Question of the day (7th May).

Under what circumstances, if any, would you give up your pet? 

 

My answer: 

 

Huh… That’s such a hard question. I really like to make life harder for myself I guess, choosing such difficult and weird questions (and answering them publicly). Of course the first answer that comes to my mind, almost like an involuntary reflex, is: “I would never, ever give up Misha!” But would I not? Upon thinking a bit more, I think there could be circumstances in which I’d likely at least consider it. 

 

The first such situation that comes to my mind, and that I’ve actually thought about a lot before, is if I were to live on my own. Looking at it very selfishly, having Misha around would be even more helpful for me in such case, what with the sensory anxiety thing and all. Sometimes when I’m particularly depressed, Misha is the only thing that makes me feel at all like getting out of bed, so if I didn’t have the commitment and comfort of Misha, I can easily imagine a situation where I’d sometimes basically rot in bed all day and seek escapism in sleep. But looking at it with Misha’s needs in mind, which is obviously how one should look at it, since he’s largely unable to meet his own needs, I don’t think I’d handle the responsibility of being his sole carer well. Mostly purely practically, but to a lesser extent also emotionally. Practically, because I can’t realistically imagine being able to deal with it if he for example vomited somewhere and I wouldn’t know where, or that he did at all. Until I’d step in it accidentally. 😀 I could become a lot more strict about how much food he eats daily and stick to it more firmly than we do now, when he practically eats as much as he wants because he’s skinny anyway and I sometimes wonder if he has some incurable case of tapeworm or something. And I could have no plants, as Misha’s zealous phytophilia is another reason for his frequent vomiting, but then I guess that wouldn’t be so good because he needs to get those hairballs out somehow, that’s just how cats work. Thankfully, Misha, despite his delicate and easily unsettled psyche, has so far been exceptionally healthy physically. He’s only been seriously ill once, and even that was at least partly caused by extreme stress. Yet, he has one weak point with which he has problems regularly, that is his eyes. He gets tear duct infections and conjunctivitis a lot. And when he does, he needs to be given eyedrops. Which I would never even attempt to give him as I’d be really scared of hurting or inadvertently harming him. And he’s getting older, not younger, so there’s a possibility that his health might get worse with time and he might need to have pills or other such administered. But the biggest practical challenge I see is simply that it can be very hard for me to judge how Misha is feeling or if he needs anything. I can judge that pretty well if he says something, because he has a lot of different sounds for different things, but he’s not very vocal and will often not say anything no matter what. I can also figure some things out when holding him, like he always feels significantly heavier and more limp, and just kind of different, when he’s tired or sleepy. But he’s generally wary of touch and closeness and it can only be on his terms, so that isn’t very reliable either. My Mum can usually tell his mood pretty well just from looking at him or his body language, but I have to mostly rely on gut feelings and whatever minimal communication he graciously decides to have with me. So I’d constantly be stressing that maybe he’s feeling really unwell and looks very obviously ill or something and I won’t know at all. And emotionally, I think it would just be scary being solely responsible for such a little creature long-term and I’d feel terribly inadequate. So I’d definitely leave him with my parents, if they’d still be around, or give him away to one of my siblings, or if they wouldn’t want him (which is likely), maybe he could become the cat of whoever would be to live in this house after us, if they were decent people and wanted him, so that he wouldn’t have to change houses. Otherwise I’d put him to sleep. 

 

Another situation in which I can imagine deciding to give Misha up would be if he became really unhappy again, like he was before my parents made it possible for him to go out on the terrace, and would otherwise have to be put on his happy pills again. The last time they clearly didn’t work for him, I mean they did calm him down for sure but they hardly made him any less sad, they just sucked life out of him, so I think for him it would be just as well if we simply let him go. My Mum was very seriously considering it in the past, when he would basically just walk every single day from one window to another and cry his heart out very loudly because he wanted out. That’s hard to live with for everyone involved. And it might seem like a cruel decision in this age when we as society seem to be more mindful of the lives of animals than fellow humans, but as sad as it may be, Misha doesn’t have an immortal soul, so letting him live in constant sadness for what he couldn’t have would be just pointless torturing him, and ourselves too. Same if he became seriously and chronically ill, especially if it would be something painful or very distressing for him for example because of having to take loads of pills which he hates as any self-respecting cat. 

 

And one other thing that comes to my mind, though is highly unlikely to happen – if Misha would become aggressive, I mean seriously, mindlessly, repeatedly aggressive. Because Misha is so nervous and quite easily destabilised in one way or another, it’s not uncommon for him to lose his shit completely during play and just throw himself at the person he’s playing with and cause a great deal of minor yet painful injuries. 😀 I sometimes feel like maybe it wouldn’t be a problem at all if only we played more with him, because as it is, he plays with us quite rarely, and he enjoys it, as Russian blues are known for being playful even at a mature age, but because it’s so rare for him and normally his life is rather boring, he’s not used to this level of stimulation and becomes a bit too invested. His favourite victim in this respect is Sofi, whom I guess he sees a bit like a big toy, and sometimes he’ll even jump at her out of the blue for no apparent reason other than that she’s walking past him. Mum and I know now more or less how to calm him down when he’s like that with us occasionally and how to calm him down when we see that he’s starting to lose it and puffing and thumping his tail, but Sofi always only worsens things by yelling “Misha! You idiot! That hurts!!!” Or hitting him or something, which Misha doesn’t really get in that state. I think sometimes he is surprised by it himself and it’s just an instinct that is stronger than him. But if Misha became very aggressive and it would be hard to improve or manage, I would definitely seriously consider giving him up. 

 

How about you and your pets? 

 

Question of the day.

Hey people! 🙂 

 

Today I’ve got  a really fun question for you: 

 

You’re gifted twenty four hours during which you and your pet(s) are able to understand each other and have real conversations like you’re old friends just catching up on lost time. What would you want to tell them and how would you want to spend those hours with them? 

 

My answer: 

 

I have actually already written a short story about this on here  some years ago, it’s titled Breaking the Silence. Seriously, if Misha could speak, even just for a single day, this would probably be the happiest day in my life. I know I’m probably overreacting in most situations that have to do with Misha, but really, as I think I might have written on here before, I have figured out that for me, my relationship with Misha is actually my first – and so far only – relationship in which I feel I have a healthy and secure attachment to someone, I mean as healthy as it can be that your first safe attachment is to a cat and in your adulthood, lol, but I guess you get the idea, so I suppose ultimately that’s not extremely surprising. I always feel really uncomfortable when even thinking that something bad could happen to Misha or that he might feel unwell in some situation or other, and of course one of my biggest fears is Misha dying. SO there’s always that worry at the back of my brain, what if he wants something and I just have no clue? What if he’s not feeling well, like, dunno, is having a tummy ache? How the flip would I even know such a thing? He looks sleepy now, but maybe he’s actually sad? What if he actually doesn’t like the snacks that I give him and would like something different? What if he doesn’t like to be petted this way but prefers that way? I’ll never know such things, and it frustrates me endlessly.

 

Ever since I remember, I’ve had some interest in people with serious communication challenges, whether they be nonverbal or unable to speak due to something like cerebral palsy or aphasia or being locked-in or whatever. Whenever I’d meet such a person or read about people like that somewhere or something, I’d later spend ages wondering what they might be thinking or feeling, possibly things that no one in their surroundings realises, and how frustrating that might be at times. Or maybe they just accepted it or are resilient enough that they try their best to communicate some other way. When I got out of the boarding school and had individual education for a year at my local mainstream school, I always got there and back by a taxi, because here we have such a thing that if a student is disabled they can have free transportation to and from school, at least within their region or something. And there was a girl – let’s call her Mia for the sake of this post, that often rode to her school with me in the same taxi, who had severe cerebral palsy and, at least according to the lady who rode with us as something like an assistant, Mia was also intellectually disabled. She would usually be very placid on our school rides, but what I remember about her most vividly was when one day she seemed rather cranky and didn’t want to cooperate with her mum, who tried to get her into the car seat with the help of the other lady. That was when I first heard Mia say anything comprehensible, and it was loud and clear “NO!” To me, it sounded very deliberate and purposeful, like she concentrated all of her energy to say that one word. But they didn’t even seem to pay much notice to it at all, after all, she had to go to school. But if she spoke normally, even if she still would have to go to school, I’m sure her mum would take the time and ask her something like “Why not? Don’t you like school?” And they’d have a more or less productive discussion and maybe would figure out a way to make Mia feel more “Yes!” About school in the future. As it was, for her mum it only seemed to be a random noise. Mia continued to be rather agitated on our way to her school, so that I actually asked the woman riding with us if maybe Mia didn’t feel well and that’s why she didn’t want to go to school, but she laughed and said that Mia’s “too poorlY” to think like that. And then I kept wondering how they know that for sure. I mean, maybe they do, but it’s not like there haven’t been plenty such cases where someone was unable to communicate efficiently and thus got a label like “retard” right away. That situation really made a strong impression on my brain and some time later I wrote a story about a girl (Eufemia) who becomes unable to move and speak as a result of a major accident and how she builds a sort of alternate world for herself in her brain.

 

Now that I’m a little bit more self-aware, I’m guessing that my interest might stem from the fact that, while I don’t have any obvious communication challenges – I can speak (multiple languages lol), write and all that – I’ve very often felt like I’m unable to express myself fully, due to my years of bottling things up and generally being super inhibited emotionally, and some other stuff getting in the way as well. And I certainly know what it’s like when people think you’re unable to think for yourself. 

