Catblocked.

Dear Little Cat,

you are very soft, and very cute, and very cuddly. You are also a very friendly cat, and I do appreciate that you like to be in my company. I like to be in your company, too.

I can also understand that you wish to be petted from time to time, and that a nap close to someone you love is much better than just a nap. Finally, I am delighted that you take an interest in my work, and sometimes wish to participate.

However, you curling up on my desk? Especially in a way that means your paw rests on my laptop's touchpad?

Not. Helpful.

Gratuitous Cat Pics.

It has been way, way too long since the last cat pictures here. And this weekend, Madame was sleeping especially... um... curiously, so here you go.


Portrait of a Sleepy Cat with Vampire Teeth:

Sleepy Cat Snoozing on her Back:

Not Elegant, But Oh So Comfy:

She's having a vet appointment today, so she'll be less relaxed and comfy this afternoon... but surely everything will be fine again in the evening.

Why all calico cats are female.

I stumbled across this video, purely by chance, and if you've ever wondered about DNA or why all calico cats are female... you really will want to watch this.



Plus it has really cool graphics... and you get to go "aaaw" about the smallness of the Y chromosome.

Semi-related to this: Medieval Beasties, special edition, over at the British Library blog.

It's taxing. Which means... cat pictures.

Every quarter of the year, I have to file some tax stuff... and guess what? It's time for that. Which is... taxing.

Well, it's not that bad, but it will require some coffee, and possibly some chocolate. While I deal with this and with the backlog of emails and writing and stuff so I can finally get caught up (in my wildest dreams, this happens today), why don't you have a few photos?

... a closeup of the fillet in the Manesse-Style:

... and since you all seem to like those buttons as much as I do:

 ... and finally some gratuitous cat pictures. Because I know what the Internet wants (and I confess that I had a need for them as well). 

That was the piccie part.

If you want more to read instead of cat and button pics, there's a list of 550 archaeological blogs over at Archaeologik - in different languages, many of them English.

Also, this Saturday is International Tabletop Day - see the tabletop day webpage if you want to find a game shop or gaming place in your area.

Gratuitous cat pic. And Codex Manesse.

Whenever there is something new for the shop, I have to take a photo of it... for which I have a photo tent that gets a blue (indigo-dyed) background. Everything gets placed in there, pictures get taken, and then I can put the photobox-tent-thingie away again.

Except this time... it did not unfold as well as it should have. It had probably been stored a tad too long, or twisted somehow differently than normal - it did unfold, but not completely. So I decided to let it sit open for a while longer than it takes to photo the new things.

Which, naturally, led to this:

The cat, however, will not get a place in the shop... even if she tried her best to be a photogenic cuddly model.

You mean you did not want to look at cat pictures? You can look at the Codex Manesse instead - it's completely online and downloadable, all 871 pages of it - here. There's a big and a small version for the download, and it's free. Or, if you just want to browse the pictures, click on the link Bilderschließung in HeidICON which brings you to just the pics, and all of them. All praise the Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg who made this possible!

Things I learned in the last weeks.

Thing I learned in the last weeks: Our little cat seems to have interesting things to do outside, and possibly some territorial/territory time-sharing related issues. At least she spends a lot of time outside, sometimes including the night, and can be too busy to eat even if she declared enormous hunger just minutes ago.

Also, cortisone really (and quite strongly) changes fur colour in cats, giving the fur a reddish tinge. When we adopted her, she had dark fur all over. After getting first a depot shot, and later cortisone pills, the fur on her shoulders and upper back turned really reddish - like a sort of saddle. Now that she's on inhaled meds, it has re-darkened almost completely. Instead, she now has reddish spots at the front paws, where she licks her paws to wash. I had read about this, but it's really fascinating to see for oneself.

I have also found out that it is a bad idea to only have one contact possibility for a given person, at least if it may become crucial to contact that person within a given timespan. This is linked to email etiquette, the very basic level: If the only contact information you hand out to somebody is your email address, you should make sure that a) that person's emails will reach you, b) actually read your email, and c) answer it.

In cases of unpleasantness springing from such problems, even a combination of liberally applied chocolate, coffee and tea (the go-to methods for alleviating life's little itches and pains, at least here)  will not help much. Or, after a certain while, at all.

