my cat hates me

[extemporanea]

Things Hobbit has killed recently:

1. Two geckos.
   
2. Several moths and a sort of demented cranefly thingy, loudly, at 2am.
   
3. The sleeper chair in my study, repeatedly.
   
4. The living room carpet, repeatedly.
   
5. My hand, repeatedly.
   
6. My left foot, when I incautiously moved it under the blankets at 4.30am this morning. (I awoke abruptly, flung my calf into cramp, leaped out of bed with a startled yell, ejecting an even more startled Hobbit in a graceful arc to the floor, and then couldn't get back to sleep at all. I'm a little frayed. However, possibly we're even on that one, he's still sulking at being suddenly and summarily ejected from the bed.)
   
7. An assortment of cat toys, including The Glittery Ball With A Bell In It, The Strange Feathered Fish, The Multi-coloured Gerbil Of Paradise and The Drug Hedgehog.
   
   Things Hobbit has failed signally to attempt to kill in any sense whatsoever:
   
   1. The black-and-white local feline who wanders at intervals into the house to steal Hobbit's food and play with his cat toys.
   
   Things that, in addition to Hobbit assaulting my feet unexpectedly in the small hours, are stuffing up my sleep patterns something 'orrible:
   
   1. The fine-tuned ear I have developed for the black-and-white local feline eating Hobbit's food in the small hours because I've forgotten to hide the food-bowl in the cupboard when I went to bed. The distinctive crunching noise is apparently absolutely distinguishable from Hobbit's own version, presumably on the Mothers Recognising Their Own Babies Crying principle, and can wake me out of a sound sleep and/or interestingly trippy Sherlock dreams in about a second flat. (Apparently filtering Sherlock through twenty second-year critical essays on same will do weird things to the subconscious). I feel somewhat as though I am living under siege. It's boring. And very bad for the sleep patterns.
   
   
   
   Do not trust the look of innocent enquiry. While he is not actually killing the sleeper chair in this photo, neither is he defending the house against marauders of the black-and-white feline persuasion. (And what's with the recurring black-and-white motif, anyway? Pre-Macavity the marauding tomcat Chez EL was also bicoloured chiaruscuro. Apparently it rots the moral fibre). Rather than admiring Hobbit, who is currently being obnoxious on all fronts, pray admire the cushions, Wol, for the use of (courtesy jo&stv) and Girl Genius, for the use of (courtesy EL).