Of course, I'll start with Fatty because he likes to be first as long as it doesn't cost him too much effort! Fatty's real name is Tripod, an off-the-cuff remark made by my hubby when he saw that old Fats only has 3 white stockings instead of 4 and so the name kind of stuck.
Fatty was a HUGE kitten with soup plates for paws and promise of becoming an enormous cat. Well, he certainly did THAT! At full stretch on the carpet, from nose tip to tail tip he measures nearly a full two metres. Naturally, a cat that big needs to eat to maintain himself or die. Ha! The thought of not eating never entered the big pig's mind. If he could eat all day, he would... as long as it was carried to him & he didn't have to exert himself too much.
Don Burke from "Burke's Backyard" summed up the Birman cat in a beautiful way, describing them as "lovable couch potatoes". Sure has Fats summed up well. For all that he is a gentle giant, he is also capable of amazing agility & grace of movement which often leaves us gasping in surprise. He has jumped onto a window ledge two & a half metres high without any apparent effort and none of the usual bum wiggling, false starts & scratching & heaving at the top like other cats. One minute he was sitting on the floor the next he was on the ledge. Amazing! Even more amazing to us who have never seen that cat get out of his own way! He even lies on his back to wash himself (unless he can con Ming into doing it for him, sucker that she is, she always does). BUT there is also a naughty streak in that cat that any but a blind man can see. (Hubby is obviously blind, that damn cat can get away with murder.) He torments the two girlcats, steals food & drink (ours, too), plays at ungodly hours of the the night... night?... early morning, as well as inciting rebellion among the troops. The girls would be happy to sleep when we do, but he bugs them & bugs them until they stagger to their feet, wipe the sleep from their eyes & join in any mischief that he's devised!
Fortunately, you have to love him. With his gentle nature & his big teddy-bear face, he's just the dearest cat... I just wish it wasn't MY feet he insists on sleeping on! He's so heavy I have to move him before I can roll over! Big Lug!
Second in the list of misbegotten pets in my home is Ming. A Chocolate Tabby Point Tonkinese. My husband refers to her as "That rusty, moth-eaten sock thief!" Poor Ming. She really shouldn't have come to live in this house, but then, she wasn't to know about Hubby's clothes fetish's. Cat fur is a No-No anywhere near daddy's clothing & pity help any family member unwise enough to "borrow" a piece of his clothing... be it a lowly handkerchief or a sock. Poor old Dingbat fell foul of Hubby within the first week of moving in. She is absolutely obsessed with his socks! And not just his work ones. His really good pure wool ones... and she doesn't just borrow them, she EATS them! Not chews holes in them, but EATS & swallows them. She'll go to extraordinary lengths to get them, too, the little devil. I watched in disbelief one day as Hubby was packing to go away for a few days. He'd pack some socks & leave the room... as soon as he did, she'd sneak out from under the bed, fish around in the bag with one paw, find them & disappear with them under the bed! She obviously knew I wasn't going to stop her! I had tears pouring down my cheeks in an effort to stifle the rising tide of hysterical mirth. Anyway, this happened until he'd packed, (and she had stolen) four pairs of socks. He was just getting ready to close his bag up when I commented that he'd best check his socks. I was beyond help by this stage and when he looked, he was FUMING! As I said, they were all lined up neatly under the bed ready for a weeks menu, I'd reckon. Now when he catches her trying to pinch his socks and yells at her, she yells back and, in defence, will grab some of his shoes, (with laces), and drag them right into the middle of the bed... RIGHT underneath, so he has to lie down on his belly to fetch them out again with a walking stick.
Ming is completely obsessed with our young son. Absolutely adores him & will do anything to make him happy... including doing tricks & stuff. She's a very intelligent little cat, but what a DEVIL! She is the naughtiest cat I've ever come up against. Not bad "naughty", just cute "naughty". She is ALWAYS to be found obeying Fatty's every command or James'... don't know which is worst.
