Further tales from Mr Hugo’s House of Grooming…

My cats are strange …. which if you’ve read any of this blog in the past you’ll know already… you may also recall that Hugo has a fascination for all things related to human grooming and hair care….(unlike his mother whose only contribution is to eat the “hair spiders” that I remove from the comb to make herself sick…. revolting creature!)

Hugo’s biggest grooming fads (well until this morning) are to comb my hair… which usually happens as I am trying to get to sleep…. he perches on my back, extends his claws and drags them through my hair…. if I don’t react he will continue with this, getting more and more into it until he gets carried away and sticks his claws into my head…. at which point he usually gets turfed off the bed…

The other thing he does is to pluck my eyebrows …. he will place his paws either side of my eyes (at which point I tend to either lie very still or remove him straight away depending on how awake I am) and then gently with his teeth pull out individual eyebrow hairs…. well hair… I am not big on the whole eyebrow plucking thing anyway, and done by the cat is just freaky as well as painful!

He’s also very partial to hair dye…. Not sure why, I am sure that the horrible ammonia/chemical smell of it would put any normal cats off and keep the far away… but no, not Hugo…. The closer he can get the better… though I have learnt my lesson and when my hair dye is developing he is not allowed to sit on my shoulder … (as an aside – have you seen the tattooed sphynx cats on the net? I am pretty sure it’s not a permanent tattoo they put on them, but really, no, too weird, even for me)… I do have to put the packaging from the hair dye straight in the bin as he has in the past ripped open the box to get to the left over chemicals.

This morning however I discovered that he has got over his fear of the hair dryer…..it, along with the vacuum cleaner, used to send him and his mother scurrying under the nearest duvet… alas not anymore! Now I am not one for usually drying my hair… its combination of not having time in the morning, having boring straight hair that doesn’t really require styling and, erm, my ability to blow up hair dryers… I mean seriously, they are such fragile things, you have them on for a couple of minutes and they are either smoking on the back end, going bang and tripping the electrics or setting themselves alight, and trying to take the carpet with them…..  I am sure it really isn’t just me that can make them do this!

Usually I will only bother drying my hair if it is freezing outside and I am going to have to go scrape ice off the car (frozen hair defrosting as you sit at the desk in the office is seriously unpleasant) but today, what with the cold, I decided what they hell I had time I might as well take the worst of the water out my hair. 

So as I flipped myself upside down (no not my whole self, just my head, be sensible here), switched on the dryer .... and was joined by Hugo… who kept trying to pull the hair dryer down towards him… so I blasted him to get rid of him, a bit of hot air, totally harmless……. Only it didn’t get rid of him… he basked, he tarted about under the hot air, he scratched all down my hand when I tried to go back to drying my hair……. after a small battle of wills, which was only partially won when I stood up… he refused to be defeated though and climbed up my back onto my shoulder…. I got my hair dry (ish)… I left the stupid cat curled up around the hot hair dryer impatiently tapping the end of it with his paw….. I did turn unplug it from the socket.

"But you don't look like you'd have a tattoo...."

It's no secret I like tattoos, to me its a mixture of artwork and self expression.  I like to see tattoos on both men and women, though not so fond of the cutesy, cartoon or very garishly bright.   I've recently been spending a lot of time looking at various designs for a character who has half sleeves, back and shoulders covered in an oak leaf vine design which changes colour from a coppery brown through to a pale green depending on the season - yes, I know, but he's a dryad so the colour change can happen for him.

However, it always seems to amaze people that I have a tattoo myself... and what's more a visible one, that isn't covered up.  That said, most people don't notice it - it's not particularly small, it just doesn't scream at you.

Wrist tattoo design

Said tattoo, a Celtic band circling my left wrist, I had done when I was 19 and I've never regretted it.  It's never cost me a job, or a relationship, it's part of who I am. 

What's more I have a kind of freaky immune system which means that I can't wear jewellery, well not unless I want to break out in hives... I do have my ears pierced (erm, a few times) but can only wear surgical steel, which is ok for earrings but not so hot for decorative jewellery.

So for a while I've wanted another one - hell I came out of the tattoo parlour having had it done on such a high that I wanted another one almost straight away.  However, knowing that I have a really really bad impulse control I set myself some guidelines pretty much immediately.  Usually I am of the "see it, want it, get it" mindset - yep, working on that one, sometimes I'm good, sometimes not so much. I've spent a lot of energy channelling my focus into impulses that are non harmful, non permanent and possibly won't kill me - which could explain my shower gel addiction (current tally of bottles in the bathroom stands at 16 - i said I was still working on it didn't I), but with something as permanent as body art I decided I had to want the same design in the same place for 2 years before I went a head and got it.

For a while I'd been toying with having a Celtic knot on the inside of my ankle, but I have psoriasis on my legs and am too worried that it will cause an outbreak... not to mention, I really don't like people seeing my legs because of the scarring. 

So, a while back one of my dogs crossed the bridge after having been with me for close on 15 years, and I got to thinking that I'd like something to remember her by.  I've also since discovered that her daughter has also crossed the bridge, so it seemed more appropriate that I have a permanent memory.  So, hopefully, I shall be getting a set of paw prints for each of my girls on the inside of my left arm in the very near future.  I am hoping paw prints that look something like this: