Annoucement:


I will be appearing with my novel THE HIDDEN CITY at the Hardesty Regional Library, January 9 from 1:00 to 4:30 pm.  The event is a Book Fair featuring speakers for readers and writers.  A number of Tulsa area writers will be present with their books.  I would love to have you visit me there.

No Trespassing

The air suddenly filled with an eerie sound -- a higher pitched howl than a growl, but coming from a growling throat.  Tom sprang from the chair with the soft, fake-fur throw to the bed below the window.  He reared up on his hind legs to look out the window.  I followed his gaze.  On the high
board fence separating my property from that of my neighbor was a cat with a collar.  Tom had yet
to be influenced by a nearby cat, except outside where he was most likely to retreat before a strange
cat.  He jumped up to the window sill to make his presence authoritative.


Tom repeated the howl over and over, his altered voice still affecting his speech.  The cat on the fence didn't look in his direction through the window.  Why did this cat excite such a menacing response in the cool-cat personality which is Tom.  My impression was that the fence cat was a female, not that such has ever had any real affect on my altered Tom.  Yet in some ways she resembled Tom, but with much more white fur.  In fact, she was white with several small patches of striped fur of the same color as Tom's mostly striped head and back.  Only his chest and underbelly are white. 


Did he regard this feline as a relative that hadn't acknowledge his territory?  Or was this a sudden and very emotional warning to the marauder?  Stay off my space.  Can't you tell it is NO TRESPASSING here?

My Daugher's "Tom"

I have written much about the Tom I have adopted from my younger daughter after her divorce and her need to establish a new life.  That was seven years ago, and Tom is thoroughly my cat, demanding all the rights of affection from my, as well as, food, water, rights to all my domicile offers.


But  when we moved into the house I now inhabit when my children were children, my first daughter found a black cat that followed her up from a creek that ran back of our house.  She had to leave her
cat behind in Illinois when we moved here, so she welcomed and fed the long-hair 't feline who was so friendly.  He had been  someone's pet and needed a new home.  Sadly, in this neighborhood, when people moved away they left behind their pets to find for themselves.  So we had a willing tomcat and mistress. 


In the second grade she wrote lovingly of him as an elegant cat -- Tom, named by her father, a farm boy who considered all animals must earn their keep by being useful.  He wasn't used to cat being anything but catching mice in the barn.  So, as she continued to write her essay, "Dad calls him that fleabag, etc. and etc.


However, Tom did contribute to the general welfare of our family.  The housing plat had taken over a field on the edge of habitation which was not yet filled in as a residential area.  The field was rich with field mice and possums, skunks, squirrels and bluebirds and meadowlarks, long since vanished, except for the squirrels and rabbits and the occasional possum.  I also hear ducks downstream from the natural creek that has become a city-widened drainage system.  Tom often caught large field mice and brought them to the back door, proclaiming loudly his gift.  Not to mention his pride in the catch.
Of course, we praised and petted Tom for his thoughtfulness.


Tom was a loved pet by all the children, combed and fed by his mistress. 


To continue a rather long history of this Tom, his life was at risk one time.  A neighbor came racing by trying to catch her boxer pet.  Just as the dog past, Tom on the hood of a car in our drive jumped on the dog's back.  When the large dog got near the telephone pole at the very back o property, the cat jumped up onn the new pole with a new coat of creosote.  What should have been a \successful retreat turned into a cat's worst nightmare.  The dogs teeth ripped open his belly.  He
made it on up the pole as only a cat could.  The owner got hold of the boxer, but I could see a red line un Ton's underside.  He was able to come down the pole, and was taken immediately to the
neighborhood vet who stitched him up.  Thankfully the rip had only penetrated the outer skin.  The stomach lining held intact.


Pet ownership can be exciting.  Nevertheless, guard your pets


Afterthought:  this girl still has two cats and a dog and lives on a small acreage.  All these are friendly and love to be petted.  Her daughter also had four cats at one time, until one died.

Compliant, Even Obedient Tom

I have good news about Tom, the most understanding and intelligent cat pet I have known.
While he has settled himself on the bolster pillows on my bed -- when my back was turned -- he has also been obedient when I tell him he need not be on the pillows.  He has even deigned to arise
and jump off the bed. 


He has also enjoyed jumping into my lay and crossing  over into the twin chair on my left side.
I am most often in my TV watching chair when he decides to join me.  However, he soon curls up
or stretches out inn the chair and goes off to sleep.  Well, the term cat nap does certainly apply.  Cats do often sleep with one eye slightly open to observe all that goes on.  He watches my comings and
goings from the chair.  But sometimes I find him fast asleep and wake him when it is time for him
to go out for the night.  Lately, he has been quite cooperative, and with or without a little push,
moves to the door and exits willingly.  I am thankful for his attitude change. 


