Santa - I know you're no sap...

Dear Santa

You may consider this a tad early for a Christmas list but in light of its extreme importance I'm getting it to you now to give you plenty of time to reflect.

What I'd really, really, really like for my first-ever Christmas is a new Muttie and Paw (as in Dad).

The reasons for this are numerous but the five I'd particularly like to highlight are:

a) I only get a treat once a day and it's used as a bargaining tool to get me in the house when I'm playing outdoors and refuse to come in (of course, I always fall for it, darn!)

b) Maw and Paw have reduced the amount of time we play 'chew the toes under the duvet' in recent weeks from 20 mins to a mere five a day.

c) Dad has changed the make of treats I get from Whiskas to Tesco's own brand (it's cheaper.)

d) Muttie has commandeered the laptop meaning I haven't been able to write my blog for three weeks (I'm only doing it now cos she's out at the dry cleaners). She's using the laptop to write her OU Creative Writing stuff and let me tell you Santa, having seen what she's produced, it's clear there's only one writer in this household!

e) It's getting colder and I can't get to sit in front of the gas fire cos Muttie's fat arse is always there first.

Anyhows Santa, that's just a taster of what I've been having to put up with of late. I'm sure you'll agree no kitten, and especially one as intelligent and sensitive as myself, should have to endure such outrages.

Hope to hear from you soon,

Milton (who, incidentally, has been as good as gold this year). xx

A Kittie's work is never done...

Muttie's been giving me strange looks all weekend. When I say 'strange' I mean disconcerting.

They began after a two-day reading fest. She wouldn't take her snout out this one book, to the extent I had to remind her, while she popped to the loo, that I still hadn't received my BREAKFAST treat by DINNER time yesterday.

"Alright Milt," she growled. "Treats aren't standard by the way. They're as the word suggests, a 'treat' ie something that you get now and again, usually for being good. Although if that were the case you and treats would be strangers eh? Ha,ha."

Yes, very funny. Have you weighed yourself recently?

Then she went on: "Of course, really clever kitties would get regular treats because they'd always be doing something smart or useful."

Eh, what's the dotty one going on about now?

I decided to investigate. And it didn't take long before the penny dropped. The book she was reading was called Dewey (although Pewey, would be a better title 'cos it's full of the brown stuff I reckon).

It's all about a little kitten that turned up in the Overnight Returns Box of a small town library in Iowa. It had hypothermia and even after it survived it was still hobbling around for months afterwards cos it had frostbite on its wee paws (Dad was in tears at that bit). Anyhows, this ginger kitty lives in the library and ends up charming the whole town of Spencer with its sociable, playful nature. It seems to understand when folks need a cuddle and makes everyone smile at a time when the town is in economic shut-down.

Dewey's story spreads, locally at first, then nationally throughout America and finally internationally when a Japanese film crew come and screen test him.

"Milton," the Mother Ship 'innocently' enquired late last night. "Don't you get bored running around the garden all day? I mean, wouldn't it be nice to do something a bit more well...challenging?

"You're coming into work with me tomorrow. After all, I KNOW you can shuffle papers."

Growth...

Muttie's paranoia has reached extreme stages...she's convinced a guy in her building (let's not be too specific here), is cultivating cannabis. I have a wee bit of sympathy for her imaginings here. Three months ago he bought black-out blinds and he doesn't seem to actually live there. Prior to that she was always bumping into his "outta their head mates." They were pleasant enough to the extent that one of them invited her to a 'Pot and Poker Party.'

Being the non-Poker player and addictive personality that she is the Mother Ship said: "Thanks Dude, but I got a pot roast to get going." Boy, was I embarrassed by that comment but I kinda know where she's coming from. The last thing we want is for the Mother Ship to get hooked on cannabis...

However, as an open-minded pussy, I'm curious all the same...

Muttie is planning to go to Madrid at Xmas for five days and the cannabis growing bloke in the building has offered to look after me. What d'ya think?

Dad thinks Muttie should give the police an anonymous tip-off call but I'm with the Mother Ship in that we think the polis are fun-lovin' Dude Oppressors and hey, we really like the neighbour! And hate the polis...

