The Office Cats

As I'd mentioned before, at the end of 2003 I'd quit my job to be able
to work full-time with my DH in his office. What this means, aside
from no longer having a regular paycheck g, is that I get to spend
lots more time with the office cats, Ozzy and Tiger.

Ozzy is lion-colored, solid sandy ginger except for a stripey tail and
very faint stripes on his legs. He is a chunk o'kitty, short-legged
and very stocky, with big round innocent-looking green eyes in a broad
face. The last time he went to TED we were surprised that he only
weighed about 12.5 pounds; he's so *solid* that picking him up feels
like hefting a cement block. Oz galumphs around the office, sounding
like at least 4 elephants on the hardwood floors while chasing his
furry mousies, which he renders tailless first thing. He is clumsy,
and a goofy sort of cat. Yesterday, I saw him outside tussling with
something in the azalea bushes. I went out onto the porch to have a
look, wondering what he'd caught that was giving him such a fight. It
was a potato. I don't have the slightest notion where he got the
potato. (I assured him I was *not* laughing; those are the sounds a
person makes when awed and terrified by feline hunting prowess.) Oz
is my helper; he helps me sort copies by leaping on and sliding in the
piles of paper, and he helps me type legal documents by walking on the
keyboard and inserting lots of random characters. I just know that
one day I'm not going to notice, and the parties will have to ask why
one clause of their contract consists of nothing but line after line
of the letter "P".

Tiger is a funny looking little guy. He is, I suppose, a tabby, brown
and black, but he's not striped in most places so much as he is
brindled like a d*g. He has beautiful big green eyes and a little
beard that somehow reminds me irresistbly of Burl Ives. He's a tiny
little thing; when he first appeared at the office, we'd thought he
was a kitten, a few months old. After a while, however, we realized
that he'd been getting regular meals for quite some time, and he
hadn't grown any. When we took him to TED for his initial
vaccinations and neutering last year, he weighed 4.25 pounds, and he
was approximately a year old. He is now due again for his annual
shots, and I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that his weight has
doubled, in spite of his diet of low-cal Iams. He is disgracefully
fat; you can actually see rolls of fat on his back when he's sitting
down! Tiger's name doesn't really suit him; he is about the *least*
ferocious thing I've ever seen. He is very timid and is frightened of
coming into the office. I am trying to encourage him to spend more
time inside; I'd love it if we could get him to the point where he
would be willing to at least sleep indoors. I will sit at my desk in
the lobby with the front door open on 30-degree F days while Tiger
sits very bravely *just* inside the door. Once he finally discovered
that it was okay for the humans to touch him, he found that he LOVES
petting, and he will venture farther inside for scritches on occasion,
but every noise (ringing phones, that awful grinding sound when the
printer runs out of paper) will send him skittering back out the door
in a panic, and closing the door is entirely out of the question. He
is getting more socialized day by day, and he is such a little lovebug
that I believe if he gets just a teeny bit bolder he will turn into a
lap fungus. Oz could do without this, though (they get along okay,
though Ozzy completely dominates sweet little Tiger, who just runs
away); as far as Ozzy is concerned, the office is HIS; Tiger can have
the porch. This afternoon, Tiger had come in and discovered one of
the mousies; he tried to play with it but couldn't work up much
enthusiasm, since Ozzy was *glaring* at him from appx. 8 inches away.
Both kitties can be attention hogs and jealous of each other, but if
there's a ruckus it's always Oz who starts it.

Both of the boys had turned up (at different times) on DH's office
doorstep; Oz made himself at home from the start, but Tiger seems to
be more feral and is still very shy, though in the last year or so
he's come a long way from the little kitty you barely caught a glimpse
of as he ran away. He's discovered he adores being petted, though he
does NOT like to be picked up. Ozzy has always loved to be petted,
and leaps into my lap as soon as I sit down.

I will try to remember to take the camera to work with me soon and put
up some pictures of our boys, so that you can all admire these
hard-working lawcats. :-)

------
Krista