If you are going for the chocolate therapy, here's a chocolate you might want to try out: Die Gute Schokolade. This is chocolate which has been produced under fair trade standards, and trees were planted to make its production, packaging and transport carbon neutral. Behind this thing is a children's initiative called Plant-for-the-Planet. It's a light milk chocolate, and I really like it. Plus it's absolutely affordable for a fair trade chocolate, and comes without the bad conscience that much of the other choc has attached to it. If you are in Germany, give it a try!

Cats, The Secret Life of.

If you are part of a cat's staff (someone needs a can opener, after all), chances are you will have wondered what your furry friend is up to when outside, and what adventures he or she has. Or how far the territory stretches out.

There has been a recent study made with 50 domestic cats, tracked over several 24h-periods, to reveal the secret life of the common house cat. You can get a first impression of the feline roaming and adventures via the BBC and a little bit more about the background here.

Our cat, by the way, is currently sleeping in a cat bed less than a metre away from me - so I know exactly what she's up to: her post-breakfast nap, which usually lasts until about 5 pm. Then she has important cat stuff to do outside before returning at about 7 for dinner. Such a hard life a cat has!

Has that week really gone by already?

It's Friday, I have a heap of work (among them several things that need to be dealt with soon, sooner, soonest) and no idea where all that time of all that week went to.

In addition, I am fresh out of a glorious idea of what to post today - so instead you get a gratuitous cat picture.

Of a relaxed cat.

Because cats are always something postable on the IntarWebz, right?

The cat peed on it!

Cats are known for many things, and among these things is the fact that sometimes they pee on things. Now there's a whole lot of reasons for why a cat might pee on something - it smelled like pee before, the cat is stressed, the cat is in pain... but whatever the reason - the result is cat piss on something.

And that something might even be a manuscript. Which they might also not use as a perfect place to piss, but just walk over it.

Go follow this link to see for yourself. Me? I'll be checking on the cat now. Maybe she wants a book.

Snow!

It has snowed again - a deep, white, totally beautiful cover on everything. It looks really nice and soft and fluffy and almost cuddly from inside here.
The cat, it seems, has finally come to the conclusion that she will really be allowed back inside even when there's snow on the ground, and has gone off for her morning round in the usual length of an hour or more.

She was abandoned sometime during last winter, and found last year in February, and would not go out into the snow at all at first, and then not  for more than a few minutes at a time - so we speculate that she had bad memories connected with the snow. Accordingly, we took extra care to both encourage her to go out and let her back in again as soon as she wanted to come inside. Which sort of still holds on, so now I'm getting up and checking for cat ears in front of the door rather frequently.

In non-weather-related news: there is progress on the writing front, for both projects. Not much of that is due to yesterday, though, because I had a rather nasty headache and did not get much done in consequence.

I have also done some more spinning on the Great Wheel. This has led to me coming more and more to appreciate how absolutely and enormously crucial the quality of the fibre and the quality of the fibre preparation is for flawless spinning on the wheel, at least if you are not really proficient at it. The search for the perfect-rolag-making technique is still going on here, but I feel like I have gotten much closer.

Since I started spinning with the Great Wheel, I have read about carding techniques and looked at carding instructions and people carding quite a bit, but the up to now best set of instructions is "Handcarding with a Light Touch" by Carol Huebscher Rhoades. It's available as part of an e-book offered by spinningdaily.com; the .pdf can be downloaded for free after you register with the site. (I did, and I do not regret it due to this article. They have a few other free instructional e-books as well. There is also a (not-quite-but-almost-daily) newsletter that they send out with info about new free e-books, though it also includes (and is mostly) advertisement for courses, dvds, books and other things they would like you to buy.)

Life is much better with a cup of tea.

Which is exactly what is standing in front of me right now.

Now for today's content (more or less):

Norway has damaged one of its many road tunnels by burning goat cheese in there. Really. (h/t to Phiala of Stringpage)

Both Kalamazoo and Leeds are casting their shadows ahead - there is a sneak preview of the 'zoo programme available already, and Leeds programme is available. If you are interested in textile-related things, DISTAFF has all its sessions on Thursday, July 4. There are a few very interesting-sounding papers in there, a pity I will not be able to make it to Leeds this year. Online registration will be available from February 15, and the Call for Papers for Leeds 2014 seems to be already running as well.