Ming's other aim in life is to see that Lilah, my Siamese, never gets a seconds rest. As soon as Lilah lies down, Ming will stalk her, creeping up on her until she is close enough to spring, slap & run, with Lilah in hot pursuit. As soon as Lilah has vacated the place she was in, Ming will instantly settle into it. Wretch! Which means that Lilah will come to me, telling tales of how hardly done by she is, until I weaken & sneak her a kitty treat which she will take ever so gently, then run with her prize to wherever Ming is and proceed to make the most noise possible while chewing up the snack! Little creeps! I think that I'd have to say, if Ming was a human, she would have been burned at the stake by now!
And so I come to Lilah. Last, but by no means the least loved of my cats. She is a lovely Lilac point Siamese with a disposition only a mother could love. In fact, she is in her usual position, sitting on the mouse pad making sure I get all her details correct. Lilah is far and away the oldest cat of my three... going on to 13 years old, which accounts for her disposition, but it certainly doesn't account for her constant stirring and busybodying behaviour with the other two. Nothing delights her more than in getting one or both of the others in trouble and, if it means the occasional smack on the bum for herself as well, then I think she thinks it was worth it. I have written at some length about "Happy Hour" in our home, but guess who is usually the main instigator? Lilah, that's who! And once she has wound the other two up into a positive screaming pitch of excitement, she will usually retire from the lists and wait for the bum smacking & shouts of anger to begin. Then she will sit, smugly surveying the chaos she has created, in no danger of getting into trouble herself, because she backed out of the riot at least 15 minutes earlier! In fact, if the going has become a little TOO violent, she will go to bed, shimmying down inside our bedcovers where she will remain until the coast is clear.
Even as I sit here typing, with one eye watching her, she is trying hard to get Ming into trouble. She's hanging over the edge of my desk, trying to coax the "klutz" up onto it with her, knowing full well that Ming will inevitably bring something down on herself and thereby incurring a growl or a swipe from me to keep her off! Little Miss Innocent she ain't! I love them all to death and couldn't bear the thought of losing them. I know Lilah isn't much longer for this world but, my goodness, she's making a great time out of the time she has left!
Introducing.........Mactavish!
Mac writes: "Well! I'm exhausted and it's all the fault of those other three big cats and my human slaves. I have to chase those bigger cats all over the house & give them no peace. This is my mission in life and nothing will stop me from achieving it. Not even when one of them gets a bit fed up and turns with a quick cuff under the ear for me and a "hissthspit" of warning. HA! They don't scare ME! I'm a KILLER! Protector of all I survey! Minder of the Kitty Litter Trays! Keeper of the food bowls! (Dunno why THAT one seems to tick them off so much... I'm just being CAREFUL that no-one ELSE eats all the food).
Then,of course,there is the little bitty human slave who doesn't at ALL seem to understand that I'm too little to be picked up upside down or sat on. My human slave, the big one that the little one calls "Nanna" actually got very cross with her today and put me in the outside pen while the bitty slave was visiting. I heard her muttering something about the "the darned cat cost more than that kid and for it's own safety it's going in the pen". She released me back into the house after the bitty slave left and by then the young BOY human was home from school. I love him! He smells of really great stuff like dirt, sweat and other yukky boy things. So I treated him to a free for all in the house, chasing him all over the place, over the sofa, under the coffee table, over his bed, into his Mum's room... (funny, that. He didn't chase me in there. His Mum said... "Don't even think about it, James,"so he waited until I got bored and came out by myself)... then the chase was on again!! GREAT fun, it was! THEN my human Mum brought out my box! MY box! My Very Special Box! It has all my toys and stuff in there and I'm still little enough to get right in there with them... what fun!
I started to get a bit sleepy and I was just about to go lie down in my basket when my human mum sent my human boy out to bring the other cats in from the pen. Well, what could I do? Good manners dictates that a gentlemen should always welcome someone home, so I waited patiently at the door for Ming, Lilah and Fatty to come in. As each passed me by I nipped them on the ankle and tapped their backs... just to let them know who's who and what's what.
*Yawn*.........Time to turn in for a bit, I think. WHAT a day!"