 

So while with Misha it’s quite different, because he’s just an animal, so by definition his needs are a lot less complex, , and he’s not disabled so he can fulfil some of them by himself at least to an extent, I sometimes worry whether I’m not like what I accused Mia’s mum in my brain to be. Maybe he keeps sending me desperate cues all the time and I just keep missing them? And it’s totally not like my worries are unfounded, after all, we all had missed a whole bunch of cues back when we got Sasha – the little Russian blue kitten that we eventually had to rehome because Misha just couldn’t cope  with the situation. – We only realised what was going on at pretty much last minute. And with me, there’s the added trouble that I can’t see his expressions. On the other hand, I think I can understand his vocal cues better and can tell apart a. Meow that says “Gimme me food, now, immediately, or else…!” From a meow that says “I’m so poor and hungry, no one loves me, I haven’t eaten for a week, can you please please please give me just one little treat so I can survive the next day?” Which my Dad, for example, sees no difference in, apparently. But it’s not like he’s very vocal so the usefulness of that is limited. 

 

But anyway, have you ever seen a longer preamble to a post? 😀 

 

So, what would I do with Misha if we had twenty four hours to ourselves during which we could both talk and understand each other? Well, of course I’d grill him and listen. “Do you like to sleep on that blanket? What’s your favourite snack? Does it annoy you when I listen to music when you’re sleeping? What music do you like, anyway? Do you like it when I put a heating pad next to you before you fall asleep or is it too hot? What’s your favourite peep food? What do you mean when you…(insert whatever Mish sound or gesture)? Do you like it now that you can go out on the terrace? Are you happy with it? What’s your biggest dream? What annoys you the most? Do you like when I do this? How about that? Do you like being called Misha?” And maybe I’d record it, so I’d have a keepsake of that blissful day, so that over time I wouldn’t start thinking that I just hallucinated all that and would have a reference so that I wouldn’t forget any of the details of Misha’s likes and dislikes. And if I’d record that, maybe I’d get him to read something for me, like a bed time story or whatever, so I could always listen to it before sleep. I wonder what he’d sound like speaking. 😀 I’d tell him how much I love him, so that I could be sure that he knows, and how important he is to me and that I think he’s the most beautiful thing in the world. I would try to explain some things to him, like why I want to touch him more than other peeps do despite I know he’s afraid of touch a lot of the time, or why I always want him to sleep with me even when he doesn’t sometimes. Maybe we’d also be able to brainstorm some ways for more effective communication in the future, after Misha’s speech licence expires but I really don’t know how we’d do that. ANd hopefully we’d still have some time left to just have fun and chat lightly and do some cool things and laugh together. Misha sure would have a sore throat by the end of the day. So that would more or less be my plan. 

 

There’s also Jocky, but I think that gift belongs to Sofi, since just like Misha is officially my pet, Jocky is officially Sofi’s. I bet he’d have loads to say though. To me he always seems like he’s trying to say something. Recently there was a huge storm and Misha and I were alone at home, so knowing that Jocky is scared shitless of storms, I let him in. Except by the time I heard through my headphones that it was storming and let him in, the storm was already very fully developed and the poor thing was shaking like a leaf. So I let him in and I could just very literally feel that he was staring at me, his mouth wide open, smacking his lips and making small, whimpering sounds, which seriously sounded as if he wanted to say something. And I felt really confused, as I’m way more clueless in Jock-speak than I am in Mish-speak. As you may know, in our family, the word Bibiel, aside from being what I often go by just for fun, is also just a fun word that you can never say too often and my Dad and I joke that it brings luck, but you never know what’s the lucky amount of “Bibiels” per day for you specifically, so you should always try to say “Bibiel” as many times as possible in a day. And I’m sure that if Jocky only could, he would say Bibiel! Misha? I’m not so sure. 😀 He’d probably want to know why you want him to say Bibiel, then make up his mind whether it’s worth it, and would make up his mind for so long that eventually he’d fall asleep and forget about the whole thing. 

 

And then we also have fishes, well, my Dad does, but I’m not sure if there’d be anything specific that I’d want to talk to them about. Sometimes I wonder how come they’re not bored swimming all the flippin time in the fish tank, and if it’s not annoying for them at night to hear the constant noise of the pump, because for me it sure would be, so maybe I’d ask them about that. 

 

How about you and your pet(s)? 🙂 

 

Some Mishots.

Hey people! 🙂 

 

No series posts today, but a little bit of Mishness instead. I recently needed some good pics of Misha for my fellow felinophile (or Cat-holic, if you will) friend, and my Mum sent me some, so I thought why not share them here as well. Especially for anyone who might be feeling blue today, I’m sure seeing Misha will help. 

 

For any fellow blind peeps coming here and anyone else who may need alt texts, I have to tell you that my Mum’s pretty crap at describing stuff, and she actually sent me these pics just one after another without any description. I did know more or less what is on them, but it’s really easy, especially when you’re dyscalculic, to make some mistake when you can barely distinguish one pic from the other ‘cause they’re all basically called “imgblablabla”, and I didn’t think I knew well enough what’s on them to be able to write a reasonably good alt text. I asked Mum what’s on those pics like, more exactly, but she was like: “Well Misha’s lying on this one and you can see his eyes and on that one he’s sleeping…” So I asked Bing instead, since Bing can describe images now. It’s funny how a year ago or so I was publicly shaming my Father for being the only person in the world who uses Bing, and now I run to Bing as my ultimate hope. 😀 But anyway, Bing described these pics pretty well, except for mixing up some details that I think I was able to correct. So I guess you can say that the alt texts were created by The Bingbiel Team. As for the video, it features Misha catching a fly. I hope you enjoy these Mishots. 

 

 

 

Misha catching a fly 

Question of the day.

   What’s a small thing that you’re grateful for? 

 

My answer: 

 

I’m really grateful that Misha slept with me last night. It took me a lot of patience and determination to convince him to do so, but eventually I won. We had a proper battle of wills here, and I’m really proud of my little achievement, because usually for everyone in this house, myself not only included but probably usually most guilty of this mentality, Misha’s will is like a rich uncle’s last will, unless he wants something that could be harmful to him. And he is really obstinate and knows how to always get his way. But not last night. 

 

Lately, Misha spends a whole lot of time with me in my room and is generally very nice and affectionate with me. Which I’m also very grateful for. So, despite he actually slept quite a lot in my room yesterday during the day, he also came in the evening, ate his snack and put himself to sleep in my chair. It’s like an office chair and he looks very small in it, so Sofi and I always laugh that he looks like a tiny workaholic businessman who either doesn’t have a house to go to after work or works so tirelessly that he finally falls asleep at work from exhaustion. I was very happy with it, because I’m happy when Misha sleeps wherever in my room, and the chair is always better than when he sleeps high up on the wardrobe, but I like it especially much when he sleeps in or on my bed so that he’s close with me, and I’m always worried that he’s cold when sleeping in the chair. Especially since I discovered that if you scoop a sleeping Misha, quickly take him to bed and tuck him in and hold him gently, he often won’t protest at all and will barely even realise that he has just changed location, whereas normally he hardly ever agrees to sleep right next to me in bed under the duvet. Eventually, he will sleepily move from under the duvet to his blanket on the bed, but that’s perfectly fine. So when I saw that he went to sleep in the chair, I told him that he can stay here for now, but I’ll get him in a couple hours when I’ll be going to sleep and we’ll sleep together. In the meantime, I was in bed myself but just listened to music and hung around in my Brainworld. Then after some time when I was about to go to sleep, I went to get Misha and took him to bed with me as soon as possible. But then I realised that my phone’s battery was almost dead and I forgot to plug it in to charge overnight, so I tried my best to do it as quickly, gently and quietly as I could using only one hand, because I still held a half-sleeping Misha with the other, and not moving too much because he hates it when humans squirm around. Unfortunately, despite my best intentions, , I still must have squirmed too much for him to be able to tolerate, because he was suddenly wide awake too, his whole body screaming “I DON’T WANNA BE BEING HERe!” I immediately felt awful for waking him up like this, even if my intentions were the best. I tried to make it better and helped him onto the blanket, encouraging him to sleep on it, but he wouldn’t have any of it. So I gave up and, feeling very remorseful for disturbing his sleep so much, put him back in his chair and stroked him gently for a while so that he would relax again. He did sort of lay down on it, but was extremely tense, and his tail kept flailing and thumping with outrage. I decided to leave him alone, hoping he’d settle and calm down by himself, but soon after I went back to bed, he jumped off the chair and dashed for the door, crying that he wants out. As the regular people on here know, I always sleep with the door closed, because I can’t stand doing otherwise, so I always have to let Misha out when he wakes up early in the morning. 

