does tom have low self esteem?

(out of the draft box)
started 3 June 07.


"always struggling for attention??"


that was the one line I wrote then supposing it would trigger an entire blog. Well, here goes.

Tom is a very out of the way, in the way cat. He likes to be the centre of attention but he loathes to be petted (except on his terms). (true story! Spart has said as much about him here)

Spart and I used to spend hours talking about Tom - hours!!! And I know he loved every minute of it - in fact, I wonder if the reason he is such a mammoth cat has less to do with food and more to do with love and admiration for he sure got his fair share of that. And Tom loves attention. A number of visitors have remarked on what a handsome boy he is (he hears and catalogues each compliment). But let any of those visitors try to pet him - for the most part - they receive a cold (warm furry) shoulder and Tom promptly hides under the table.

However, when spart and I had animal visitors, it became clear that Tom despised any attention given to other cutes in his house or in his presence. In fact - if we even talked about how cute Lilybell, or Rileyboy or Ashes is Tom would give us STINK EYE.

So, Tom's constant - subtle, yet none too subtle attempts to gain attention made me wonder if perhaps Tom has low self esteem. Unlike many other cats he is not always in your face (unless you haven't been home all day and he's hungry) but at the same time - he always craves compliments.

But perhaps I understand it in too human terms - perhaps "self esteem" is not a concept that can be applied to cats because one of the very descriptions of cats is that they are gods unto themselves. :) So I will not insult Tom any further by suggesting such things - instead I will compliment him: CUTE!! CUTE! CUTE!!!!!!

(heart, tulip)

(ps any tom lovers please add input)

Into the draft box

The difficulty with "out of the draft box" for "tom tales" - is that frequently my drafts here are so brief that posting them won't make any sense for the reader - or writer - because often tomtales drafts are just one line!
I always think when I write them that I'll remember the entry completely because Tom is such a colourful character and the entry was completely formed in my head - so I won't forget!.....
so here we are with a bunch of one word drafts - a year or two after the fact - and no clue what I'd intended to write.... *sigh*
so I will have to try my best. here is the first one.
(spart! help!)

heart tulip

Too long

It's been too long since I've writen. not since last July!!
so much has happened since then. and aside from being lazy I suppose I didn't quite know what to write. and now (as you may or may not know) - I no longer live with the boy!
what does this mean? you say
...
will I close the blog? will I simply make up stories to write? will I listen to Spart's stories and try to relay them??
I really have no idea what I should do. but I like this blog and the pics of the Cute - and I never finished all the stories I have to tell - so I suppose I'll keep it around in the hopes that I do finish the stories; and besides - in a few weeks I'll be reunited with the boy when he comes to stay for a holiday - so I'll have stories then I'm sure.
sometimes I want to relate the story of our moving day - but I feel sad to think of it (deep deep deep down I miss Tom terribly and am loathe to think of the day we parted! - who would have thought I would become such a cat-person.... a Tom-person! he has me wrapped around his finger....).
so instead of thinking of such a time I will think of the things he will do when he comes to visit - like I think he'll hide under my bed, I think he'll sniff things, I think he'll be scared, I think he'll sleep on my feet, I think he'll sniff my eyelashes......:)
can you tell I'm excited (and a little bit odd)
(heart) tulip

ps. any suggestions about what I should do with the blog?
and what the boy may do when he comes?

On Tom: Subject is very cute!

July 21, 8:17 am
Subject has strategically placed himself in the sunlight on the floor in my room. Subject appears to be freshening up, licking paws and arm, ceases after 10 licks and lies, head resting on left arm. Subject snorts and appears to have fallen asleep.
(figure 1. large squares represent sunlight surrounding cat).
8:20am
subject makes smacking noises with his mouth as he shifts slightly, moving head to rest on floor (figure 2). Eyes slightly open - but glazed over - subject too lazy to close eyes for sleep.
8:22am
subject's ear twitches and his eyes move slightly - appear to roll farther up to the back of his head as subject falls into deeper sleep (figure 3).



subject's morning placement in warm room in the sun often leads me to suspect that subject likes the warmth more than the cool. however, verdict still unclear. Fur coat must be exceedingly hot on a warm summer day. evidence: K leaves on the AC and the fan for him and he generally lies sprawled under the coffee table appearing to drink it all in.

So cute!

drawings by detective Tulip - rendered mostly to scale although no scale can do justice to the magnitude of Tom's greatness ;).

Tulip signing off

Lily is very appropriately named. The other day I bought myself some cala lilies - I needed flowers and I thought I would try something different. When I looked at one of the flower one morning I noticed the swooooooop that it has: the beautiful, delicate - strength of it; and I thought of little Lily who has such a careless swoooop about her.
When Lily and Reilly first appeared in the house Tom was perturbed to say the least. Loudly barking, overly friendly dogs are never welcome in a cats den and Reilly was no exception. But as soon the playful pup was safely tucked away in his house Tom went to inquire after the other visitor. He put on his best tie and went acourting - he meowed and sang some notes we've never heard him utter before or since but Lily was not impressed. For the entire time she simply hummed.... there really is no better way to describe it except maybe 'vibrated' - her displeasure. She sat just out of reach and did not looked impressed. I used the word 'vibrated' because the first time she started to do it we thought that someone's cell phone was vibrating! it was something that she continued to do only did when Tom was around and her little body emitted such a sound you could hear it across the room - even before you knew Tom was about Lily seemed to sense him.

