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Katja 00: Prolog 2 - When TUGs were simple viewtopic.php?t=23905
Katja 01: What's a collar without a leash? viewtopic.php?t=23816
Katja 02: Making the shopping mall less boring viewtopic.php?t=23853
Katja 03: A question of peg and chain viewtopic.php?t=23881
Katja 04: Caged Birds Do Sing viewtopic.php?t=23931
Katja 05: How not to dance viewtopic.php?t=23950
Katja 06: A Bald Decision viewtopic.php?t=23963
Katja 07: The Big Red viewtopic.php?t=23977
Katja 00: Prolog 1 - Early Signs
I don’t know how or when Katja’s affinity for TUGs developed — it seems like it’s always been there.
Not in chronological order:
- I remember going Christmas tree shopping with her once. Like some kids, she insisted on going through the tree-netting machine, emerging on the other side wrapped head to toe in stretchy plastic mesh. Unlike most kids, she walked with us across the Christmas market still wrapped up — arms pinned to her sides, forced to take little steps — trading the continuation of her “captivity” for sweets and little trinkets she might have got there.
But I think she was the only kid who stayed netted all the way home, only getting out of it when we were inside and she had to take off her winter clothes. It was a bit heartbreaking for her to accept that the net couldn’t be reused. (Btw, how much is such a netting machine?)
- When her little brother got toy handcuffs for Christmas, she showed remarkable patience serving as his willing prisoner.
- When they received reins for playing horsey, it was usually her who suggested the game — and most often, she’d be the one being reined.
And when they were tired of running around, she would sometimes show him how to tie his horsey to a chair, table leg, fence post…
- At a holiday park once, we came across an animated display of Hansel and Gretel — the story where the evil witch locks Hansel in a cage to fatten him up. It must have struck a chord with her, in her own special way. On the drive home, she started asking very practical questions: how did Hansel sleep in such a small cage? Where would he go to the bathroom?
- She'd spend whole afternoons blindfolded. Learning how to navigate the cottage, how to eat and drink without sight, trying a blindman's stick outside, trying to solve her earliest preschool puzzles now without sight — she even tried to teach herself Braille.
Just riding in the car blindfolded didn’t work for her. Without visual input, the car's motion would make her sick within minutes.
- Whenever she came with me to one of the local wineries, she’d get all twitchy and fascinated around the big old wooden barrels.
If one was out of use, she’d want to squeeze through the manhole and climb inside. Every single time.
- We had a big round laundry basket with a lid, and the washing machine was in the basement of our apartment building.
When I went down to do the laundry, she would climb into the empty basket for the trip back upstairs.
With the lid closed so no one would see her, I’d carry her all the way to the apartment. (Just kidding, we had an elevator.)
Once there, she’d stay hidden inside until she’d had enough — then push from the inside, tip the basket over, and crawl out on her own.
- When I’m working from home and she talks too much, she’ll sometimes quietly take a strip of duct tape and stick it over her mouth.
It’s her way of reminding herself to be silent — and it usually stays on until I take it off. Until then, she communicates only in gestures.
(Not quite true — she also sends me SMS or instant messages.)
Silencing herself with duct tape was a habit that followed her into university library, I've heard.
- And of course she'd ask me to zip up her winter coat with sleeves empty, her arms tight at her side.
To top it off I'd stuff her unused sleeves into to the pockets of the coat - she almost looked normal and it made Christmas shopping so much easier.
- After seeing that Star Wars episode it was a real struggle to explain to her why she couldn't be Chained Princess Leia next Halloween.
- Any circus show with a magician's assistant disappearing in some contraption or with a contortionist sqeezing into a tiny container triggered a lenghty and detailled technical discussion.
- Uncle Eric had a serious sports car. It had a roll cage and racing seats with six-point belts. One time he came to take Katja for a spin. When they came back, he was somehow disappointed. Katja seemed far less impressed by the car’s speed and his driving skills than by the six-point belts that held her strapped so unyieldingly into the seat.
- Like many kids, she wanted to be buried in the sand when we were at the beach. Just more often and a little longer than most — and in her own way:
We’d dig a shallow hole for her, long enough for her whole body, from feet to head. She’d lay down on her back. Then she’d put a thin cotton kitchen towel over her face, and we’d bury her. From her legs to her neck with just enough sand that she could escape by herself if necessary. Her face would be covered with a thin layer, just enough to blend the towel in with the surrounding sand.
And with that, she was gone — vanished from the face of the earth, one with the sandy vastness of the beach ... she loves it to this day.
(With so little sand and the thin towel over her nose and mouth, she got enough air.)
I was always shocked how quickly she disappeared from our minds. After burrying her we spent the afternoon as if she wasn't there. We talked about her, not with her. Sometimes we were startled when she suddenly stirred to release herself. I was alway a little afraid we might forget her one day. With all our belongings already packed back in the car, it would be really hard to find her on an empty beach as the light started to dim.
- Once, when I was just going to bed, I heard Katja call me from her room. I opened her door and saw what looked like a scene from The Exorcist: dressed in her nightshirt she was bound spread-eagled to the four corners of her bed. But when I rushed to untie her, she stopped me: "I called you to help tie me. I want to know if I can sleep like that. I could properly bind my legs and my left hand, but now I can't tighten the knot on my right."
To the two of us, such a request made perfect sense. I tightened the final knot and offered to draw the duvet over her. I gave her a kiss on the forehead, which I knew she hated. When I left her room I said, "I’ll leave your door and mine slightly ajar, so I’m sure to hear you if you call me tonight." Then I went to bed. At around 3 a.m., I woke up and heard her calling me. I stumbled over to her room.
“Daddy, you were snoring so loud,” my little princess had the audacity to say. (Her voice was still a girl's — and she didn’t float above her bed.) “But, while you're here, please untie me. I didn’t sleep much so far.” Grumbling, I untied only her right arm and went back to bed.
Some of these events might become stories here on their own.