 

It looked like I just sorely lost this battle, but I was really desperate. I’ve been having a lot of sensory anxiety and related stuff ever since about Friday, and I knew that when Misha leaves, it would kick back in full force. It’s insane how one little quiet Misha who is so angsty himself can make so much difference for me, but he does, and I feel way safer in every possible respect with him than without him. And I also felt bad for his sake. The night was just beginning and I didn’t want to feel guilty for the rest of it that I spoilt it for him completely, I still wanted to compensate for my wrongdoing. Plus, it seemed irrational to me that five minutes ago he slept deeply and now claimed he no longer was sleepy at all. I tried my best to convince him to go to sleep anywhere else in my room that he likes, as he has a lot of favourite places. But he just wasn’t interested. Having ran out of ideas, I just went to bed and played for time, pretending that I fell into deep sleep all of a sudden and couldn’t hear his mournful cries. Misha understands that humans sleep sometimes and are unresponsive then, and I hoped that… well, dunno, maybe he’ll follow my example or something. I decided I’ll wait like this for fifteen minutes and if he’ll still be so hellbent on leaving then, I’ll let him go.

 

I think those fifteen minutes were extremely unpleasant for both of us. Misha kept crying in regular intervals, and despite my being so desperate to keep him in my room, it was really difficult to resist the urge and not let him out. It always really upsets me, I guess often more than it’s actually worth it, when I know that Misha is closed or stuck somewhere but can’t figure out where exactly or can’t free him, or when he has to be closed somewhere because for example my family have guests who are sitting on the terrace and Misha could escape etc. such situations sort of trigger me and make me go nuts as if he were in some real and immediate danger. Yet, here I was, wilfully and selfishly keeping Misha captive. We made it through each of those painful fifteen minutes and, feeling utterly defeated, I got up and thought at least I’d give him a mini snack before he leaves so that we part on good terms. Misha is very noble and he never really holds grudges against anyone, or at least never shows it if he does, but I didn’t want him to feel hurt or have bad associations with my room which is also his own room. I put the snack in his bowl and moved it slightly in his direction. I knew that if the bowl would be too close to me, he could be afraid to come. Yet, to my very positive surprise, he came immediately, and brushed himself lightly against my leg.

 

Suddenly, my hope rose and I took it as another chance from fate for me, and when Misha ate and it looked like he isn’t about to scurry off fearfully back toward the door, I tentatively picked him up. I propped his head on my shoulder and held him in my arms, massaging his face the way he likes but very gently and gradually slower until I stopped massaging him completely but still had my hands on him. He typically prefers stronger face massages but I was walking on eggshells, and I wanted to help him find his lost sleep again. I sat as still as I could with him like that, and breathed into his tummy which he likes when we do, to make him toasty, because his hind paws were already cold from those fifteen minutes by the door. Finally, he sighed, stopped purring and went limp and heavy, but I still sat with him for some time longer, not wanting to risk waking him up and not sure how to best transport him to his chair without waking him up. Finally, I just took the plunge and placed him in the chair as quickly and gently as I could. 

 

Of course he woke up and tensed up immediately, but I sat in an armchair opposite him and started massaging him, not taking my hands off him for a single second. He laid at a very uncomfortable angle and it clearly looked like if I were to move away from him, he wouldn’t stay long on that chair, and I’m pretty sure he was staring at me all the time, but he was nowhere near as tense as he was earlier, and I could feel him relax gradually again. Then I stopped touching him at all and just kept my hand very close to him so that I could still feel his movements. I stayed there for another few millennia or so it felt. Eventually, he shifted a bit to make himself more comfortable, turned away from me, sighed and clearly drifted off. I think he must have believed that if he won’t fall asleep right there, I’d just keep watch until morning, and I guess it’s entirely possible that I would. 😀 I still sat there some more just to make sure he’s not tricking me, and then went to bed myself, feeling triumphant, and fell asleep quite quickly as I had very little anxiety because Misha was here, even if not right beside me. We both slept soundly until about 5 AM, Misha’s more or less typical waking time, when I let him out. My Mum couldn’t believe my success story. 😀 

 

So yeah, I’m really really grateful that he stayed with me, after all, and I think we both ended up having a good night’s sleep in the end, despite going to sleep late as a result of this sleep battle. 

 

How about you? 🙂 

 

Question of the day.

   You’ve been given the ability to speak to one type of animal for the rest of your life, which one do you choose and why? 

   My answer: 

   Practically, I would choose cats, because I have a cat, and I’ve always wanted to know what Misha is thinking or feeling, and it has always low-key frustrated me that I can only try my best to guess if he likes or dislikes something or if something hurts him etc. Sighted people have the eye contact and gestures, but when you don’t have even that to rely on, it’s even more of a guessing game, especially that Misha isn’t overly vocal. So, if I were able to speak to him in his language, I assume I would understand him as well. That would be very helpful and comfortable. Speaking to him feels a lot less important than understanding him, but it could be useful too. I often wonder if he actually understands our human gestures, like hugging or kissing him, as manifestations of affection for him, and if he understands just how important he is to me and how much I like to sleep with him, that it’s not just like a part of my routine or something. Similarly, I don’t think he understands the concept of something simply not being there when it used to, despite he wants it to be there, so it would be neat if I could explain it to him in his language. I could tell him that, no, I’m really not making fun of you or trying to be mean to you, everything comes to end, and that’s what just happened to your treats, there’s no spare box of them that’s going to appear magically out of nowhere, someone will have to pop to the shop tomorrow, but right now it’s midnight and all the shops are closed, so you’re out of treats. Or I could try to alleviate his fears, like explain to him that vacuum cleaners really have no bad intentions towards him or that the world doesn’t revolve around him so that if someone turns towards him or touches him by accident, it doesn’t automatically mean they’re trying to harm him, or that they’re even thinking about him at all. 

   However, as much as it would be practical and as much as I love Misha, there’s one species of animals that I think would be far more interesting to talk to, assuming, like I said, that you could also understand their answers. Those animals are horses. I think horses are such insanely wise animals, and I’ve always been fascinated by how complex personalities they can have. Cats definitely have their own personalities too, but they don’t differ between each other quite as much as horses do, and they’re rarely so multi-dimensional as horses seem to. And horses are really good observers. Well not all of them I suppose but many of those that I’ve come across seem to be. For example, I am quite good at bottling stuff up and am rather emotionally inhibited on the outside, but Czardasz aka Łoś – the first horse that I used to ride and with whom I had a really strong bond until he died – would always immediately pick up on when I was anxious or not and would act differently, and whenever I was sad, he was always unusually affectionate and clingy with me. He was also insanely good at estimating his rider’s physical capabilities. Somehow he always knew that this kid has very spastic cerebral palsy and is currently putting all the effort she can into riding, but this one is actually slacking and can do more than he’s doing with his better leg, so let’s make him use his muscles properly. And he was always extremely patient with people with all sorts of behavioural difficulties like neurodevelopmental disabilities. So while I unfortunately wouldn’t be able to talk to Łoś, I’d still like to talk to other horses about what they think and how they perceive people etc. 

   What would you choose? 🙂 

Question of the day.

   What’s the best type of texture you’ve ever felt? 

   My answer: 

   I’ve felt a lot of great textures in my life, but I think it’s hard to beat Misha’s fur. It is so luxuriously plush, it feels almost creamy, if you can say so about  fur. I remember one time  Misha  went out in the snow for a bit and  I held him when he came back and I thought that his fur feels even softer when it’s really cold. It would be an ideal texture for a sumptuous, expensive dessert (although it wouldn’t be hairy, of course). Or clouds could have a similar texture. But when his fur is all warm from sleep, it’s amazing too. 

   How about you? 🙂 

A li’l pic of Misha.

   Hey people! 🙂 

   A little while ago SH was interested in seeing Misha’s photos on my blog. And, well, I do have quite a few of them on here, but it made me realise that they’re all quite old, the most recent one is probably from two years ago. Which made me think that some new Mishpics would be a good idea. I just rarely think about this since, being blind, photos are generally not something I pay much attention to myself and often forget about the fact that other peeps definitely do. 

   Misha was taking a morning nap in his basket on the radiator in the living room (he also has a fox fur in it so it must be a really warm place to be in) and his paw was sticking out in a funny way, as if he was trying to warm it up by the radiator, so my Mum took a pic of him and I asked her to send it to me as well, and so here is a pic of Misha recharging his batteries Please do let me know in case I don’t insert this photo correctly or it displays in a weird way or whatever, because it is my first time adding a photo to a post using my Mac blogging app (just shows you how often I add photos to blog posts given that I’ve had my Mac for over half a year now 😀 ) and I don’t really have a way of finding out if I do it right since obviously I can’t see it. 

Question of the day.

   What do you think your pet thinks about you? 

   My answer: 

   I like to think that Misha likes me, if not for anything else than at least for being a fairly consistent part of the room that he most likes to sleep in, so like a part of his comforting daily routine or something. I think that, if he associates my Mum with food, which seems to be the case because she is his main food provider and he wants food every time he sees her, as if he thought that she’s some sort of food-producing machine who can make meat fall out of her hands randomly at will, then he must associate me with sleep. Very often when Misha and I are downstairs and then I go up to my room, he runs after me and wants to be there with me and sleep. I always tell him that it’s his room as well, because he doesn’t have his own separate room. He has a lot of places to sleep in in my room, but usually sleeps on his favourite blanket on my bed, and when it’s colder I also put his grey-coloured lamb skin over it. But before he actually falls asleep, there’s a whole ceremony to go through. He has to have his sleepy treat, and then I have to lay down on the bed and he goes on top of me and lays on my chest, sniffs my face and wants a deep head and face massage. This is actually very unlike Misha because he’s generally very afraid of touch, closeness and things like that, but this lying on Bibiel has become a part of his daily routine and he seems to like it very much. Mum once saw us like that and she said she’d never seen Misha more relaxed and blissfully glassy-eyed. 😀 Sometimes he ends up falling asleep on me, or we both do. And then when he’ll always wake up with a start and get off me, go on his blanket and move as far away from me as possible, ashamed of his extreme weakness and desperately trying to pretend that nothing happened and pick up the leftover pieces of his usual dignity. He’ll rarely sleep there when I’m not around or can’t lay down with him at least for a while or assist with his sleeping routine. Then he usually climbs up on the wardrobe or sleeps in my armchair and Sofi laughs that he looks like some mini businessman who fell asleep in the middle of his work day in the office or has nowhere to go at night so sleeps at work, because this armchair is huge in comparison with him. 