And in totally different news: Our little cat has relented. Even though her performance in the piece written for at least one human and one cat, named "I have such a hard life and now you are making it even harder unless you do exactly what I want, meow" was absolutely flawless and Broadway-worthy, she did not get around inhaling her medicine. (Nor did she get called to Broadway for performing there.) Though there was a generous portion of cat treats afterwards, as usual. And wondrously enough, this morning it did not seem to be that bad anymore... since all that her performance amounted to was a longer wait for the treats and food and being allowed outside. There was even some purring while inhaling. Cats.

More stacked-up notes.

Here are some more stacked-up notes and dates and things...

- There is a conference about Castles at War, AD 1000-1660, taking place the 29th and 30th April 2013 at Nyborg Castle, Funen, Denmark. More about it here.

- On February 9, the King's College London is offering a course called "Constructing Clothing: Exploring the Making of Dress". More info here.

-Just in case you did not know, there is a manuscript/picture search possibility of the Bibliotheque Nationale de France, called Mandragore.

In other news, the cat was even less fond of getting her medicine this morning. Sigh. It's hard to stay patient and upbeat when it seems to be not at all appreciated... She also seems to think that we are running out of food, since she got us some yummy (in her opinion) fresh prey and gave it to me (only reserving the cat rights to play with it some more, of course). Cats. Says it all, right?

Crazy.

Somehow, this start of week is sort of crazy-ish, or at least madly uncooperative. The little cat has taken it into her head that taking her meds is a hassle, and she does not want it. So the morning and evening inhalation sessions (she has feline asthma) are turning into a battle of wills.

-Meow! I want breakfast! And outside!
-Come here, cat. Take your meds. Have some more cat treats. Good cat. Here are the me...
-Oh lookeee, it's so much nicer to lie down just outside your reach. And oh, even better, over there at the door.... I like to sit at the door. Did I mention I want to go outside?
-Come here, little cat. Take your meds. Yes, good cat, take that treat. And now stay here for...
-Ah, nice treat, and now I sit down at the door again.

So... not so good. I'm now hoping for some feedback from other feline patients for hints on how to solve this.

In addition, I did not get that much work done yesterday, at least not the types of work I intended to get done. And I think the first action of the day (after the Battle About the Meds has been resolved and I have some coffee) will be to clear some more space on this desk. Piles of work... somehow not comforting.

Gaah!

It seems that the season is not only bad for my speed (slowing me down), but also for my sense of time (I totally forgot that I had not yet blogged for today) and for my inventiveness (since I don't have a good idea what to blog about).

Today's earmarked for a visit at the library in Bamberg, and possibly also for a short stroll over the market there, followed by a cup of coffee or similar nice hot drink. It's cold but sunny outside, and everything still has a snow cover - it's almost picture-perfect!

"Picture", however, reminds me that I have a paper to outline and a presentation to prepare and a demonstration to plan. So with that and the other things to take care of, there's enough work for the rest of the week. Good thing that I have a sizeable part of the presentation already prepared from another occasion - I only need to adjust and update it for the next one.

And now... gratuitous cat picture.

She's watching. Remember that.

Oh noes.

Now that it's getting later in the year, cooler, with less pollen hanging out in the air and being possible provokers of allergic reaction, what does our little cat do? She goes and coughs again. Despite getting allergy medication already. Gah.

So we'll be off to the vet (again), trying to find out how bad it is and what we can do against it. Just what I needed to make my scheduling today a little more difficult.

Apart from the coughing, though, she's fine. A little stressed maybe, due to a red tom hanging out in our garden - he's obviously interested in getting to know her a little better, but she is not interested in him, it seems. We're very curious to see if it will develop into a cat friendship or not.

Poor cat.

We had a vet appointment yesterday, and now we have another one for next week - our poor little cat (who seems to be older than she lets on) has bad teeth, and at least three of her molars have to go. There's an inflammation, and fistulas have already developed. Poor little sod - she must be in a lot of pain, but she does not let on at all.

