The Naming of Cats

 Before I start, if for some reason you haven't read the poem that goes with the title, read it now. And remember that Andrew Lloyd freaking Webber had nothing to do with it.

Come to think of it, you should probably read all of Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats. It doesn't take long, and it's nice to remember that the same person who wrote The Waste Land had his fun side.

Um, anyway.

Today's featured cats are, as usual, the Turkey Brothers. For those new to the program, that's Tom on the left (and the ugly candy cane is his fetch toy. He's asking me if I'm going to throw it. And yes, I did.) and Bob on the right. And yes (again), if you think that you're seeing an absolutely humongous lava lamp behind him, you're right. The thing takes about two hours to get warm enough to blob.

The Turkey Brothers are, indeed, brothers, and they have perfectly sensible names. Tom Cat and Bob Cat. There shouldn't be any sort of weirdness there, right?

Well, there is. The weirdness is me.

For most of my life I've seemed to be unable to call an animal by the name the owner's given it. Our last dog was pretty much always Dogbreath to me rather than Rikki. Todd's (that would be the office mate formerly known as Wheat on the blog. Long story) dog Arthur is Doofus. You'd know why if you met him. Our last cats, Max and Penny, were Smack and Lump. Actually, Max probably thought that Max (or Smack) was his second name. His first name? Jesus. As in, Jesus, Max...

And the Turkey Brothers? Once I noticed that they were responding to their names I honestly tried to do my best to use them. Tried. I do on occasion, but the urge to rename -- or alter names -- is, I guess, too strong. The result? Well, Tom often gets Thomas, which isn't so bad. Bob, however, I started calling Bobimus from early on. It was suggested by Terry Jones's Nicobobinus, which I'll leave you to look up yourselves this time. I don't know why I went for M instead of N, though. Bobimus naturally led to Tomamus, sadly. He doesn't get that too often. I'm sure he's happy about that.

Lately Bobimus is evolving (devolving?) into Bobule. As in Globule. He's a big, round cat who's pretty good at being a speed bump rather than getting out of a person's way, so the name seemed kind of obvious.

Where to next with them? Who knows. They're only a year and a half old or so, so I'm sure that over the course of long lives they'll develop more names from Yours Blatheringly. Since they're called the Turkey Brothers for a reason they already have a multitude of other names from both Dad and me depending on their behaviour. None of those really stick, though, since they're not exactly polite.

I'll end with the proof that we actually do have a Christmas tree, with minimal decorations in case the cats went full-on turkey. You can't really see the lights because of the flash, but they're there.

I have no idea what Dad's cowboy hat is doing on the lampshade. For that matter, I'm not really even sure why Dad has a cowboy hat at all. Stampede is only once a year.



I suppose that the hats don't just disappear after that, do they? Kind of like Christmas trees.