   I think Misha also associates me or at least my room with calm, because he’ll also always come here whenever he’s stressed or overwhelmed, like when something scary for him is going on or there are a lot of people downstairs or he’s had a difficult day or isn’t feeling well. I’ll always try my best to comfort him then and, if he feels like it and is in his clingy mood, which sometimes is the case when he’s sad despite he is usually not clingy at all, I’ll try my best to give him my full attention and cuddle him and make him feel safe and happy as much as possible ‘cause I hate to see him sad or stressed out or ill or something. 

   I’m also sure that Misha knows I like him most of all the people here. Whether he actually cares about it/appreciates it/it makes any difference for him, I don’t know, and I don’t think it matters really, but I’m sure he knows how much I like him and how important he is to me and sometimes he likes to take an advantage of it. Like, sometimes when he goes somewhere high up or gets stuck somewhere and can’t easily get out/is afraid to jump off it, he’ll cry very pitifully when he knows that I’m near him, ‘cause he knows I’m going to be worried about him and that he won’t be able to make it on his own out of wherever he is, and I’ll want to help him right away. But when it’s anyone else other than me and he’s stuck in the same place, he will jump off or extricate himself totally independently, with no crying or anything, even if it takes him a long time to figure out how to do it or how to jump off safely. Or he makes a lot more fuss of his sleep than when he sleeps with Sofi, who has no time for dwelling whether the reason for Misha’s not wanting to sleep is the fact that he doesn’t like her new blanket, or perhaps he wants to eat, or maybe he’s cold or whatever. If he doesn’t want to sleep in her room and cries, she’ll just kick him out, not wondering what might be the reason for him crying. So he’s learned that if he wants to be at Sofi’s he has to be happy with what he’s got and not complain. Meanwhile with Bibiel he can usually be the one who sets conditions and refuses to fall asleep if the bed isn’t made the way he likes, or Bibiel tosses and turns too much or he didn’t get his sleepy treat or not enough and Bibiel is a huge Misha-pleaser. Bibiel can go as far as to randomly come over to Misha while he’s sleeping and check if his extremities are not cold, no one else bothers. I also think that, while it’s Mum who has best eye contact with Misha and understands his different expressions and stuff, it’s Bibiel who is better at interpreting his sounds. Other people here don’t seem to have much of an idea what is the difference between a happy “hhrrru?” Or a sad “hhrrru?” Or that there is a special sound that says “Uh oh, I’m going to vomit soon”, or a special moaning sound for when he wants to the loo but the door is closed or something, or even a very rude, impatient sound that says something like: “Will you finally move your flippin’ ass and give me my food? I’m dying of starvation, you stupid peep! I want to eat, now!!! Can’t you see?”. My Dad doesn’t even think he does that deliberately, he says Misha’s sounds are just random depending how they happen to come out of him. But I’m absolutely sure that he knows what he wants to say and I think he knows that I know, because as much as he knows that he can get a lot out of me, he never meows rudely like that at me anymore, ‘cause when he used to do, I’d yell back at him and wouldn’t give him his food til he said something nicer. Meanwhile he talks like that to Mum regularly, and she just gets mad at him, because that’s how this sound makes you instantly feel, except she doesn’t seem to understand that it’s because of how he said it and thinks she’s mad just because he keeps asking for food, so she doesn’t address that properly. 

    I think he must also think that I’m weird, ‘cause I talk to him a lot more than anybody else here does and often about totally random things that have nothing to do with him. Or I sing to him.  Or I talk to myself when he’s around. 

   He also seems mind-boggled by some things that we peeps do. Like, just the other day I was praying, and Misha wanted a snack, but, well, I was praying, so I wasn’t up to giving him his snack just then. He was very patient and just stood next to me and waited, and I could feel him staring at me. I assume he must have wondered what the freak I was doing while being practically still for so long. Perhaps he thought I was sleeping in a kneeling position if he didn’t even ask for his food, only when I finished. Or several of us have noticed that Misha’ seems  very much interested in human toilet habits, like my Dad says that Misha regularly stares at him when they happen to be using their respective loos at the same time. He must also think that our food – like veggies, or chips, or eggs, which are some of the things he showed some interest in – must be disgusting. And I guess he’s also a bit afraid of all of us, because like I said he’s afraid of closeness and we want to stroke him all the time and Sofi and I want to pick him up and cuddle and kiss him all day because he’s almost like he exists solely to be cuddled and stroked and kissed and hugged and squeezed and carried around everywhere. So unlucky for him that he looks the way he does with the sort of personality he has. 

   When Misha first came to us, he had to learn quickly that being sprawled across the floor or getting  in the way of people might not be the best idea, as I managed to step on him on his second night with us while going to the loo, and then trapped his tail in the loo door on my way out of it, which low-key traumatised both of us, I think. Now Misha never gets anyone in the way but Mum says he seems to be particularly careful with Bibiel. I’m not sure though if he actually gets the fact that I can’t see him. People tell me that he often looks at me very persistently, in particular when he wants food or attention, or alternates his gaze in a very telling, reproachful way between me and his bowl, seeming equally baffled every single time that there is no reaction and that the food doesn’t magically appear in the bowl. 😀 But on the other hand he’s a lot more patient and forgiving with me than the other peeps. When he was very little and just arrived at our house, initially I would often unintentionally put my fingers in his eyes, and even though he’s normally so anxious and can’t stand when Mum gives him his eye drops which he needs regularly, he’d never run away or be angry or anything. Or when he wants to say hi, in the morning or when I’ve come back from somewhere, he’ll come close to me for a very short while and rub his head against me, whereas with other peeps he just looks at them in an acknowledging way, unless he’s really missed us or something then he’ll say “Hhrrru?” And will “faint” on the floor at someone’s feet out of happiness. 

   He also seems to think that we peeps have some weird superpower that allows us to locate him whenever he says something, because when someone accidentally shuts him somewhere like Mum often does in the wardrobe ‘cause he keeps going in there while she picks out her clothes, he’ll then “Hhrrru?” That he wants out, but as soon as someone realises that he’s closed somewhere and tries to locate him more precisely, he won’t respond anymore because he thinks if people know that he’s closed they must know where he is closed and will rescue him soon. You can call out for him till you die, and he won’t make a sound. He only will when you’ll stop actively looking for him. That can be a problem sometimes, like once we looked for him for two hours when he got stuck inside a sofa or other place that you wouldn’t necessarily think about. Once he got stuck somewhere in the bathroom soon after we got a new bathtub installed, but we couldn’t figure out where in the bathroom he was so Mum freaked out that the bathtub guys must have walled him up in the bathtub not realising that he was there and everything would have to be taken down and redone to set him free, if he wouldn’t starve in the meantime. But he only turned out to be in a cupboard. 

   Oh, and people are very good vehicles in his opinion. Just today in the morning my Dad came into my room with Misha on his back. It was totally absurd because my Dad claims he doesn’t really like Misha, because he doesn’t like cats in general and because, yeah, we have to say that, apart from his angelic looks, objectively speaking, Misha isn’t a very likeable creature, because apparently his gaze is rather unpleasant and his personality isn’t the most outgoing in the world. Yet, he’s managed to wrap even my Dad around his cute little toe bean. He kept sitting on my Dad and riding around the whole house for like fifteen minutes, and my Dad (even though he’s having a cold, which always makes him grumpy) was all smiles and kept cooing at him, and then when Misha jumped off him, he laid down on the floor, and my Dad was down on his knees next to him immediately, stroking his spine. That was so hilarious, but I didn’t dare laugh until afterwards, as I didn’t want to risk putting an abrupt end to this serene scene and snapping my Dad back into the reality. I’m inclined to believe that conspiracy theory that  cats have some sort of substance that brainwashes people and tricks them into loving the cat even if it’s against the personal interest of the affected human victim, and then the peep in question goes crazy or even demented over time, hence so many cat owners are crazy. I myself am a very severe case, as not only am I happy to serve as a vehicle for Misha as well, but I often do it voluntarily, so that he doesn’t have to walk too much, and walk around with him on my shoulder. With so much food, sleep and so many vehicles, lifts and other such available, it’s kind of a miracle that he still looks as scrawny as he does and isn’t a more literal fur ball yet. 

   So yeah, that’s what I can say about what I think Misha thinks about me and us. 

