Firsts

Today was a day of firsts.

First time I tried to apply a bandage to anyone other than myself.

Poor old Syoma’s had his claws removed and been neutered by the vet. He was asleep for most of Saturday and Sunday, and couldn’t walk even when he was awake. He just stared at his paws in bleary-eyed horror, probably hoping this was a nightmare. Today, though, I was surprised to hear a whining noise at the door to the kitchen as I made pancakes. Syoma had been roused and led to the kitchen by the smell, but his attempts to scratch on the door had ended painfully and unsuccessfully. He’d also done his best to bite out the stitches in his paws overnight, so he was walking around with loose bits of thread hanging from him and looked like a right mess. I felt so sorry for him that I almost gave him a bit of pancake, but, not knowing whether that would mess with some post-operation diet or something, I thought better of it. Instead, I poured all my energy into stopping him from pulling his stitches out entirely. At first, I just hissed at him whenever he started biting his paws, but, being the incredibly bold cat that he is, this deterrent soon wore off. Instead, I tried putting him on my lap while I ate so that I could stop him as soon as he went for the stitches. His response was to try and climb onto my shoulder, like in the good old days before they took his claws out. He got as far as my rib cage and slid pathetically down back into my lap when his paws found no purchase on my jumper. He looked in disbelief at where his claws should have been, and then attacked the dangling bits of yellow thread which were there in their place. I decided that drastic measures had to be taken. I called Aygul and she told me where she kept bandages. I watched a YouTube video on how to bandage a cat’s paw – in which two professional vets were doing the job. Pffft. Looked easy.

It’s not easy. Every time I touched his paw, Syoma yelped and leaped away from me. He sulked in the corner when I gave him an earnest speech about how I was trying to help him, and then bit me when I came to pick him up. Whenever I managed to wrap the bandage more than once around his paw he’d pull his paw out and then gloatingly shake it at me. It took ages and ages for me to finally get the bandage wrapped all the way up his leg, and then I realised that we had no ‘vet tape’ to put over it and hold it in place. I hunted around for a safety pin, tape, anything. In the end I called Aygul, who told me that she didn’t in fact have anything to hold the bandage in place with in the flat. By the time I hung up, Syoma had shaken the bandage off and dropped it smugly at my feet.

First rehearsal of the barbershop quartet.

I chose ‘Hello Mary Lou’, a barbershop classic, as our first song. When we asked the choir director, Andrey Vasilievich, for access to a rehearsal room, he asked to be our fourth member, and offered for us to use the auditorium that the choir rehearsed in. So we all stood around the piano and Andrey Vasilievich bashed out our parts. Each member individually got their line, but the group effort was a bit lacklustre, and people tended to get distracted by those singing around them, and ended up singing each other’s parts. After ten minutes of hard work we called it a day and decided to re-convene when we all knew our parts well enough to sing them without needing Andrey Vasilievich to hammer out the piano accompaniment.

SNOOOOOOOW!!!!!!

I’m very proud to report that this evening, just two blogs after an entry entitled ‘Winter is Coming’, the very first snow of the season began to fall. It’s cold outside, but not cold enough for the snow to settle yet. There will be many many pictures when it does, rest assured.

Chocolate pizza.

I saw a chocolate pizza in a freezer in a corner shop. The temptation to buy it was very strong. I feel like my friends from Italy will have strong feelings about this…

A picture for the sake of a picture