wondering if I really knew where the veterinary emergency room was any more, and if I told the guy 'Yes, I know, it's that one*, just go!' and it wasn't there any more, then my cat would die -- my silly cat, at that moment still listlessly asleep on my arm, just opening an eye to look at me when I poked him...

And in that dreadful moment of indecision and doubt in face of a life-and-death situation, my nightmare ended.

One of the first things I did when I woke up, had ascertained that it really had just been a dream, nobody had installed any dangerous fireplaces in my flat, and Mephi was as well and weird as always, was looking up the emergency service of the university's veterinary department (which is still where it was -- even the street is called "Veterinärstraße", so duh!!) and some other emergency services (there even is an animal ambulance service in Munich, both for pets and injured wild animals -- we are a seriously affluent city!) and bookmarking them for future reference in case of a real emergency.

But every time silly little Mephi comes racing or prancing past me today, some part of me is happy that it was only a nightmare, and that funny little destructive animal is all right and silly as always and likely t be in the way where you don't see him so you'll poke his ear by accident, and then he looks at you all spooked and soulful, as always...


*Our university was founded in the first half of the 19th century, and all its older buildings are a tad monumental, including the University Riding School and adjacent veterinary department, built at a time when veterinary medicine was still mostly care of valuable war horses, and hence important in a political way. Anyway, it means that I'd have been looking for a specific nice historic building that stands out a little, even in that nightmare.

This is not my little black cat!!

I woke up at six in the morning because my cats were trying to break down the door I close between us when I banish them at night, using claws and shouting loudly.

I tried to ignore them the way I have long learned to ignore the sound of nocturnal feline antics, but when I woke up more, I suddenly realised they were on the same side of the door I was. The side where they were totally not supposed to be.

I zombied out of bed, opened the door, and they made a very relieved bee-line for the litter boxes.

Apparently, they had decided to finally find out what the human does every night when they get banished, and had hidden under the comfy chair, letting me believe they weren't in the room. They had continued to hide there with great self-discipline even while I was reading three more chapters of 'So No One Told You' on AO3 before sleeping.

And then, they had totally refrained from waking me up while spending their adventurous night in the human's room.

But unfortunately, as this idea was an utterly typical cat idea, they had failed to factor in the accessibility of litter boxes, and had to wake me at six because apparently, their little bladders were bursting...

Dear cat, please don't sit on my chocolate! Unamused, your human.

My cats seem to have flagged down a TARDIS and had their picture painted by expressionist painter.

Or how would you explain this postcard I found today, saying Franz Marc, "Two Cats", gouache on postcard, 1913??

... or, content cats.

Why do cats -- whatever bizarre thing they might be doing? The answer is always 'because they are cats!', but the questions must be asked.

So I am asking them. On tumblr.

This is what happens when I suddenly stop answering pings on IM -- there is a large red cat sitting on me!

Captured just now by the Nazgul with the Pentax that is neither new nor mine, but still brilliant -- this was taken without a flash!

This is totally Count the cat from Milliways when he was young...

Lucifer got accepted on 'Get Out Of There Cat' yet again!

Well, it's not hard, but still.