   I’m not sure how about Jocky but I suppose he must really love me because he’s always so happy when I show him any attention as if I was some sort of Bibiel deity, it’s weird because it’s Sofi who’s his mummy but he doesn’t get so crazy when Sofi plays with him, but with me he goes nuts and humiliates himself licking my feet all the time. Not to mention what happens when I give him food. And my Dad’s fishies are probably in awe whenever they see any of us, if fish have as short memory span as I’ve heard. They probably only care about Dad anyway because he feeds them. And perhaps sometimes Misha who likes to play fisherman when he’s bored and probably terrifies them, if they have enough kilobytes of memory to actually remember something for long enough to feel terrified. 

   How about your pets? 🙂 

Question of the day.

   What are some positive things happening in the world right now that aren’t mentioned a lot? 

   My answer: 

   Misha is still alive! How can there be anything more positive than that there is happiness? Although personally, as a very selfish Bibiel, I am very happy that this isn’t mentioned a lot, because otherwise I might have ended up with my house turning into a pilgrimage destination of some sort, and neither me nor happiness would be happy, and he’d probably have stalkers galore. 

   What’s such a thing that you can think of? 

Question of the day.

   Since we haven’t had one in a while, let’s have a very general question of the day today: 

   How are you holding up? 

   My answer: 

   Not too bad at all. I’ve been spending a lot of time with Misha lately. He’s no longer on Fluoxetine – that’s beyond my Mum’s and my mental capacity to have him on it longer than a couple weeks, he gets so out of touch with the world that we were seriously afraid he’d lose it completely one day and we’d find him dead under a bed one day, and it wasn’t getting much better. – Plus, after he stopped taking it, I have discovered that the dose Misha was prescribed (10 mg) was  too high for him, because from what I’ve read almost everywhere it seems that a dose of Fluoxetine for a cat is 1 mg/1 kg body mass, and it totally spooked me out that not only was Misha on this dose for over a month, but the vet actually suggested that we could give him twice as much throughout the day, which would be enough for five Mishas. . Only one website I found claimed that cats can take 2 to 5 mg, not mentioning that it should be based on a particular cat’s weight, but that would still mean Misha’s dose was too high. Not toxic or anything, but why take a high dose and sleep your whole life away if you can potentially take a normal dose and feel like yourself minus constant sadness? I’m obviously not a vet, but Misha’s symptoms plus the fact that it says so in every single source I’ve read sounds really alarming to me and my Mum was scared too when I told her that. At the beginning of June, Misha has started to totally refuse his pills and when Mum gave him one and think he must have swallowed it, she’d give him something yummy right away and then she’d find the pill spat out next to his bowl. Finally one day when he spat out three pills and was drooling like crazy, Mum called the vet and said that she cannot give them to him, and then he was like: “Well, if he’s so much against it, then indeed it’s better not to”. I’d think that was quite apparent from the beginning that his whole being was very much against it from the beginning. He hasn’t been taking it since about two weeks and, yes, it’s back to crying, but I also have to say that we grew even closer after he has stopped taking it. While taking Prozac, Misha had a lot less interest in food, I guess not because his appetite as such had decreased as is apparently the case with many animals on it, but simply because his dominant interest had become sleep and there was little time for anything else. My Mum doesn’t have scales, but everyone in my family says Misha looks like he must lost a bit of weight during May – which he never had much to begin with. – So now that he no longer takes it, he seems to enjoy food even more than he did before and his pleasure out of it is very evident whenever he eats something yummy, so I take every opportunity to buy him something very special that he likes or give Mum my card to buy him something and I enjoy giving him his Mish ice cream. He has also really fallen in love with the regular people fat cream (which we now always have because my Mum is on keto currently), he always liked it but now I guess it’s one of his top foods and he seems so happy whenever he gets it. Instead of doing it the normal, civilised way and give him the cream in his bowl, I much prefer to smear my fingers in the cream and let him lick it off, as it’s a lot more fun, I think for us both but certainly for me. He now spends most of the time in my room and is still more sleepy than he was before he started taking the Prozac, but he’s also a lot more engaging than he was on it and seems to not only enjoy lying on my bed but also spending time with me and cuddling and playing together and is more affectionate and not quite so apparently unhappy all the time. I’m not sure what has changed him so much, but probably at least part of it could be the leftover Prozac, plus maybe having gotten used to the routine of constant sleeping and chilling out. Which makes it seem like perhaps if Misha was to be put on the right dose, it would work very well for him, but we don’t want to try it again, if only because Misha clearly doesn’t do pills. I guess we’ll just continue as we did, trying to make sure that he doesn’t escape and trying to survive the wailing on sunny days, there doesn’t seem to be a better option. After Misha stopped taking Prozac, I tried to research synthetic feromones, about which I learned from one of my pen pals. But it seems like most of it is a placebo thing, if not a downright scam. The most popular feromone diffuser seems to be Feliway, which is quite pricey to begin with, and of course they encourage you to buy a diffuser for every room in which your cat spends a lot of time, plus obviously an adequate supply of bottles with feromones in them. THen you turn on the difuser and… well, apparently it starts working, although you can only know that because you’ve plugged it in and turned it on, because obviously it’s the cat feromones so you won’t feel anything, and you have to wait for the magic to kick in. And it doesn’t seem to be a frequent occurrence, because the only research that claims Feliway’s efficacy has been that funded by Feliway or related companies. I’ve also looked at a lot of other feromone diffusers, but they don’t look convincing to me either as they claim to work on all sorts of pets, and the whole thing reminds me too much of the essential oils thing, which I have nothing against, they’re really nice – I even have a diffuser myself that I got from my Mum on Christmas even though I don’t feel scents but I like how it makes sounds similar to Misha grooming himself so that even if Misha isn’t here, I can run the difuser and think it’s Misha and it’s a cool background noise – but I have a hard time believing that it can work in any other way than placebo, and I guess placebo is not a thing with cats. 

   Generally, ever since Misha has stopped taking his happy pills, I’ve been researching all sorts of non-pharmacological “cat therapies” hoping that there might be something that could make Misha’s (and our) life easier, but the more I look into it, the stronger feeling I have that the whole pets thing is just one huge business, and treating pets often seems like a total guessing game and feeling around in the dark until, who knows, maybe something will work. So is the case with a lot of human treatments, but with animals it’s a lot more apparent. 

   Anyway, I like how Misha is now and how cuddly he is, and this makes me feel better too, by extension. Often, if I have nothing better or pressing to do, I’ll just lie on my bed next to Misha and listen to his breath for hours, it’s so beautiful and soothing and also kind of hilarious at the same time, I’m not sure why it’s so hilarious. 

   So yeah, it’s been very Mishful around here lately. 

   How about you? 🙂 

Question of the day.

   What’s something you never want to do again? 

   My answer: 

   Have another cat. Not because I regret having Misha, but for a whole bunch of other reasons, First, I feel so attached to Misha that it would be unfair on that other cat, because I’d always want him to be like Misha and probably even if he was “better” than Misha in some respects, like being more cuddly, I wouldn’t be satisfied because I’d want him to be  Misha. Also it would feel similar to as if I decided to get myself another mum or another sister if Mum or Sofi died. A new cat would definitely be out of question if I no loonger lived with my parents, as I don’t think I’d be capable to take good enough care of it. Even if I’d move out of here and live more independently while Misha would still be alive, as much as that would be sad and heart-breaking and despite he’s officially my cat, I wouldn’t take him with me. I can’t imagine giving him his eye drops when he gets his eye problems, or locating and successfully cleaning his vomit, or keeping track of where he is so that he doesn’t go out. I know blind people who are so keen on having a cat that they hang a bell around their neck so that they can know their whereabouts, but sheesh, if it were you, would you really like to hear a ringing sound every time you move? I wouldn’t feel good torturing someone like that, just because I WANT a cat. And my other reasons are consistent with those of my family’s, who also feel the same about having another cat. While knowing Misha has been one of the best things that happened in my life, I think we all feel a sense of guilt towards him at the same time. Because, well, let’s just say it out loud, in the grand scheme of things, he’s quite clearly not happy with his life. A cat who cries like Misha does when he wants out can’t possibly be happy. He thinks he’d be happy if he was an outdoor cat, which, practically, is not the most viable option for a Russian blue who has no idea about outdoor life and has always been mollycoddled, spoilt and taken care of, not to mention has had very little contact with other animals and is very anxious by nature. He can act very courageous sometimes when interacting with seagulls through the window, but that’s as far as his courage goes. He’s not even used to dealing with as much stimuli of all sorts that are out there in the world, so it’s a bit as if you kept someone in isolation and sensory deprivation for years and then you just let him out free and expect to act sane and calm and know what he’s supposed to do. 

   It’s also not a viable option for a pure-bred cat owner. You don’t buy an expensive, pure-bred cat to let him roam around freely so that someone can steal him or a fellow feline can annihilate him. So why do you buy a cat? Good question. Well yeah, ‘cause I WANT! I’m no better than those people who hang a bell round their cats’ necks. I have quite conservative views on animals, at least for today’s standards. I am not a vegan, animal rights activist, ecologist or other  selfless tree hugger. Same about the rest of my family. But the longer we live with Misha, the more we feel like we’re not fair to him. Sure, if not us, someone else would have bought him and he’d still suffer. It’s difficult to think of a life scenario for him where he wouldn’t. But if we didn’t get him, we wouldn’t be contributing to it.

