R.E.S.P.E.C.T.

As the old saying goes, "A celebrity is someone who is famous for being well known."

You, sir, are a riot. I have known cats with a similar lifestyle. Thanks for the chuckles.

LOL

Great story!

Yes, even animals respond to (positive) attention, don't they? Notice how animals in those Breedeer shows always walk with a gait that says "I'm too sexy for my ..."?

Positive attention sure makes a difference.

"The woman who owned him was, obviously, committed to him in the way that women get committed to hurt things, battered things, stupid things, and things that don’t really run on all cylinders."

Hence her attachment to Mr. Macho there.

A Kardashian by any other name.

Malcom Muggeridege, not someone quoted enough nowadays.

This explains Obama better than anything else I've ever read.

You didn't ask the hippie chick for a collar? What a missed opportunity.

What reminded you of this?

A few things. First the constant background chatter of what passes fo celebrity in this era. Second the constant elevation and persistence of lolcats as a meme. Third the sighting in my neighborhood of an extremely fat cat being pushed about in a baby stroller.

Robert A. Heinlein liked cats.

Nobody's perfect.

Reminds me of a cat I found one cold Christmas night. We named him Christmas - for 1 day. We renamed him Hilter and he ran the 'hood

lol

Ah, but Mr. Vanderleun can immortalize a cat the way Mr. Twain could a frog. Your skill with words is such a pleasure to the reader. Scene by scene, I could capture every rich detail in my mind's eye. Thank you. I am glad the blogosphere has recognized your well-deserved place in modern American literature.

Wish I could do similar justice to my cat Sylvester (female in spite of her name), who used to watch Mets games with my landlady's father-- a Holocaust survivor who came here from Poland and had not been allowed to have pets as a boy. Sylvester took a real shine to "Dad," who in turn would ask for her to come downstairs for a visit during the last months of his life. There has to be something good about a species that can freely offer companionship and comfort to an elderly man who lost over 30 members of his extended family to Hitler.

On a lighter note: I dare you to call Abraham Lincoln a chestless man. Lincoln, the first president known to have pet cats in the White House, used to spend time with them as a little R & R from the pressures and burdens of the Civil War. When a newspaper reporter once asked Mary Todd Lincoln if her husband had any hobbies, she replied, "Playing with cats." She apparently resented Lincoln's allowing one cat named Tabby to eat at the White House table. Lincoln replied, "If the gold fork was good enough for former President James Buchanan, I think it is good enough for Tabby.” (source: http://www.examiner.com/article/lincoln-and-his-cats). Now if only Tabby had had a hippie girl to make him/her a beaded collar, perhaps Mrs. Lincoln would have been more gracious.

Last, congratulations on your Fabulous 50 Blog Award for Best Essayist. Can't resist hoping that the award comes with a beaded collar.

Lesley is on to something. Maybe you should think about turning FATSO! into a screenplay. (I hear a BeeGees tune as the credits roll, and you know which one it is :)

As someone who likes cats and has been around them more or less constantly for a half-century, I don't find Fatso's behavior all that puzzling. Cats do learn from experience, and while it seemingly took Fatso a long time to learn how not to get his ass kicked, learn he did. Maybe the other cat was injured or sick at the time, maybe Fatso found a rival he could beat, or maybe the other cat bit into Fatso's fancy collar and broke a tooth, who knows? But once Fatso knew he could win, there was no looking back.

Celebri-cat???

I was amused again. : ) It's funny when the fatcat really is a cat, confusing as a social trend though ...

We started with 4....

The way to make a cat act like a dog is to treat it like one.

A month to the minute after my favoritist dog in the world died she landed in our yard, a veritable cast-off from some far away place. No one around Ruralville ever seen her before, but a couple people said they'd take her for a barn cat if we didn't want her.

She was a circus clown, a lover, and the most beautiful cat in the world - mostly white with an unusual dark to light gray merlish sort of pattern on her back, sides, top of head, and tail, not very old, maybe 9 months at the most, and she was not welcome here.

But we did not chase her off, leaving her to her interests while we went about ours. She was still here the next day and I showed a little attention to her but not much. That evening we saw her stalk a bird in the yard, catch it, then run off to the woods.

