ANOTHER TOM

My daughter rescued a black Persian soon after we moved to Oklahoma.  In a new neighborhood people used to be transferred to other cities in their jobs leaving their pets behind to fend for themselves.  There is a natural creek behind our house.  Animals and humankind make use of it to this day.  The exploring Persian came into the yard when No. 1 daughter came home from school.  She fed him, and he immediately adopted her.  She had to leave her former cat, Shade, in the animal shelter, so she was wide open for a new cat. 


Her dad named the cat, Tom, using no imagination, and he was the second Tom in my life, too.  Tom was a very real contributor to family life.  The area being right next to open country, he took advantage of the rodents who roamed the fields.  He came and went through a partially opened garage door at night, and by morning left at the back door toward the kitchen his best gifts of big, fat mice from the fields.  He also announced his approach as would a hunter with a trumpet -- substituting loud m'rows.  Tom lived several years lovingly cared for by daughter, who combed his long fur to keep him looking his best.  He was most friendly and missed, until he was replace with a mixed color female my son named Grindl after a story character.

The Black Longhair Tom

Today, I recall the Tom my daughter rescued when we first came to Tulsa.  We built a house in a new neighborhood for the benefit of the best schools.  Soon after my six-year old daughter found a cat in
the yard who was friendly.  He was an adult black longhaired feline in good health.  Obviously, he
had been a pet and recognized that this girl had lived with a cat and understood them.  The first thing
she did was feed him, so of course, he stayed.  We soon learned that people already in this area were often transferred in and out of town by large companies.  Unfortunately, they left their pets here to fend for themselves.  At the time we were on the edge of the countryside, and there was a creek full of fish and an open land with a mice population. 


Well, Tom became one of the family, named by Dad, without much imagination.  Tom was a con-tributing member of the household.  We left the garage door up about a foot, so that Tom could come and go at night and get in out of the cold.  When we heard him make an announcement, in  an especially loud voice,  he would drop a large field mouse at the door from the garage into the house.


My mother had also had the benefit of the cat contributor from a female pet who acknowledged special holiday dinners with the gift of a sizable field mouse at the kitchen door.  Her house was also next to the countryside.  My brother, whose pet the cat was still speaks often of "Puss", another truly remarkable name for a pet designated by the parent.  Children should name the pet -- even if everyone has to wait for it.


As for my current Tom, he came from Dallas, such a big city he never learned to catch a mouse, although he has sometimes killed a bird.  However, one couldn't ask for a more loyal live-in friend.

Dutiful and Reasonable Tom

What is Tom's duty?  It is one he has assumed out of his desire to contribute to my household.
The first thing he is so thoughtful to do when he first enters the house -- before he eats his breakfast--
he leads the way to the garage light switch for the yard light.  Long ago it was put on a timer which
has since worn out; however, the switch works manually.  Tom hears the little clack sound and knows
the task is accomplished, and so he leads the way back into the house.  He then jumps up on the
dryer to partake of his morning nourishment, while I supply fresh water for the day.  The food is placed there to keep ants away from it.  Outside, I place it on a table where Tom can finish any food left over at night.  By morning it is gone.


He has stopped defying me when it gets dark and time to go out.  So when he deems it is dark enough in our changing season, he sits down patiently in front of the door leading into the back yard.  If he sits down there to view the wildlife and remain inside, he soon moves to the watch position to the side of the opening door. 


Cleaning up the yard for winter when I do not work in the cold, I found a good-sized swatch of fur
that had lain aside for some time.  I could not tell if it was from Tom or his victim.  Even the most
timid of domestic animals can turn out to be determined fighters.

My House Escort

It appears some cats maybe most, keep tabs on their people.  I have told you about cats accompanying their owners on walks.  Some, I've heard, wait for their person, child or adult, to
finish showering right by the door. 
So does Tom, my good friend.  When he is admitted in mornings, he marches to the inside garage
door before me to turn off the switch to the front yard light.  Satisfied, he comes back in and
jumps on the dryer in the utility room for his breakfast.  Yes, up off the floor.  Cat food draws
ants if any are lurking behind the molding. 
He also waits for me to make the bed and get dressed for the day.  After that, it appears he wants me
to escort him into the back rooms, even on into the utility room where he has another go at his
breakfast.  He eats in small increments at a time.
Today, he spoke most insistently, loud and bossy, even.  It wasn't food.  He didn't want out, certainly.
He jumped up on the bench that goes with the electronic organ.  I petted him and rubbed his jaws.
Apparently, I hadn't done it when I first started the day, and he seemed satisfied afterward. 