   If you don’t let him out, he cries his lungs out and everyone is sad, stressed out and frustrated to no end. If you do let him go in and out as he pleases, he isn’t safe. If you try to control it and let him out at a certain time, keep an eye on him and make sure nothing bad happens, he’ll stilll cry as soon as you get him back home. Autumns and winters are very much bearable – if you don’t go out too much and if it’s not too sunny – but springs and summers are more of a nightmare each year. Especially for my Mum who has to keep an eye on the door constantly so that no one leaves them open while going out. Misha wakes up with the sun and starts roaming around the house, stopping by every window and serenading it – the sun – mournfully at the top of his lungs. He doesn’t even get much sleep, because every opening of a window or door, every sound of someone going in and out, of a bird calling, of Jocky barking, of people talking outside, every breeze or sun warmth coming through the window wakes him up, so he’s constantly undersleeped and cranky and properly hyperactive. It’s impossible not to feel pity for him, but also his constant meowing and howling and crying drives people nuts so it’s also pretty much impossible not to snap out at him at some point, especially if you’re someone like my Dad, which doesn’t help him at all. Sometimes my Mum gives in to him and lets him out on a terrace, or is just so resigned and desperate for a bit of peace and quiet that she lets him go wherever and for how long he wants, and every single day he’d go further, until at some point he’d go so far that it would start to feel really dangerous and my parents wouldn’t be able to find him, until finally at some point it’s usually one of our neighbours who would call worried that they saw Misha’s fur gleaming somewhere in the distance and give us a hint of where more or less he might be. We suppose that, if nothing bad would happen to him in the meantime, he’d always come back at some poiint, but taking such high risk and waiting when we know that he’s two houses away and could go further feels very silly and irresponsible. Every time he comes back – regardless of whether he wants it himself or someone has to bring him home – as soon as the door closes behind him, the crying starts all over again, except it’s more obnoxious. At some point my Mum realises that letting him out only makes him feel more upset and doesn’t help anything, so again the strict rules are put in place for Misha. 

   I know not every cat is like this. Perhaps even the majority are not. My aunt also has a Russian blue cat who is as laid back as it gets, in fact he seems to me like he’s on the opposite extreme to Misha, he can happily sleep on a rug and even when you pass him by and almost step on him he won’t move an inch. Sasha (the kitten we got on a whim a year after Misha and had to rehome after a few months because Misha didn’t tolerate company of his own species well at all) was a very cheerful kitten  who didn’t seem to need much at all to be happy, just a bit of attention and play, and some food that doesn’t need to be as sophisticated as Misha’s, anything edible and nice-smelling is good. Sasha did have a problem with pooping in every place possible except not where he should, the causes of which we couldn’t establish for a long time and which seemed to be emotional in nature, but eventually it turned out that it was Misha who must have scared him away from the litter box and that’s why he didn’t want to poop there but would rather do it anywhere else. I have no idea why Misha’s like this. I guess it’s just like with people and many just are born with weird brains for no apparent reason. I remember once reading an article about some study that claims that cats have a tendency to be anxious if their owners are anxious too, and vice versa. We’ve always thought it interesting how Misha and me are so similar in many ways, and same about Sofi and Jocky, and earlier Sofi and Sasha. And there’s such Polish saying that I guess could be roughly translated as like the stallholder, like the stall, which basically means that what is yours is like you, and my Mum always says that whenever the topic of Misha and Jocky being like me and Sofi respectively pops up. 😀 So perhaps it’s me who is responsible for Misha being “weird”. Misha’s mummy, with the very original name of Hansa Luft, had some problem giving birth to her offspring and so Misha was born through a C-section, and we’ve heard from a vet that used to be Misha’s vet that cats born via C-section apparently are more likely to be “weird”. Misha’s behaviour has always reminded me more of a severely traumatised shelter cat, so that sometimes I was wondering whether something awful might have happened to him at his breeder’s. He’s always been very fearful, wary of touch and closeness with people, easily upset by things – I mean even things like  slight, unexpected movements, a minor furniture rearrangement or something laying on the floor that wasn’t there whenn he looked previously. – He’s always overgroomed himself, though thankfully it never led to some more serious complications like I’ve heard it does in many cats who do. He doesn’t purr like normal. I have absolutely no problem with that, I love his quiet, soft purr which is more palpable than audible unless you literally  put your ear to his chest or face, but the truth is that it just isn’t a normal purr. 

   Last year, as you perhaps remember if you’ve been around on here back then, Mum took Misha to a behaviourist and he said that the only viable option he sees is to medicate Misha and he gave him fluoxetine/Prozac, which really shocked me initially but, like, what else can you do, I guess there’s no talk therapy for pets that you could try first. 😀 So my Mum gave him that Prozac, which wasn’t easy to administer at all because it was pills and it must be a nightmare giving pills to a cat judging from their struggles. Mum had to wrap Misha up in a blanket so he couldn’t move and scratch her or run away, force open his mouth, give him the pill, close his mouth and hold his face till he swallowed so that he wouldn’t spit it out. Not fun. It wasn’t long until Misha started to recognise the signs that it was pill time and would run away and hide. Moreover, the fluoxetine was making him very drowsy and he wasn’t quite himself. His crying had reduced a lot, indeed, but not because he felt calmer or happier, just because he slept through pretty much all day long. When he was awake, he continued to cry. Mostly though, it felt like there was no Misha anymore, just a little ball of fur with no Misha inside. He mostly hid under beds and didn’t want to interact with us almost at all. Sometimes I would find him somewhere and cuddle him and he’d seem to fall asleep in my arms but that was very clearly simply because he was totally indifferent rather than was in a more cuddly mood. I might’ve as well been cuddling a lifeless teddybear. At some point both my Mum and Sofi started realising that he doesn’t even actually sleep when he is under those beds, just lies there on his belly staring emptily into space with his eyes wide open. He ate very little. When he was awake and you’d call him, he’d just look at you and continue sitting like a statue where he was, a bit like he was too weak to carry out the complicated activity of motivating himself to stand up, standing up, moving his paws and walking to wherever the calling was coming from. Not even Mish ice cream did the trick. So finally, with all the pill troubles getting worse and Misha clearly not feeling well, Mum said she was worried that he could just die one day while laying sleeplessly like that, and we decided it’s best to stop giving him the Prozac, because we wanted Misha back and it was starting to feel rather creepy. He gradually did come back, and his crying wasn’t so much of an issue anymore, so we were hoping that perhaps it will just get better. 

   But this year, spring came again and finally it seemed like my Mum has reached her limit and was at witts end for what to do, as she and Misha basically kept repeating the same cycle with this whole going out thing every year, as if hoping that finally there will be a time when it’ll work and everyone will live happily everafter, whatever “happily” might mean for poor little Misha. And she said that perhaps he should try Prozac again, maybe if she stuck to it for longer than last year, which was only about a week, he’d start tolerating it better and get back to his normal self. And so she started giving him the pills again. She has even been to the vet, asking if there perhaps is another medication that Misha could take, that he’d perhaps tolerate better, or a different form of fluoxetine like liquid, but, surprisingly to me, he said that no. I did some research beforehand and there clearly are people out there who give their cats fluoxetine in liquid form or even topical, or use feromones to deal with emotional problems with cats, so I wonder if he’s just opposed to anything else or what. Instead, he actually said that Mum could even give Misha one whole pill rather than just a half as last year – one half in the morning and one in the evening – and if it’s a problem she could hide the pill in a bit of food. He clearly doesn’t know Misha. I honestly don’t even understand how other cats are so gullible that they can eat a pill with food just fine. Mum tried it first thing last year, but Misha would spit it out as soon as he’d taste the pill in the food. I sometimes feel like veterinarians underappreciate animals’ intelligence. Like when Misha once had to have a urine test, he was supposed to pee into some fake litter, and, much as we expected, he didn’t, because it wasn’t his litter. Is Misha really in a minority who is too smart/hypersensitive? I kind of doubt it, though I know nothing about other cats.

   Also there didn’t seem to be much point in upping his dose if the lowest one zonks him out so effectively. It’s not like he’s aggressive or something. I don’t think I even realised before that SSRI’s can be sleepifying like that, but perhaps it’s just different with cats’ brains than people’s. 

   He’s started taking it at the beginning of May and it’s clearly going better this time than last time because he’s a bit more social and lively than he was then in that he doesn’t hide so much and even plays a bit when he’s awake and is a lot more cuddly and a bit more relaxed than he normally is which doesn’t seem to be just a result of indifference, but he still sleeps through most of the day and night. It always used to be so that Misha woke up first, now he’s often still asleep when I wake up, and I’ve been rarely waking up before 9 this month, most of the time around 11. He yawns literally AAAAALLLLLL the time, and despite he sleeps so much his sleep seems to be very shallow, so perhaps that’s exactly why he sleeps so much more to compensate for it. He also seems very weak, or tired or I don’t know how else to call it. Just acts as if he had very little energy and reacts to everything very slowly. The pill administering hasn’t been easy for my Mum, because it’s so unpleasant for them all and my Mum is worried that he’ll develop bad associations with her, or will at some point totally refuse to take the pills, but we always try to give him something yummy right after he swallows it so he can forget about everything as soon as possible. I also firmly believe that, as much as Misha is very anxious, he also has some really impressive amounts of patience and gentleness for people, I’m not exactly sure how to describe it. I know that Mum actually realises it herself too, because he showed this virtuous trait of his very much during and right after Sasha’s stay with us, and Mum herself called it that Misha has a very “noble character”. So that even if people have to do something unpleasant to him, or do it thoughtlessly or accidentally, even if it affects him a lot he keeps being gentle-mannered, as classy as ever and good-naturedly understanding and forgiving of his peeps’ countless weaknesses. I think he might just understand in his little brain that Mum’s new whim is to give him this yucky pill every day, and he really doesn’t like it but, oh well… he still loves Mum. Today it actually went very smoothly and Misha didn’t even protest at all, so there’s hope that it’ll continue to go in this direction.