After the initial Tom/ Lily meeting things went down hill. Lily's response of "Get away from me you Dirty Old Man" did not go over well with the boy. They say Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned - I beg to add - nor a cat spurned. From that moment on it was as though Tom had called a 'Hit' on little Lily. Whenever we were not looking he would make a beeline for where ever she was at and attack. Lily is a quarter of Tom's size and probably a tenth of his weight -AND she has been de-clawed! lucky for her she is fast.... she would head straight under K's bed whenever Tom came around. and she would scream bloody murder on the way there. the first time that I heard it I thought that she was being killed for sure. if Rielly was nearby he would come to her defense - barking at Tom or running at him. And on such occasions K pulled out her special secret super weapon. .....
more on said weapon in next episode.

tulip

ps. pics taken from www.craigjonesphotography.co.uk and www.reflectiveimages.com

three blind mice

So here is an introduction to the stars (in order of appearance)

Thomas Cat playing Garfield

Lily Bell as Nirmal

and Reilly Boy as Odie

Thomas is a mild mannered, oversized (but we love him), handsome young (or old?) man who is always ready for a bowl of food, a game of string and is never ready for love. He feels very strongly about guests and goes out of his way to make them feel unwelcome - his tactics include trying to swipe their eyes out with specially sharpened claws.

Lily is a happy go lucky CUTE!!!! who always has something on the go - likes to be the centre of attention - especially if it involves laying on a laptop keypad (and constantly changing the setup), or knocking down important photos, bottles and lamps from high shelves... her way of moving is not a purposeful or malicious destruction; - it's more careless - or better still carefree: - like - whoops! there goes an expensive china dish.......
she is the size of a shoe and the weight of a flee and loves to be stroked. she purs like an engine when content.

Reilly is a cute Corgy who seems to think that he is a human or maybe a cat. He likes to be under foot and near to hand. He likes a good game of ball or laser and more often than not the tail will wag the dog. He acts as Lily's bodygaurd/ henchman.

and so the story begins!

The Mystique of Tom

Tom is a mysterious cat.
Even though he can be very expressive ("where's my food at B*tch?!" and "are you kidding me?? love for the second time today") it's difficult to say that we know him in entirety because we have no idea about his past. We don't know how old he is - possibly 5 as he was "2" when K got him 3 years ago - but there's no telling since the Animal shelter's records are not always that accurate... He seems to be 94 the way he sleeps alllllllll day... and he really can be a grouchy old man.
So many other things we don't know - has he lived with dogs? or other cats? does he have kids? did he ever have any significant lady friends? (I'm sure he did - he can be pretty handsome when he's not being a jerk).
I have figured out that he has gone to school and is currently taking a break before completing his PhD in the Art of Sleep (he did outstanding work in his Masters in the subject and I'm sure he would have published some great papers but one Mastering in the Art of Sleep is far too busy sleeping to publish).
As for him living with other animals - we've recently been able to witness it first hand.
We recently looked after some other pets - that's right other cute animals sharing Tom's tiny space - I can tell you he was NOT amused. The first was a Cute named Ginger who came for a few hours - she is a little (something) poo - a white brown tiny tiny puppy who just loves to play. She darts around the house and tries to chase your toes or hangs onto your slipper as you walk, but the minute you pick her up and set her down on your lap she's out like a light. We had a good nap together. And when K got home we brought Tom out of my room so he could find out what was going on.
Ginger is about a third of his size (I'm not even kidding) and Tom was terrified of her. He ran straight under K's bed and stayed put for the rest of the afternoon. We thought maybe it's that he's just afraid of the dog smell, and then K pointed out that maybe he doesn't realize how big he is - maybe Tom doesn't know his own size! which would explain his fear of a little runt and the fact that he likes to jump onto our bookshelves and doesn't seem to have any fear of pulling the entire shelf down on himself - it would seem that he is oblivious of his size (for those of you who don't know Tom is about 20 pounds and a looooooong cat).
whether it's that he does not know his size or that he needed some more time to get used to Ginger we can never be sure but later on that week we learned a lot more about Tom's interactions with other animals...stay tuned for the next installation of Tom Tales!

tulip

what's the buzz?

So Tom's latest annoying thing to do is chew on electrical plugs. The other day he chewed all the way through the VCR cable. We were right mad about that one - he was just trying to be an ass because he was hungry. Before this we hadn't really been aware of his newfound electrical fettish. Although it does explain why, one day, K came home to find him with his eyelashes curled. His eyelashes are long white strands of hair that stick straight up in singles. They're quite hard and sturdy, but that day, 2 of the lashes over one eye were all crinkled up and he wouldn't let us touch them. We mused that maybe he was experimenting with K's straightner - using it to curl. My take on it was that he'd bitten off a bit more cord than he could chew and gotten a nasty shock... I guess another hypothesis could be that he recieved some news that made his hair curl - literally (hawhaw).

another recent Tom related tale involved a pretty bad joke that both K and I thought hilarious - we must have laughed for days at that one. As I mentioned before - Tom can be a real ass when he wants to be - especially when he's hungry. One day on our way out he was encircling legs, tripping us up and being a general jerk, and K said - " we really do have a pet ass - not a pet cat" to which I replied - "can you imagine if we really had a pet ass?" (I'm laughing even now) - I mean - can you imagine?! - sharing an apartment with him would not be a small feat.... sharing a bed with him would be no small feat indeed!!!! And his litter box~!!!!! well - let's not even speak of it.
I mean, think about those times Tom likes to jump on top of the futon or onto the bookshelf, things suddenly take on an entirely new perspective. and his midnight songs would be something for the neighbours to complain about. The deep throated MRAUW!!! is difficult enough - imagine if it was a HEEEHAWWWW!!!!

ok. enough silly musing. we are glad that our cat - as much of the ass that he is - is still a cat.