He is regaining his voice, too, and expressing appreciation when I open the door to let him in. 
He has his little sounds of "thank you" as he enters the house and then high tails it off toward the garage door to make sure  I turn off the yard light.  He prefers to do this even before he settles over his breakfast kibble. 

What happened, Tom?

Ten days ago Tom produced a cough that came from deep inside him by the loud, barking sound of it.
I thought vomiting would follow the heaving of his stomach and put him out the nearest door. Over
several days the same thing happened, but he managed to swallow and conquer whatever made him produce such an upheaval in sound -- beyond an ordinary cough which might have been due to a
hair ball.  Thank heaven he never did throw up anything.


Then the malady subsided.   I heard no more coughing.  Then a couple of days ago, he meowed a
small kitten like comment followed by more attempts to voice his message.  Weak, cracking vocalized feline language.


I've tried to figure out what happened.  He ate without difficulty his full meals, as usual.  But I hadn't heard him speak, I recalled.  At last, I concluded he had eaten, or swallowed, something that got in the way of his voice which had to dissolve out of his way.  I must think like a cat.  At least, that's my analysis.  Perhaps, a rat's tail?I

Tomcats Lose

Tomcats, even the aggressive kind, sometimes lose the fight.  Here is what happened to my first Tom, the light yellow cat, unaltered.  He was a fighter who came home after two weeks awol with battle scars, marching triumphantly up the drive "mrowing" in cadence with his steps.  Remember, this Tom was my first pet, so I was between 6 and 10 years old.  We had left the house on a summer evening while it was still sunny.  There were crawdad holes in the yard, the inch and a half in diameter hole with the muddy diggings piled up on the ground.


When we arrived home, our neighbor came over with the news.  He had rescued Tom after hearing him set up a mighty howling.  He followed the noise and there was Tom with the crawdad from the hole clamped to Tom's upper lip.  Tom was known to paw down into things he couldn't see, and, perhaps, he had brought up the crustacean who fought back and pinched Tom as he tried to bite his catch. 


Tom never again caught a crawdad.  If you eat them, you may call them crayfish.  If in a muddy hole in the ground, they are just crawdads.  Cats are smart.  They learn more than it is acknowledged by those who don't understand them.

King of the Cats

Tom is here with me right now.  He always knows when I begin work on the computer and under-stands that I cannot accomplish anything at all without his presence.  He is usually right on the desktop with me, but at this moment is on the floor at my feet.


I have a little story about why Tom is king of the cats.  Once upon a time a a man sat by the fireplace in his cabin watching the fire die to embers.  He relaxed in the warm darkness half asleep with his faithful cat in his lap.  As the last red ember fades out, his cat leapt off his lap and announced,
"I am King of the Cats.


Tom is his successor, announcing his presence, giving his orders, checking out the land in the morning, surveying the wildlife through the windows, and sharing his affection with me as his mistress.   I also add this.  He is the greatest appreciator of luxury he could be.  He is fair to the utmost about the luxuries of this domain.  He makes sure he gives his full attention to every piece of furniture that exists in this house. 

My Day, by Tom, the Noble Cat

You know what you do on a day loaded down with snow outside.  but do you know what I, Tom, makes of such a day?  I looked outside as soon as my owner let me out of the little room I sleep in when It's not fit to be out all night.  I kept looking in at the door when she began turning off the lights in the house.  She knew it was cold, so she opened the door for me.  My fur was damp with a mist, and the temp was freezing.  So I was allowed to be in the warm house.  We found the garage too cold when I pushed open the door into the garage to hit the switch and turn off the front yard light.  Of course, I have to make sure she does this every morning. 

I grew up in Texas where there was no snow.  Since I have lived in Oklahoma, about four or five years, I think, I have seen quite a lot of snow.  I can smell it, and it doesn't appeal to me.  I looked out at it this morning and didn't even ask to be let out.  I simply curled up on the chair by the glass door and went into snooze mode.  There wasn't even a patch of sunshine in the house that I could find to lie down in. 


I heard the signal when my owner turned on her computer and came in directly to see that she is working.  I made sure by stepping from a nearby chair into her lap.  She didn't pay enough attention to me, so I jumped off her lap and stayed on the floor in her office.  She is spending more time working at the computer these days, because I make sure she attends to her business of writing novels and editing them, until they are fit to read by people she doesn't know.


You know, I am a hard working cat and keep everything shaped up here on my property.  A good life must be established on a good routine which makes for my satisfaction in life.  All this is despite the fact that she, my owner, makes me get off her bed pillows and won't let me stay on a soft fur-like
piece of cover that seems to appear on extra cold days.  Humans always ought to have a soft blanket for us cats and, now that I think of it, a piece of scratch fiber.  Otherwise, they deserve what they get when we stretch out our claws on the backs of their cloth covered chairs.


I am now tired of all this writing.  I am going to let my owner do it from now on, because I am going to be too busy fulfilling my time being the King of the Cats.   


Tom (a common tabby, huh!) but the Noble Cat.

