Tarquin's nephew

Since Mimsy got a featured role in the Tarquin blog, I think it's only fair to give his nephew (Rory) his time in the spotlight. Rory always referred to Tarquin as Unc. He loved his Unc and loved to hang out with him. He seemed to always get along better with Tarquin than he did with his mother, Mimsy.

I guess that's always the way. It's better to hang out with the fun uncle than with the mom who's always bossing you around. One thing that Tarquin would do--and I'm pretty sure this was a dominance thing and not a kinky sex thing (he was neutered, after all)--was attempt to mount Rory. All of a sudden we'd hear this piteous meeeeee-oww, and upon investigation, find Tarquin grabbing Rory by the neck and on top of him. The look on Rory's face was clear: This is so wrong on so many fronts! Help!!!! Tarquin tried the same tactic on Mimsy a couple times; I'm still pretty confident this was his way of keeping his minions in line and, well, as minions.

Rory was from a second litter of Mimsy's. As far as I know, her first litter didn't make it. She had been parading around the yard with a very pregnant belly--so big, in fact, that as she tried to slip between the slats of our gate, the gate went with her. How embarrassing is that for a girl? She slimmed down, but no sign of kittens. Then pretty soon, she was all preggers again. This time she showed up on our deck with a little gray tabby.

Tarquin and Rory, hanging out

As he got a little bigger, the then-nameless kitten would show up and jump on the screen door, hang there, and let out this long, drawn-out meow. Meeeeeeeeeee-owwwww. He had an interesting swirly coat pattern--sort of like a Rorschach inkblot test. So his name became Rorschach, Rory for short. And since his meow sounded like a kitten roar, we started referring to him as Rory Roar Cat.


It was getting on toward Halloween when our landlord announced he was going to tear down and redevelop the house we were renting. So I decided that since Mimsy was as attached to me as a feral cat could be, I would take her and Rory in. 

I guess there was a little bit of hubris going on. Heck, I'd done so well with socializing Tarquin, how hard could it be? The answer, it turned out, was very. I always thought that all the times they saw me petting and holding Tarquin, they'd soon figure out I meant no harm. I guess they just figured Tarquin was brave (or maybe foolhardy) about letting these two-leggers touch him. 

Wants my tuna treats

We're going on 11 years together now--Rory and Mimsy and their two-legged friends--and, especially Rory still acts like he might burst into flames when one of the humans attempts to touch him. But we're making some progress. He has decided chin chucks (also known as chin scritchies) are pretty nice. And since I dole out freeze-dried tuna treats on a regular basis, I seem to be moving up in Rory's esteem. 

Patience is the watch word for sure.