Notre matou, part II

I wanted a cat with attitude and I got what I asked for. Like all cats, Tobi sleeps, licks, eats, licks some more, watches the world go by from either our bedroom window or the patio door. At night, when we are having dinner, he sits on the sill of the dining room. That isn't bad as such, but he wags his tail, in the blinds, so he seriously makes a racket. He when we try to get him off, he talks back at us. Which brings me to the strange things he does.

Here are some of the "odd" things that he does:

1. He's a Buddhist: every time he goes upstairs, he stops by the Buddha. This is not a seldom act - he does this every single time. When we have guests over, they commented on the little stop he does...
2. He "talks" back to us: whenever we tell him not to do something and it's not what he wants, he'll meow back at us, but in a very "accusing" tone...
3. He meows "quietly": when one of us is sleeping and he meows, when we tell him to be quiet, his "tone" goes lower, he kindda wispers his meow...
4. He loves Tzaziki, and Jalapeno chips...
5. He taunts us from the blinds...
6. He does "kitty nautilus": he pulls himself along the posts of the railing...
7. He is always with us. We're watching tv, he's on the back of the couch. We're in the office, he's by the door or in his bed...
8. He sleeps with us, but never on the matress' sheet directly. He won't even walk on it!
9. Every time he goes out on the front porch, he jumps over the border between the tiles and the hard wood floor. There's nothing there to jump over, but he does...
10. As soon as the garage door is open, he goes in and rolls on the concrete floor like there's no tomorrow...
11. He always have one of his eyebrow broken...
12. He lets us pick him up like a football without resisting, just sits there...
    

Those are some of the strange behavior Tobi has... There's more, trust me. He's a weird cat... but we love him.
This is a position he takes evertime we make a fire. When we start crumbling paper to lit the fire, he runs to us and sits by the fireplace waiting. He's often in our way when we try to make a fire. You can see that he's impatient, he wants something. Once the fire is lit, he will lay down infront of the fireplace, but when it gets "really" hot, he rolls over on his back and just sleeps ther, Spread Eagle truly enjoying the heat. At times his fur gets so hot, but he doesn't move... he's happy. (His purrs are often an indicator of his satisfaction level).

Looking at him in this position, gives a new meaning to "Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire..." doesn't it?! And trust me, if they were there, they'd be roasting!!

Since we got him, we always played with him, roughly (to be expected with us, right?), especially hubby. They regularly have little fighting sessions. It is as if Tobi knows that it's "play fighting". He bats hard, and I think he's a lefty! And when hubby doesn't fight anymore, Tobi will come by and bite him a little on the arm to continue the match. It's fun to see how the cat gets upset at times, hair raised up on his back, ears back, really pissy look to him. With me he doesn't really do that. We each have our games with him. And they are quite different.
When hubby picks him up like a football, and that he just looks around with this look of "OK, get it over with" on his face, or when hubby gives him a "raspberry" on the belly, he never wiggles or try to get out of it - he takes it like the pet he is!

All this to say, that for that last 11 years Tobi has been part of our life and we can see that's he is getting older... Just like hubby, he has white hair growing in new places... His moustaches are white, all white as well as his eyebrows hairs. Look at these pictures, you can tell that he's now un gros matou:


On this picture, Tobi was climbing everywhere, the back of that chair was pretty narrow, but he managed to sit there. You can also see that he still had his claws. One time, while hubby was doing the dishes at the sink Tobi climbed him. He basically clawed his way from the ground to hubby's back. While in the sweat pants it was funny, but when he got to his back on the T-shirt it got a little more "painful". He also used to jump from one person to another. Sitting where he was (on that high chair) if one of us would be near by, we would coax him over and he would basically throw himself at us.
Once he jumped from hubby's arms to a friend's, who was just standing around in the kitchen. He would take some serious leaps (of faith, at times!) but never got hurt...


This is Tobi a few days ago, in his bed. Can you tell that's he's now an old tomcat? Ok, so I took the picture pretty darn close, but I wanted you to see his white wiskers. On this shot you can't really tell that he's grown into his ears, unlike when he was a kitten. He was all ears.
Doesn't he have a gorgeous coat? It is so shinny. Augie will say "Of course, with all the freakin' liking he does!", and he's right. I think he has a nervous condition, he's sound asleep and he'll wake up to give himself a few licks.

And the hairballs... lately it's almmost daily! Last weekend we changed his food for some that has some hairball remedy in it... Let's hope it does the trick, or at least slow down how often he has them. Over the years, I've trained him to have them over the hard wood floor. I used to get up in the middle of the night, when I would hear him gag, and basically throw him on the floor or chase him down - those things are a bitch to clean off the carpet. Now when he starts gagging he goes down the stairs all by himself! The other morning he had one in front of the tv unit and Augie stepped in it... Not a happy camper, let me tell you!

Overall , we have a good kitty and we love him. As for how he feels... well... we don't really give him a choice since we don't let him outside, but I think like my father-in-law says each time he sees his "grand-cat": "Such a content cat".

You got that right Guszti...