Tom's "My Day"

I, Tom, the common tabby but a noble cat, began my day by posting myself at the back door where I
see into the house I belong to.  She was a little late this morning.  The sun was up and above the
horizon, before she came past.  I pretended not to see her, but I heard her in the kitchen turning on
water which begins her day.  She keeps the shades over her windows at night, so that I don't see her
getting out of bed.


I am watching when she approaches the door to let me in.  Then I move directly to the door to the garage and to the light switch where she follows me to click it each morning.  Back inside, I hear her get out the food sack for my breakfast dry menu.  I love the crunch of that good stuff. 


She leaves me alone then  and works over the bed she sleeps in,  The soft blanket is on the floor where I delight in flexing my toes in the soft feel of it.  Drat! She tells me to get off.  "I need the blanket," she says.  She puts it on the bed, along with another cover.  When she finished, I jumped up onto the pillows that match the top cover.  It feels so good; yet when she sees me she tells me to get off.  I pretend not to hear.  I actually have to endure a lecture about it, but I'd rather not hear it, so I hopped off.  Well, I found another nice warm, sunny spot on the floor.  It's not to bad, but nothing like the blanket or the pillow. 


I have been with her now so long I believe I deserve the same comforts she indulges in, herself.  Just when I think I have been accepted with the same privileges she has, she gives me pushes and lectures.
Is that any kind of life the king of the cats should have?  After all, I am royalty intended for my subjects to treat me with  the greatest respect. 


I will make her give me her full attention and pet me more than along my back and tail.  I will have nothing less than my jaws, my chin, and my head rubbed.  What does it matter if a little drool gets on her lap, or her fingers get wet from rubbing my jaws?


My friends, we must persist in making our house owners conform to our greatest comfort.

Book Signing in Ok. city Jan. 17th and Tom at home

Any of you in the Oklahoma City area ?  I invite you to attend a book signing at the Full Circle bookstore this Saturday, January 17th from 3 to 5 pm.  I will be there with copies of my novel, THE HIDDEN CITY, an adventure filled with mystery, suspense, and intrigue.  Favors of free bookmarks and chocolate will be included in the festivities. 


Full Circle is an independent bookstore located across from Penn Square Mall at 1900 NW Expressway, Suite 135.


Tom the common tabby, but noble cat, will be inside all day avoiding the cold weather, should it not be as warm as predicted this Saturday.  But he will be alert to the wild life outside, keeping up a watch from the door and windows.  If a bird flies from one window sighting, Tom runs to the window in the direction the bird has taken. 


During the few occasions I am away overnight, ;he may be in or out.  When I return and call him, I find a very "cool cat" who acts as if nothing unusual has happened. 


Do our pets respond any differently to a full moon.  The moon has been full lately.  I find Tom is more feisty and full of restlessness.  He will crowd the door wanting in, and then march to the other door and sail right out again.  I noticed this with a previous pet, Millie, the Burmese who used to cling to the window sill of an upstairs bedroom (gained by leaping from a fence to the narrow sill.
Being let in through the window, she would run right downstairs to the front door to go out and repeat the maneuver all over again, until convinced by being ignoring she wouldn't get away with the game any further.


Cats try to outwit their human friends.

First Tom

My first pet, when I was about five years old wandered into my Dad's feed mill, because he fed cats to keep the mice away from the grain in the mill.  Tom was a full-grown light yellow male Dad named, "Tom" and brought home for a pet.  I had wanted a white cat like the one in Peter Rabbit who sat grooming herself in the sun.  Tom was the next best cat.  He was an intelligent cat who showed he had a mind of his own. 


Dad always fed the mill cats on Sunday when the mill was closed, and I would go along to see the two cats.  All I had known before were country cats who never entered the house at my grandparents farm.  At age three, I had followed a kitten who ran under the front porch, and when I reached in to pull out the kit, it scratched me in the eye.  That required a trip to the country doctor.  I recovered and still wanted a pet cat.


Dad gave Tom a place in our kitchen.  He had to sit on the two-step kitchen stool while there.  My Dad even taught Tom to shake paws.  He would tell the cat to shake his hand, and touch Tom's paw.  Tom would raise it and he would shake the paw as if Tom were a young gentleman.  I would do the same and shake Tom's paw.  You'll say, "Yes, he raised his paw because it was touched."  Maybe so, and maybe not.  We believed, and Tom never failed. 


Tom also knew how to transport himself between our home and the mill.  One time my Mother
sent after him with the broom.  To show his disdain, he turned up at the mill overnight.  Then when he felt like it he would return home.


Tom was unaltered and had springtime departures to live apart chasing girls (as I was later to learn).
If I heard cats fighting in the night I would dash out of the house to rescue my dear feline from harm, knowing nothing of the nature of animal life.  In due course Tom would come home announcing his
return in a cadence matching his marching feet of loud m'rows.  He also bore his battle wounds.


Another time I'll tell you about his battle with a crawdad.