Let the weed widen...

Yours in a potentially hallucionegic-mode, The Milt xxxx

Flourescent Fantasy

The Mother Ship has gone all paranoid again.

She's convinced there's an elephant's graveyard of discarded kitten collars out her back garden.

I've seen her looking. She puts on her hippy, velcro-attached summer sandals (while wearing her socks - EMBARRASEMENT!!) and goes a-searching of a night.

Between you and I - and the whole internet world - she ain't gonna find them. Me and Sophia (my very masculine black cat pal - despite his poofy name) have actually flogged them to the guy next door who'll do anything for a fix. Well, I call it Cat-Entrepreneurship.

In my defense, the Mother Ship isn't exactly forthcoming when it comes to pocket money so I think sympathy kitten-wise is appropriate here. How else can a cute fur-ball like moi achieve treat-maximisation?!

And anyway boy, did I hate that leapord-skin number. But guess what, she's gone and purchased another one cos she thinks it's just "soooooo cute!" She doesn't realise that a hunter-gatherer such as I should be adorned in something a bit more well...masculine. I'm thinking more of an orange tiger number, you know?

Today, were you to enter my back garden you'd see me sporting a yellow fluorescent collar. Yes, I'm your lollipop-man cat...NOT!!

"It's for your own good babes," the Mother Ship insisted. "With the nights fair drawing in, I want you to be seen."

I give this one three days. Watch this space....

Your sneaky, wee pal, The Milt xxx

Orange Paint and Crap Collars

"Maybe we should change your name to Houdini," the Mother Ship declared last night.

"Well, let's face it my scrawny skinny-necked little one...you've managed to loose TWO kitten collars within the last three weeks...incidentally these cost me a bloody fiver at a time - the fancy collar and the tag with your name on it.

"Actually Milt, I'm faced with two possibilities here:

A} You've done a big ear-scratchy thing and the collar has gone "ping"

B} A drug addict person (let's face it, there's lots around our way) has grabbed you and stolen your collar to sell for acid etc...

"I'm at a bit of a loss here...and you're not helping one bit!"

The Mother Ship worries too much. Obviously what happened between the collars and me is a sensitive subject and maybe one that will come up in future correspondence...

Anyhows, keeping the Mother Ship in suspension, last night I sashayed into the kitchen....only to find her painting the shelves a - what can I say? - 'sunburst' orange colour!"

It's finally happened...the old dear who dishes out my grub - has finally flipped.

"What d'ya think Milt?" she enquired, with a sickening smile on her old pus. "Cool eh?. From now on when me and you walk into the kitchen of a morning feeling like crap and wishing we could just crawl back into bed and not go to work, instead we're going to be so gee'd up by this positive colour you and moi are gonna think to ourselves: 'Hey, it's another new day. Let's get out there and do damage!!"

Actually the paint's making my head spin and the colour makes me want to boak. I'm well aware Muttie is a despressive but colour therapy?!

And this was just after I'd eavesdropped and heard Muttie's friend going on about how she knows how it feels to be Victoria Beckham. Not that she's married to someone who looks better naked than her, or that she feels sick when confronted by a carbohydrate. No, it's cos at her work they've covered all the windows in a tinted film. This apparently is a cost-saving carbon-tastic measure ie it keeps the heat in. Brilliant! Except..it's now so dark in there that unless you want to know how it feels like to wear sunglasses indoors - all day, every day (the skinny Vicky way) - then you have to switch the lights on which er....uses up electricity and costs money....

Another bizarre carbon-tastic idea came from a man who proudly sent the Mother Ship a photo of his new electrical bike. Yes, when going up a hill you just switch on the rechargable operated engine and it shoots all the way up to the top. Job done. No exertion required. Except this self same man who, at 40, is even younger than she is, had just been saying how unfit he'd felt and how this new bike was going to get him back in shape again. The Mother Ship felt incredibly disappointed at this and thought it kinda missed the point. I got a long bloo*y lecture on it.

Anyways, if you've read this far you're an extremely tolerant person and maybe one day, you and Muttie could get together...