You who bond easily with cats may know they will follow you when you walk for exercise as faithfully as dogs, although they may wander a bit and then catch up.  Did you also know that cats were employed in ancient temples to patrol the temples to protect their valuable jeweled images from thieves?  When you see your kitty making rounds in your house about 10 pm, its ancestral memory may have been aroused.  That goes for both males and females. 
Tom the noble follows me about in the house.  This takes place mostly in the morning, because he is basically a housecat.  Lately, I put him out at night, rather that he is less willing to go out than formerly.  As I have said, he is big on routine, but he also changes his routine from time to time.  One routine he has been quite consistent about is leading the way for me -- as soon as he is let in the first thing when I move in the morning -- to go into the garage and turn off the switch to the yard light.  The yard light is standard in our neighborhood from the time each house was built.  Satisfied when that is done, he also leads the way back inside for his breakfast.  He makes short work of that and keeps me in sight while I make standard preparations for continuing my day.


Watch your own cat, and see if I am not right, at least to some extent.  Put fun in your day.

Tom's Routine

I posted a blog in July which I don't see here, so I will do it again -- more brief this time.  I have
mentioned before that Tom is big on routine.  When I first get up in the morning he is either at the door or hears the click of the lock and is there in the swish of a tail.  Before he goes for his breakfast he heads for the door from the utility room into the garage where I touch a switch to turn off the yard
light.  It was on a timer for many years, but the timer finally wore out.  But the on-off switch is
there and works well.  So Tom butts his head against the door to go with me to the switch, running
ahead, and after the "off" produces a soft sound he runs back inside.  I pour out the kibble and he
is already up on the dryer to chomp it down.  Why not on the floor?  The ants do not climb up on the dryer.  Yes, I spray for ants, but the food draws out their descendants.  The bugs got in when the
house was being built in the fall season, and some of them continued to live on through their generations.

Tom's Internal Computer

Right now, Tom is lying on his back up against the wall in my office, his hind legs up and his paws curled.  He is white furred all the way to his legs.  I think I have mentioned before that he is very big on routine, and somehow he always knows where I am -- at least in the house.  Example:  When he first come in in the morning, he goes directly through the kitchen, utility room to the garage door which he puts down his head to butt his way through.  Then he goes just ahead of me to the front
to the switch for the yard light.  It was on a timer, but the timer wore out, and I turn it on with
the switch which does work.  After, he turns and walks, or runs, back to the door and leaps up
on the dryer to eat his breakfast.  I put his dish up to prevent ants from swarming to cat food.  Yes,
I spray for insects, but they got into the ducts when the house was being built, and their descendants
have been there ever since.


In the mornings when I get up he does not appear at the glass door.  Somehow, though, by the
time I have sipped water in the kitchen and go back to the door, there he is with his morning
greeting ready to being his day.  The thing is, I am very quiet, even in turning on the water.  How
does he know I'm up?  Does he hear the water outside the house from the water lines, or is
he psychic?  I think he has a video on his internal computer mind.

Tom's games

Tom is a psychological game player.  What makes a cat want to make up a means of having his way
over the authority of his owner?  It's like a child who has been cooperative with his parent suddenly
becoming aware that it's time to exert himself to see what he can get away with.


Tom, having formerly sat by the door when the daylight began to wane ready to go outside for the night, began to disappear.  When I discovered his hiding place, he would flee and end up under
my bed where I could not reach him.  At first, I waited until having retired myself, he jumped onto
the bed to get my attention.  Then I picked him up, scrambled out of bed with him struggling all the way to the door.  Too relaxed he got out of my arms, but I caught him by one leg and then the other
while I was trying to get the locked door open.  He won.  I ended up with a scratched hand which  really hurt.  Keeping me awake I found him again.  Again we fought, and I lost.  Getting up the third time, because I couldn't get to sleep, I saw him sitting by the door, opened it, and he went out.


After that, I thought twice (a little slow, I thought to myself) and closed off the doors to the bedroom.
Then he hid under a side table in the living room, in sight, but when He saw me looking around the corner he retreated behind the sofa where I couldn't reach him.  I had to move the sofa to get him, but was able to pick him up before he could run off, and summarily put him out. 


