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| Our hero doing his thing. |
Óskar is born in October 1998, making him almost 14 years old. He is grey, lazy, grumpy, extremely handsome and tired. Óskar is a cat. When Óskar first moved into the family, it was an apartment on ground-floor, quite different from his first home on 3rd floor downtown dangerous 101 Reykjavík. He grew very accustomed to this, although there were some disturbances from the neighbour-cat coming inside to eat his dinner. In the end the neighbour-cat got so fat that it got stuck in the window, but that is a story for another day. A few years back the household moved to a 3rd floor apartment and the plan was to get Óskar to retire from out-doors. Not so. After a week of crying and looking even grumpier than usual a decision was made to let Óskar walk up and down the steps to be able to continue his out-door life. Early September his enthusiasm for outdoors diminishes and come December he does not go out at all. The dark, cold and wet weather is not his cup of tea. As it should be with other inhabitants of Iceland, during the winter months Óskar concentrates on sleeping and eating. Mostly sleeping. In a good day he can be found sleeping for up to 20 hours, only taking necessary brakes to pee and eat.
This is called dedication.
Óskar does not like to sleep in the same place many days/nights in a row, cleverly so. But for some strange reason Óskar’s family members once tried to make him ‘a bed’ from an old card-box, a soft pillow and a black shirt that used to be nice until it got clawed (which is a story for another day). To say the least, this was frowned upon and not even looked at for days. Instead Óskar used this opportunity to climb inside a wardrobe and sleep cosily on some freshly washed skirts, leaving a rather thick layer of fur behind. Óskar has also been found sleeping in the living room sofa (but only when other people could possibly want to sit there), chairs, Ikea laundry bags that makes a terrible noise, the bathroom floor and behind curtains. One of the curtains in the apartment is specifically made for blocking sunlight, so they are especially thick. This has been Óskar’s favorite spot for some time, mostly because his snoring sounds noticeably louder from back there.
Another thing Óskar has dedicated his life to, is keeping himself significantly clean. When not sleeping or eating, the changes of finding Óskar cleaning himself are overwhelming. Being a cat with not so much likeness of water, the slow but efficient method of licking has proven to be the most successful. Even though every part of Óskar is spotless most of the time, there is no doubt that ‘the star’ is by far the cleanest body-part. Óskar’s family members know this because of his proud walk around the apartment after an effective wash.
Óskar recently got a little brother: the drooling, babbling, human kind of a brother and the family was curious to learn how this would fit into Óskar’s little perfect world of going out-doors, sleeping and eating. For a year Óskar stayed well away, at least when little brother was awake but now that the drool-monster is almost two and a little bit cleverer, Óskar is kind enough to let the little one pet him and even give him the occasional hug. So even though the years keep piling up, Óskar is still able to adjust to different environment. As long as he can go out-doors in the summer, eat… and sleep.