Plus she's going to be on a diet from now on, not because she's too fat, but because she probably has food allergies. It's a little tricky and not totally efficient to put her on an elimination diet since she's an outdoor cat and would be devastated if she had to stay inside for several weeks, but we will try it nevertheless. If we are totally lucky, it's only a food allergy - if not, she's also allergic to something else and will have to be treated with cortisone.

Oh, and her age? The shelter that took her in when she was found in February had estimated her to be about seven years old. Yesterday's X-Ray showed skeletal signs that hint to an age somewhat more between 10 and 12 years of age. We have an elderly cat lady sharing our home!

Lists of Links. But not just yet.

I have found in the last two days not one, but two long-ish lists of online resources in the Internet. They may or may not hold links to pages that are utterly nice and helpful - I don't know yet, but I intend to find out and then post the links.

And while I am at that, and doing my bookkeeping (again! yes!), and a small-to-medium-sized bunch of other stuff that is writing-related, have a gratuitous cat picture.

That's Madonna, our cat, doing one of the things she (like all cats) does best: napping.

Oh that's so Medieval!

Calling stuff that one does not like or that seems outdated "medieval" is something that is... how shall I put it... not getting applauded very much by medievalists. Now, lots of snark can be released onto that topic, but I am not going to do it myself - instead, I am going to link you to Carl Pyrdum's blog, where you can read and laugh for yourselves.

In other and textile-related news, editing on our first Textile Forum Proceedings is going on - and I am utterly thankful that this work is done by somebody who is not me. I won't give an estimate of when it will come out, but I hope that there will be no unforeseen delays and that it is going to be not too far in the future.

The cat, by the way, has developed some sort of daily routine (well, routine in addition to meowing as if she were starving when it's feeding time). The part of her routine the most stable these past days? Her after-lunch nap. After lunch (and after the requisite bit of grooming), she settles down to take a little nap... which ends about an hour before her next meal, at six-ish in the evening. I am continuously astounded by cats' ability to sleep!

Ah, the joy of taxes.

Every year, it's the same game with the taxes here. I get my stuff together... then I wait a few days. Then I check it again. Then I start filling out the forms. Then I check again.

Somehow, I have the feeling that checking again (and waiting a day or two inbetween) might lead to me catching all the glitches and stuff. Occasionally, this is true - but I could probably do with much less checking and re-checking. And thinking.

While last year's tax stuff was extra-interesting because of our wedding in 2010 (which in Germany can change how the whole year's taxes are calculated, and also how the paperwork looks that is getting handed in), this time it's extra-interesting because of the GbR that I founded together with Sabine Ringenberg - a common firm in addition to our own ones, for being able to better support each other. The good news: I've figured out what I need to hand in (I think so, at least). The bad news: I'm not quite finished with filling out the forms and checking them again. But soon...

And just in case you are not at all interested in hearing about my paperwork woes and much more interesting in hearing about the cat: She is well (and currently sleeping on a sheepskin in the study) and it looks as if she's really feeling at home here now. Catsitting by our upstairs neighbours has already worked very nicely as well, and we now know that she likes catnip. (Catnip-smelling hands get nibbled, as do catnip-smelling toys.)
This evening, we'll take her to the vet for a check-up and the final vaccinations she'll need to go outside, and then we can soon open the doors to the garden again and offer her the world. I'm a bit sorry to drag her into the car and to the vet, but it has to be done if she is to roam the garden (and probably the gardens beyond ours)...

Everything is better with a cat.

The cat is getting more accustomed to her new life here - slowly getting used to the new feeding times (as we are), and occasionally doing something to figure out if it's ok or forbidden. She's also starting to play more, and without looking totally uninvolved when she thinks someone has seen her pawing against a ball. Now she's chasing them through the whole living room sometimes, and she's obviously enjoying it. Paper balls, by the way, seem to be the favourite toy for the moment - smallish, lightweight, they scoot over the laminated floors very nicely, and - bonus for the humans - they are really, really easy to replace with the reams of packing paper that I have here for the mail order stuff.

Meanwhile, my tax works preparation is almost finished, and it looks like I'll be able to start filling out the forms via the programme soon. Yay!