After that, all over again, he has retired out of my sight, but where I could see him, having cut off
his routes of escape.  Also, I have approached him with petting and soft words.  Also, I have put both arms under his forelegs and hindlegs in which they extend like a carpenter's sawhorse.  Then, I have
been putting him down at the door while I open it, and he has been going out like a good little boy.


You could say we know each other a little better.

My last two posts failed to get published, so I begin again.  When I was six years old I received my first pet, a cat named Tom.  I had wanted a white cat like the one mentioned in the Peter Rabbit story, but my parents did the best they could and found a pale yellow adult x.  Cats were acquired when a mama cat had kittens, or a stray was found.  Tom was a stray who wandered into my dad's mill where he kept other cats to eliminate the mice.  And he fed them, as well.  At that time, males were not altered, and Tom behaved like a Tom cat. 


I will mention one or two of his adventures.  He loved salmon and always received the scraps in the can of red sockeye.  He didn't push his face into the can, but used his paw to pick up the scraps.  He learned to sit on the kitchen stool when in the house and avoid the wrath of my mother who didn't really approve of cats in the house.  It was there my dad taught this cat to lift up his right paw and shake hands like a gentleman. 
One time Tom did something that really upset my mother and she chase him out with a broom.  The next morning he turned up at the mill, about a mile from home.  It was just a small town.  From then on he would take up residence at our house or at the mill. 


As I said, he was a natural tomcat, and in season he would disappear for a couple of weeks and then return home.  He never failed to announce his return with low murrrr-ows in cadence as he marched up the driveway.  I remember one time he came back thin, scratched, a tooth hanging and was very happy to be fed and petted again.  He was very patient with this little girl who used to hang him around her neck to wear as a furpiece.  Speaking of fur, my mother had worn in her single days a fox neckpiece which had the fox's head on it.  Apparently she couldn't bear to throw it away, although she never wore it.  It remained in the hall closet until my parents moved to another town, and the house was sold.  I guess I used to push the fox fur at Tom, and there was enough fox still in it that he hissed
at it. 
Also in the closet was a small bed made by a neighbor as a Christmas present along with a little chest for my dolls.  My parents always made sure the cat was put out before bedtime, and I had to do it.
One night I looked inn all the rooms for Tom but didn't find him.  At last I looked in the closets, and there in the hall closet was Tom peacefully asleep inn the doll bed.  He looked up at me with such satisfaction I couldn't bear to take him out of the bed.  But my parents were authoritative.

Tom, No.1, story.

I promised you another story about my first "Tom". Yes, he was an unaltered male who disappeared from home at certain
times. I remember him coming home again in the spring season. He marched up the driveway in cadence with his demanding
voice, "Mm-row, mm-row, mm-row." He would be thin, and sometimes beat-up showing evidence of cat fights. Then half
starved he would be fed. In my family, pets were fed milk, bread, table scraps, and the left-over parts of cans of
red sockeye salmon. This was a favorite of Tom, No. 1. He would paw out from the can every cast scrap of that tasty
fish -- very patiently.

He also loved to hide in the hall closet at night when it was time to "put out the cat". In the closet was a small bed for my dolls, specially made by a neighbor who carved a complete set of a Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey circus parade
for his three children. Tom would go to sleep in this bed, and when I finally found him at night, he would look up at me
in the most trusting way. The most contented look would be on that cat's face, and I could hardly bear to put him out
for the night. The authority of my parents made me do it, anyway.

wr5hrhtn

I promised to tell you about my first "Tom". He was my first pet when I was six years old. My parents got me the nearest
color to a white cat I wanted with a light yellow young cat -- no kitten but not fully grown. He was a foundling. My father had recently bought a business which was a feed mill with machinery to grind and store grain. He also sold all
kinds of feeds to farmers. Not only 100# sacks of feed, but salt blocks for cattle and oyster shell for chickens. Yes,
this is what they need. With all that grain in the place you can imagine how that would attract the mice and rats. So he
always kept a couple of cats in residence there, and they tended to wander into the place. He also fed them additional
cans of horsemeat and canned milk from the milk condensery across the road.

So my parents presented Tom to me (duly named). Cats were not so big when I was little; nor were males altered. So he was
a wanderer. Very soon he knew he was useful at the mill, but was brought home to be the pet, otherwise. Then, he learned
he didn't have to wait to be brought home. He arrived on his own. When my mother shooed him out of the kitchen with a
broom, he showed up at the mill in disgust. But he soon returned home. My dad taught him to sit on the kitchen stool and
stay out of trouble. He also taught him to shake hands, and the cat would extend his right paw. He became very mannerly.