   But the biggest concern for me is that he has almost stopped pooping. I mean it’s really getting serious, because yesterday he cried so loudly and pitifully whenn he was in the loo, and was there for so long but nothing came out. Normally you could almost set the clock by his pooping, he would poop every day at pretty much the same hour, unless his breakfast was a lot later than typically, but now it’s good if he poops every three days. Unfortunately Mum wasn’t home when Misha cried yesterday in his loo so she could hear it, only Sofi and me did and told her about it, oh yeah and Misha very clearly tried too but Mum can’t speak his language. He ran to her as soon as she came back (he doesn’t really run much ever since he’s been on fluoxetine) and made a wailing sound which made us laugh because it sounded as if he was saying “Muuuuuummmmmmmyyyyyy!” And then kept following her and crying. She wasn’t particularly concerned. Probably because she didn’t hear how awful it sounded when he was in the loo. I’ve given her my card already when Misha first started to seem constipated and have been telling her for a long time to buy him some Miralax and she keeps saying that she will but she still hasn’t despite going to town almost every day. 

   So yeah, really, I most definitely wouldn’t want to make another cat feel unhappy like that. 

   What is such a thing for you?  🙂 

Question of the day.

   What is something that drastically improved your mental health? 

   My answer: 

   Well, I could focus on several different things, as there have been many things that I’ve found helpful for my mental health over the years, some to a significant extent. But the most important one I think, it’s not something but someone. It’s Misha. Misha has helped me so much. In a way, I don’t think I’ve ever been able to form such a very strong bond with anyone as I have with Misha. This has been a very interesting experience, and also a very healing one, to feel so very strongly about someone and at the same time not experience any sort of anxiety or insecurity around such relationship, unlike what has been the case with all kinds of my closer human relationships. Well, I am scared of Misha dying and I suppose that’s quite out of proportion, but that’s an unavoidable part and risk of all relationships really. Other than that, I feel very safe in my relationship with Misha, and I want him to feel the same. I also feel kind of less lonely with Misha. I’ve never really been one to complain about loneliness, I know how to cope with your typical loneliness and it’s not much of a problem for me. But the sort of loneliness that I experience and struggle with more strongly isn’t something that being around others can help with a lot, in fact often it feels even stronger when I’m around other people because it can sometimes be fuelled by stuff like feelings of inadequacy. It’s a strong, gnawing feeling that’s really difficult to get rid of in any way, something that comes from within rather than from being alone and feeling sad or frustrated or bored in this situation. And, well, Misha hasn’t magically freed me from this, but when I look back at the time when I didn’t have him, it’s really clear that having him has made some difference in this aspect. I find Misha’s presence especially comforting at night when I’m struggling with this. He doesn’t sleep with me every night, but he will usually come of his own accord if I really really need him. His presence is also very comforting for me in dealing with these lonely feelings when I can have him close by when there are a lot of people. Perhaps because Misha doesn’t like peopling very much either, so I know he feels similarly and this makes me feel less alone and like I have someone who gets me, and someone who is, like me, though for totally different reasons, perceived as different from the rest of the individuals socialising in a given situation, so that we are both outside. Misha is outside and different because he’s a cat, so he can’t speak human, understands things differently and all that jazz, for many people from extended family he’s even weird for a cat because he’s apparently very different from all the cats they know who purr nice and loud and aren’t scared of every slight movement or something being placed somewhere else than it usually is and come obediently when you call something like pussy or kitty kitty whereas you have to call Mish Mish for Misha because that’s what we’ve taught him, and even then he’ll come when he wants, though personally I suppose the latter is what most cats do. I am outside and different because I can’t do peopling like most people expect their fellow people to be able to do it, I am blind, which makes a huge difference for a lot of people in how they see you, plus it means I am outside of a large portion of their non-verbal communication and my perception of things is quite different, just as it is the case with Misha. I can’t always have Misha close to me while peopling, even when we’re peopling at our house, because Misha obviously doesn’t care about people’s rules and won’t necessarily want to be there with me, or if he does, it’s usually for a very short time, unless there’s yummy food and people provide him with the kind of attention that he likes. But he’ll often be close to me at the start of various family gatherings, so that I can often come into the room with Misha on my shoulder, hearing his purr. It’s funny, actually, because this is the only situation when he sits on my shoulder and many people find it impressive like my grandad thinks we must have some miraculous connection if I can go around carrying him on my shoulder like that. 😀 This way, people’s attention focuses on Misha, whereas I feel calmer having him close to me. Then after a while he’ll usually sneak out to the kitchen or go up on the radiator into his basket, and then when my brain battery is low and I go to my room, he’ll always follow me and we’ll recharge together, as he tends to find all the people noise and the unwanted kind of attention especially from children quite overwhelming and needs a lot of sleep.

   When I’m having a particularly hard time due to depression, Misha can sometimes be the only thing that will motivate me to get out of bed really. I don’t know how I did it before Misha! When I’m not overly depressed, I really enjoy waking up to Misha’s sweet “Hhrrru?” Which is how he greets people. I love talking to him first thing in the morning, giving him his food and cuddling him for a while if he’s up to it. It’s really the best start for the day you could imagine. Some people are surprised that I don’t mind and even want to sleep with him and then have to let him out of my room in the morning at such insane hours as 3 AM sometimes, hardly any later than 6 AM, my Mum says it’s like having a baby. Perhaps it is, but I really don’t mind getting up and letting him out, and unlike with a baby, I can go right back to bed if I want and sleep to my brain’s content or even longer, or I can let him out without actually waking up, just on autopilot. 

   But most of all I think Misha has helped me with anxiety. Especially the more panicky/acute types of anxiety like my typical sensory anxiety aka sound/silence anxiety. It is such a relief having Misha at home in this respect. It doesn’t solve the problem completely, though I really doubt there’s anything that can always do it with 100% effectivity but Misha helps to varying extent every single time. I think this type of anxiety that I have must work similarly to fear of the dark that many young children experience, which I base on that I believe that silence and darkness are similar phenomena in a way, and that Sofi, who still deals with fear of the dark a lot even though she’s a teenager, seems to have a lot of similar experiences around it, though that could also be of course due to that we’re sisters and experience some things similarly. Anyways, while in general I’d say Sofi’s fear is thankfully milder than mine because she only experiences it at night, not in all kinds of dark conditions, and nothing else triggers it other than darkness at night, there’s one thing in which I really feel for Sofi regarding her anxiety. Misha doesn’t help her at all. In fact sometimes he even adds to her discomfort because he can be so quiet and creep her out if he’s in her room and she can’t see him. And I think that really sucks. For me, there are times when Misha can make a world of difference and allow me to fall asleep at all or alleviate my anxiety enough that I don’t need my PRN anxiety medication. I feel a lot safer when I’m at home with Misha vs just on my own. Even when he’s not directly in the same room as myself can sometimes make a glimmer of difference, knowing that he still is somewhere in the house. Sometimes when some creepy sound or a sleep paralysis episode triggers this type of anxiety for me bad enough, I have trouble with such seemingly unrelated things like being in the bathroom, whether as in in the loo, or showering. It’s really difficult to explain the connectioon and the whole sensory anxiety thing in general, but when I’m in this particular freak out mode it’s like everything seems murkily scary to me, it’s a really weird experience to describe with lots of different dimensions to it I’d say. But in such situations, having Misha with me in the bathroom, laying on the radiator while I’m showering, can help a little, or in the latter stages of the freakout phase quite a lot. We have a radio in the bathroom but it never helps half as much as Misha does when the world goes all creepy. Speaking of sleep paralysis, Misha can help that too, though of course for that to be possible, he has to be in the room with me. He has frequently gotten me out of a beginning sleep paralysis dream in the morning by frantically crying, hhrrru?’ing and scratching the door to let him out. I always thought it’s just a coincidence that he frequently happens to do that right when I’m floating away, but then I had a nap a few times during the day with Misha in my room. I don’t like taking naps because they dysregulate myy sleep cycle even further than it normally is and because they’re more likely to start or end with sleep paralysis, so I only nap if I really have to or if it just happens involuntarily while I lay on the bed for a while with Misha and we both drift off. Well, and I have happened to drift off to sleep paralysis in the middle of the day with Misha either next to me or at my feet, and every single of those times I woke up feeling Misha tickling my foot with his paw, as he sometimes does playfully. Now I don’t know whether Misha has some extreme superpower of sensing sleep paralysis in humans which even fellow humans are typically unable to figure out and think you’re just sleeping heavily, or perhaps he simply saw me wriggling my toes, as people sometimes do in their sleep, and which I do in sleep paralysis if I am able to because I discovered that it can slow down the initial floating/drifting and alleviate this sensation which I really hate, and if I wriggle them to a specific side it lets me float in a specific direction rather than being aimlessly thrown around dreamland until I reach the one and only right destination, and sometimes even the right toe move at the right moment lets me wake up. Misha, like most cats I presume, likes things that move, and he likes to make out with people’s legs whenever he’s only allowed, which is never but he never loses hope and perhaps he just thought my toe wriggling was an invitation and the tickling was some sort of foreplay. Regardless though, I’m glad that as it seems Misha is able to wake me up from this at the right moment before everything starts for good. It’s just quite shitty that he rarely is there when this is happening. 

