Tomi

My beautiful Calico Girl. Her given name is Thomasina, in reference to one of C's favorite films from childhood. Tomi was C's first cat in Paris. I shortened her name to Tomi as it fit her personality: if human, she would be a spoiled girl from a bourgeois Paris family, working as a model. She sashays around swinging her hips as the models do on, well, the cat walk during fashion shows.

She freaked out the most during the move from Paris to East Lansing. She hid most of the day in her secure castle in the basement of our duplex coming out when I was asleep in the bedroom. Only then she would come up to visit C who was up late working in her study. In the morning, if she happened to fall asleep on the couch, hearing me flush the toilet would send her frantically scurrying down to the safety of her castle. Eventually, she got to know me but when we moved to our house, she repeated her behavior: downstairs in her castle, on the highest level of some shelving. Finally, I discovered her weak spot: ham. And ever since, she is my hammy-girl. Working with it at the kitchen counter will bring her from most anywhere in the house, twining around my legs, tailing me with intent, with little meowrs of anticipation. She is Daddy's girl.

Tomi is not a lap cat. C can count on one hand the times she has jumped up in her lap. She does not like to be picked up. She enjoys petting and will emit a loud, rumbling purr when one does so. 

As readers of this blog know, she is the bane of Bindiwan's existence. She despises his presence and constantly is mean to him. She is a lurker, ready to put a fist to his grill as he comes around a corner. Or will crouch down and feint a charge just to mess with him. She is, a mean girl.

There's nothing under this carpet. You're seeing things.

Like the rest, she is a hunter. Her prey of choice are birds although she is comically, unsuccessfully. We'll be eating dinner on the deck watching our version of Wild Kingdom unfold in front of us. They all go back to the grasslands of the Seringeti in their heads when they go into their hunt mode. Occasionally, she will go after mice but unfortunately more often than not, will not kill them outright. We always know when they are bringing in a kill through the portal: them give out what C calls a croon. Which we understand-yes, proud mighty hunter has proved herself again except when she opens her mouth, the mouse, albeit stunned from the swift paw to the head, explodes out her mouth into our house. At this point, she and the others are worthless and things pretty much unfold as seen by Tomi:

What fun! See Mom and Dad run all over the house chasing the mousey! Hear Dad say bad words! See Mom get upset with Dad because he is saying bad words! Oooo what’s that where the couch used to be? Oh, a corn chip-a treat? Why are Mom and Dad yelling at ME??? I’m not in the way! I’m hungry. They never feed me. They are so cruel.

Ten minutes later if we are lucky and the damn mouse hasn't run under the piano, Mr. Mouse has been deposited in the back 40, and we're putting the furniture back. Our crew? Oh, they are asleep or washing or hollering for pate.