I'll tell you more next time. In the meantime, my current "Tom" continues to check on everything I do.

Tom, the wonderful, handsome cat.

It has been a while since I posted anything, because I have been attending to
matters associated with the publication of my first novel, THE HIDDEN CITY, an
adventure, mystery, suspense work of fiction. Faraway places are featured from
which the heroes have to find their way out of assaults on their lives and from
an arch villain who uses his computer empire like "big brother". If this is your
genre, it is now available on Amazon, Kindle, Nook, Notebook, etc. It can be
special ordered from Barnes & Noble as well. I acknowledge my own fault any
mistakes I did not correct. I truly put my mind to it.

But this is to be about Tom, who on the whole, has been a well-behaved, affectionate cat. He spends his mornings and evenings checking up on the local
wildlife, following their flittings and leapings from window to window -- inside
the house. Between times, he sleeps or follows my movements in the house.
He actually waits for me to make my ablutions and dress in the mornings and then
when I move toward the kitchen, and utility where his food dish is. I keep on
telling him he doesn't need me to escort him to his food, but he then proceeds to
take another go at his morning meal. Then another nap. They are so cute when they are asleep. Note that look of contentment when they are successful in getting on your bed and you want them off. Well, not all of you. If yours is an
outdoor cat, he,she may carry in dust or, if heavy, leave tracks on your smooth
bedspread. Tom is very heavy on his feet, and his paws leave prints on the wood
furniture.

Next time I'll tell you about my first "Tom". Cats lived very differently then.

Cats and novels

Good morning,
I am glad you people find cats curious, charming, and companionable. Tom, the intelligent, all-knowing, comfort-seeking friend is often linked to me as though I am his all in all. I guess that's mostly true. And the price of his meaty cat food just went up two cents. Twelve cents more on my food bill. Thank heavens, he is not a large dog.
I am now getting ready to mail out copies of my newly published novel, THE HIDDEN CITY as soon as I get copies. It will be available electronically. More news about that later when it is set up. All good things must be carefully attended to and put in proper order. I am thinking strongly about the best ways to accomplish it.
I am glad Tom is not trying to help me key the computer now. Ya'all have a great spring season. Pet those kitties!

Tom, a Common Tabby but a Noble Cat

Tom, the Alarm Cat
Is it too cold at night for a cat to be outside? Maybe, cats like people number among themselves those who are cold blooded and those who are warm blooded. Tom is a southern cat from Texas. I am from the middle of the country, regarded as
southern in the north and northern south of where I live now -- Oklahoma.
Tom does not like to face cold winds if it is freezing outside. Now that the
temperatures remain above freezing at night he asks to be let out just before
dark. Yes, he sits down by the door. However, sometimes it is a game which might be called, "Yes, I fooled you", and he retreats away from the door. After
doing this several times, he either goes out on his own, of I push him on out with the ball of my foot. He wants out; but before the night is over, he wants back inside. He can jump up to the ground floor window ledges and peer inside
just as he does when inside looking out. When he discovers the room I am in, he speaks. First, he speaks in a questioning manner, then becomes more strident. If he importunes to be let in before ten o'clock, and I open the door, he enters the house. Instead of checking out his food dish, perhaps he will proceed from his entrance door to the other door to go right back out. Another game --"Fool
My Benefactor".
If it is not too cold for him, and he stays out through the night, it may be that
he must rouse the door keeper. So he knows where I sleep and again keeps up his
interminable request at the window. His voice is too loud to ignore and he is never discouraged. For the moment he grants me an interval by going to the door, but if not finding it open to him, he is back at the window. Thus, he is just
another alarm clock I can't shut off.
Now he does have another option which he has often retired to when the weather is
wet or cold. He crams himself into the ash vent behind the fireplace. It is there for the ashes to be removed on the patio side. Then when he hears the door
opening, he is inside like a lightning flash.
Another quirk. Once I am up and have let him in, I go into the garage to turn off the switch to the yard light. My neighbors' lights all go off controlled with
a light sensor. Mine had a timer which set the off and on times. The timer wore
out, so I have to turn on and off the switch in the garage. Tom insists on going
with me to turn it off in the morning. He wouldn't miss those steps into the garage with me, all before he begins his breakfast. But then, as you may know, if you share life with a cat, he is big on routine.