Miltonian The Memorable xxx

Toilet Training for Deluded Humans

You’ll never guess what the Mother Ship is proposing now.

In a contradict-me-if-you-dare tone, she announced last night that kittie litter trays were "so passe.”

“Yes, Milton" she continued, "While trawling through t’net the other day I came across a brilliant invention. It’s a system that teaches you, my cutey wutey little kittie, to go to the loo human-style. In three easy steps it shows how you can discard your litter tray and do a Jimmy Riddle in a toilet pan instead. And it's called...wait for it baby, you’re gonna love this…the Litter Kwitter!! Genius, huh?!”

Actually no, it’s not "genius" you silly, delusional, old bat. I’m happy with my soggy wooden chips thank you very much. And anyways, what If we were both bursting to pee at the same time? The Mother Ship would no doubt come out with something about me being lower down the evolutionary scale, push me aside and insist I make way for her….pronto!

Worse still, there’s no way I’m going in there after one of Dad’s marathon dumpster sessions. Gas masks? There's times when I've considered advising all the neighbours in our four-storey tenement to decamp to the nearest nuclear bunker, or at least Lidl's across the road. Despite being surrounded by products with wierd foreign names and a check-out lad with a drum-size hole in his left earlobe, it's way safer than being in the vicinity of a stinker that's sure to knock your senses sideways.

Having said that, I checked out the link and I must say, the fourth cat to take a pee, the Bengal one is a bit of alrrrrrrrright!

However, when it comes down to it, in terms of Muttie hitting the barmy scale, the hammer’s been thumped and that silver arrow is about to not just hit the bell but whack it right off.

You know, it's a real shame for me, I mean, of all the mum's in all the world, I get her....

Milt :( xxx

Appropo of Nothing...

I've come to the conclusion (after a long lecture from the Mother Ship) that it's not in my best interests to slag her off on this blog anymore. Not that I ever was - I was merely recording life and her attempts at stumbling through it, from my inconsequential (her word) point of view.

"Milton, you have an opportunity to speak for kittens everywhere via a state-of-the-art medium and all you can do is go on about my weight, intelligence and general demeanour," she huffed. "And as Auntie Debs pointed out, it's hardly earth-shattering verse! We're all boooooored reading it. In fact I'm thinking of putting a lock on my computer so you won't be able to access it anymore."

Do I care? I'll just nip along to Govanhill Library and execute my wit there...

Then she got threatening.

"Actually Milton, there's been a couple of articles in the news recently that have been very interesting...extremely interesting, in fact. They concerned new pets one could adopt. Very cute pets - ones which don't have paws that can type. For instance micro pigs and pigmy hedgehogs."

Actually I wouldn't mind one of those pigmy hedgehogs myself, I can just see myself playing pit-pat with it, from one paw to another like that computer tennis game you used to get in the 80s (obviously I wasn't born then but I've googled it).

So anyways, I digress. The Mother Ship thinks it would be a good idea for me to 'raise the standard' of my blog and comment on political matters. So...did you see Samantha Cameron's Kath Kidston-type dress she wore to the Tory Party Conference last week? The Daily Mail, of course, did a big piece on it and I have to say, I was a fan myself. I loved the ruffled collar. It showed off her lovely, long neck to perfection.

What else can I say that will appeal to the intelligensia? Oh yes, the Booker Prize Winner - Hilary Mantel and Wolf Hall. Well, afraid I'm going to go against the grain here and say...a big kitten yaaaaaawn and stretch in front of the fire. Darlings, I'd rather watch Tracey Emin do the research for her installation piece Everyone I've Ever Slept With...

Other matters, Muttie has signed up for an OU course in Creative Writing (this'll be a laugh). She was supposed to read the box of literature that arrived in the post yesterday. And what did she do last night? Suddenly the four days worth of dishes that had been piling up at the side of the sink got done. And now there's nothing left in the laundry basket...I'm sure one day she'll also get round to cleaning out my litter tray (wonder's will never cease). The fridge, however, is another matter. God knows what it'll take to get that cleaned. A deadline for an essay perhaps?

Yours, in an interested, voyeuristic fashion, The Milt xxx