   How about you? 🙂 

Question of the day.

   What’s a perk of being you? 

   My answer: 

   Well, that’s pretty obvious. I have the REAl happiness all to myself! That’s a huge perk in life! I sleep with Happiness, Happiness is often the first thing I see and hear in the morning, I play with Happiness. Who wouldn’t like having so much Happiness just for themselves? I’m the luckiest peep in the world! Paradoxically, having this whole ball of Happiness all to myself doesn’t prevent me from having dysthymia, but oh well… you can’t have everything, right? Perhaps if I didn’t have Happiness, I would end up having major depression, so I’m insanely grateful. 

   How about you? 🙂 

Misha Mishenko – “Moment”.

   As I mentioned in the last post, the one that was supposed to go yesterday, today is Misha’s birthday, yay! Misha is now 6 years old. They say it’s forty human years! FORTY. FREAKING. YEARs! It’s so ridiculous that I’m not even gonna try to believe it ‘cause my brain would get a permanent freeze! 

   I’ve already shared two songs on my blog that have Misha in their title. Recently, i was looking for some more that I would like, and, while I haven’t found any particularly interesting new songs about a Misha, I came across an artist whose name instantly sparked my interest – Misha Mishenko. – That is how my Mum sometimes calls our Misha, even though his actual surname is Hhrrru? (Just like how he always greets people) and this is probably the only surname in the world that’s spelt with a question mark. 😀 Moreover, the first song by Misha Mishenko that I saw was called Moment, and that again made me thhink of our Misha. Misha has a lot of alternative names or should we say titles, as well as nicknames, that we make up for him all the time. And one day when Sofi saw him as he was just waking up and looking very cute and smelling like sleep, she went into an ecstasy and called him “a little moment of happiness”. That sounded so beautiful and cute and I really liked that, and sometimes, in very special moments, we still call him that. And then when I heard that Moment song, it turned out it’s a solo piano piece. I strongly associate piano with Misha. First, in my synaesthetic brain, the word Misha feels like black piano keys. And second, when we play with Sofi that Misha can talk and all that, we play that piano music is one of his favourite types of music. 

   I myself quite like piano music too, but most definitely not all of it, and I feel totally neutral about all Misha Mishenko’s music that I’ve heard. This piece doesn’t really move me very much, though it’s certainly very nice. But I can totally imagine Misha listening to something like this, whenn he’s not listening to very sophisticated jazz, or secretly yet loudly indulging in Russian D&B when he’s sure that no one will overhear. 

The happy new year post, plus the new My Inner Mishmash playlist.

As this current year is about to vanish into the past very soon, I wish all of you, my lovely readers, a very happy new year. Not necessarily happy as in that you should actually be super happy all the time, as that’s hardly realistic, but hopefully happier than this past year, and simply filled with moments, events and things that you’ll appreciate and enjoy. May you learn a lot of new things this coming year and make loads of fascinating discoveries. This is what my Mum and me always wish each other for new year, because it’s such a fab feeling when you discover something absolutely fascinating and possibly even life-changing in a good way. May it also give you plenty of opportunities for development in areas in which you need it, and maybe even in some in which you don’t yet know that you need to develop. 🙂 I hope it’ll be an interesting year for you, but also peaceful at the same time, as peaceful as it can be in our current external circumstances, pandemic and all. If you’re making some resolutions, or perhaps goals or anything like that, I am hopeful that you’ll be able to stick to them. And also, I wish you a lovely New Year’s Eve, regardless how you’re spending it, and a fabulous New Year, because apparently what your New Year is like says what the entire year will be like for you. 😀

Misha is wishing all the pets and peeps alike, as well as himself, some exciting adventures this coming year.

On my blog, New Year’s Eve is also the time for officially sharing my playlist with songs that have been featured in my song of the day series in the past year. So the playlist for this year is now ready and you can see it below. Also if you want to see the previous playlists, you can go to my

Blog Playlists page.

Question of the day.

What’s the coolest thing you own?

My answer:

Well, I own a lot of things that I guess people could consider cool either because they’re beautiful, or interesting, or even because it’s something they’ve never seen before like some of my gem stones or the more niche tech equipment for example, , but for me personally, it’s Misha who’s the coolest. Misha’s not really a thing, is he, but I do own him, officially anyway, as weird as that sounds, so I think he counts and I don’t own anything that would be cooler than Misha.

How about you? 🙂

Question of the day.

What is one little thing you can always count on to make you happy when you’re feeling down?

My answer:

Well, my answer to questions like this is always the same and very simple – Misha! – I’m SO glad I have Misha in my life and the longer he is in my life, the more difficult and eerie it is for me to imagine how I could have ever lived without Misha and not feel like something was missing. Well, perhaps I did feel it but just didn’t know it was Misha that was missing. Misha is a real help. He won’t always make me happy as such, and this also depends on how deep down exactly I am, but he’ll always make me at least a bit happier and that’s always appreciated.

What is it for you? 🙂

Question of the day.

What is the simplest thing that makes you happy?

My answer:

I’ve said it many times before that Misha makes me happy, but one particular thing about Misha that makes me really happy is when he eats something he really likes. When he’s enjoying himself so much that his bowl is moving back and forth as he’s eating and he eats more noisily than normal and when he’s eaten, he rubs his head with his paw, as if he was stroking himself. When he does that, it means something was really really delicious. I just like when Misha is happy and it makes me happy too.

You? 🙂

Question of the day (23rd August).

What’s a boring fact about yourself?

My answer:

Hmmm… I’ve been thinking about this question for quite a while now, and I have to conclude that, perhaps a bit paradoxically, it’s more difficult to come up with boring facts than at least slightly interesting ones, I guess because you never really think about the really boring, really obvious stuff ’cause it’s too obvious to think about. Is the fact that I have a photo of Misha as my phone wallpaper sufficiently boring and predictable? 😀

How about you? 🙂

Question of the day.

What motivates you to get out of bed every day?

My answer:

Usually it’s Misha, at least when he happens to sleep with me. I always close the door for the night so that if I’m up when everyone else is asleep I don’t wake up anyone, and if I’m still asleep when people are waking up, they don’t wake me up. Plus it just seems very privacy-invading sleeping with your door open. So whether Misha is or isn’t here, I always close it, which means that when he wants to go out in the morning, I must let him out. People are often surprised how I find that tolerable to hear a moaning cat first thing in the morning and have to get up even when I’m the sleepiest just to let him out, and that it’s like having a baby. I don’t really care, it’s nice to see Misha first thing in the morning and cuddle him for a while, and because I’m so used to doing it by now, sometimes I guess I do it without even waking up. 😀 Also if I need it, I can go back to sleep right away. Typically Misha will be back at my door for his morning nap, waiting to be let in, and then he’ll also need a snack.

If Misha’s not in the mood for sleeping with me, I simply rely on things I like that I have to do every day. Like my language learning or blogging or replying to my penfriends etc. It usually works to get me out of bed. Another motivator which works really well is that it’s not really something my brain likes to keep laying in bed for too long without actually sleeping, because then at some point before I even realise it, even if I had the best night’s sleep, I’ll start feeling extremely and quite unusually sleepy again, or more like tired, in a way that is really difficult to overcome, while at the same time the still awake part of me is getting all panicky out of the blue, in a totally primal, irrational way, and then if I won’t manage to get out of this state I end up having sleep paralysis within minutes. And then it’s all the more difficult to get out of bed, when I’m finally out of it, because it makes me really exhausted, floaty and foggy-brained, plus my anxiety’s usually through the roof at the same time. I don’t even have to lay in bed awake for very long, sometimes all it takes is being awake for a bit longer between sleeps, like when you wake up at night and then it takes you a while to go back to sleep. So I guess ideally if I wake up at night and am not asleep again within like 15 minutes I should get up, even if I’m still feeling like I could use more sleep.

I feel really grateful that even though my dysthymia plus circadian rhythm issues regularly make getting out of bed difficult, it doesn’t often happen to me that I’d be so depressed or out of energy that I totally can’t do it for hours or at all. I guess what also motivates me in a way to get going is that people around me, while mostly supportive, don’t really get the nuances of what it feels like when you have depression or stuff like that, and it’s difficult for people to make the connection between being depressed and having no energy, so I feel like I should get out of bed simply because otherwise people will think I’m lazy or something. One of the signs by which I can tell that I’m properly out of brainergy is that I don’t care about such details as whether people will think I’m lazy or not. I think it’s helpful to always have some sort of an idea, maybe not a whole fully-fledged plan but a reasonably clear idea, of what you’re going to be doing the next day, and especially regarding things that you generally like doing. Since I have dysthymia and not major depression, I’m not normally anhedonic (unable to feel pleasure out of doing normally pleasurable things), which makes finding things I like doing easy.

You? 🙂