....then we added 1 more....

Later that evening she came to the door of my office-workshop and I let her in and that is where she stayed for the next 2 weeks as we didn't let her mingle with our other cats until such time she was *safe*. We took her to the vet for shots and checkup and scheduled her for spaying, 3 weeks away.

Like a vacuum she automatically filled the void left by my favoritist dog in the world. Her name was now Bella and she followed me everywhere, hung out in the workshop even when my table saw was running, road in my truck to the hardware store even shared a tuna sandwich from the Speedway while sitting in the parking lot.

Bella came when called, instantly jumped in my lap when I motioned to her and actually retrieved and released a paper ball "mousey" I made for her as long as I threw it again. Her favorite place to be was laying right on my desk, between me and the keyboard, stretched right across my mousing hand while I was designing in AutoCAD, insuring she had my undivided attention as she slept until my arm went to sleep.

The other cats think she is weerd but they are getting used to her, and dare I say that they are taking lessons from her.

2 days before Bella's spaying appointment her water broke and she gifted us with 5 brand new babies.

....and now 8 weeks later there are 10 cats in our house and Bella has a new appointment for being spayed.

Gerard, I remember the first time I read this and how it made me laugh. I, too, have a true story about a fat cat (he wasn't really fat, just huge and pure muscle). Remind me to tell it to you sometime. It takes place at the Chelsea apartments on West Olympic (like the church and the library, another Harlan Thomas building).

ghostsniper,

Great story! Thanks.

I have had both cats and dogs for 40 of my 66 years.

Cats are better. They do not complain. You do not have to train a cat. They are regal, while dogs are... well, dogs. Which is OK, i guess.

Mark Twain liked cats. A lot. He did not like dogs. Give me Twain's writing over Muggeridge's any time. Give me a cat over another creature any time.

My wife made a good point. In reality, the hippie chick didn't make Fatso some bling. She made him kick-ass cat armor - though the mere suggestion would likely have given her the vapors.

Think of the lion's mane, made for fighting with other lions. Think of the male tomcat's neck fat.

But Fatso's inch-wide collar could stop claws and jaws dead. And it didn't cut or bleed. Only his enemies did.

Viva Fatso. Who got his armor on and Gave War a Chance. And it was very, very good to him....

cont'd from above....

On the 20th of this month it will have been 3 whole years since Bella arrived here. She had her 5 babies and raised them as she must then we found homes for 4 of them and kept the last in line, the runt of the litter as they say. The runt is a gurl and her name is Sparkle and diff from any other cat we've had. And with her 3 mingling colors in her long hair she is stunning in appearance. Very similar to her mom but with some light brown strewn in.

Bella is still MY gurl and she still comes when I call her. She showed up here exactly 1 month after my favoritist dog in the world died and she tried to fill that void. But alas the chasm left in my heart was dog shaped and Bella could not fill it. So in Sept of 2014 I got me a dog, er, rather my wife got it. From a local shelter.

She was born the same month my previous dog had died, March 2014, and was right away abandoned to the shelter. White with tan splotches, long sort of curly hair, and 500 horsepower. She is a cross between a Border Collie and a Brittany spaniel and stays within inches of me all day long.

Her name is Shannon (I always name my dogs after 70's rock songs), about 45 pounds and very high energy. Her nickname is Energizer Bunny, or Bun for short. Always bored, always eager, low maintenance, eats anything but prefers her Iams minichunks, and is always very interested in anything I am doing, amazingly sensitive and smart, quick to learn,and loyal beyond belief.

And she can clear a 5' tall fence with room to spare.

Her and me are gonna be best buds for a long time. Oh yeah, she just LOVES gun fire. No matter where she's at when she here's one crack she is at a full speed gallop to the source. We're kinda shopping for a brother or sister for her.

"..for Geoff C. the Hello Kitty King of QA"

LOL! I don't think he's seen it yet. I'll remind him to visit. hahaa!

I never did share my fat cat story. Remind me next time we chat. It's a story of Axel. You may have seen his picture.