At Her Leisure

[A set of wooden shelves, crowded with shipping boxes, padded envelopes, rainbow packing tape, and other shipping paraphernalia. Major Tom’s hinder end is sticking out of a semi-empty space at the end that’s up against the wall.]

He took his sweet time wandering all the way across the table, but I didn’t manage to fumble my camera out until he’d commenced inserting himself into the only place over there that had ANY space left.

[Tom’s stuffed all but his tail into the space, and is in the middle of turning himself around. It’s a bit of a process.]

& by then all I could do was take pictures, intermittently grumble at him, & laugh. He’s the horriblest.

[Tom’s sitting neatly in the space, his head sticking out. He’s gazing contemplatively towards the door, ears perked, whiskers relaxed.]

He’s also the very handsomest, & yes, he WILL use that against you.

[Tom’s now looking up & to the left, neck stretched out. Contemplative, but more in the ‘contemplating shenaniganry’ kind of way.]

YES, there are shelves up there. NO, there is not space for a tomcat. I explained this to him in very clear language. Some of it, I admit, was also fairly rude.

[Tom’s looking down now, in the general direction of the camera.]

He did take a moment to scout a good path, instead of immediately scramming. He’s remarkably calm about being hollered at, despite having grown up feral. I think it’s because he knows I’m full of shit.

[Tom’s making his way out of the corner, now, one paw placed precariously on a fortunately double ziplocked bag of soap.]

He NEVER stays on the rare occasions when he makes his way back to that spot. I don’t know why he bothers going at all, but if he’s having fun, more power to him.

originally posted on Patreon; support me over there to see posts a week early!

[Major Tom, a big grey tabby wearing a purple harness, is laying at his ease on the examination table at the vet’s office. A section of pale belly fur is visible, and one of his hindpaws is pointed almost directly at the camera.]

… well. Tom doesn’t dread it. Tom flops on the exam table, gets immediately bored, explores the countertops, weighs himself (with only a moment’s assistance from me in turning on the scale), has another flop, perks up when the vet crew comes in, & demands a lot of love from everyone in range while I explain cooperative care & note that it’s polite to ask first before you manhandle someone, even if that someone is a cat.

[Tom’s on the exam table again, but this time he’s in a perfect meatloaf. His ears are slightly perked, and his whiskers are relaxed.]

“He’s not stress-purring, is he,” notes the vet. “Nope,” I reply, “he’s just purring. You’re petting him, of course he’s purring.”

Tom _does_ love a love.

[Tom’s in the same spot; that’s my hand, there, reaching up from the bottom of the photo to gently scritch his cheek.]

Loiosh … Loiosh dreads the vet.

[Loiosh is hunkered down in the stroller, ears down, tail slightly poofed.]

I’m not entirely sure when he got this bad about it; he was fine at the vet visit where we talked about getting his teeth cleaned. (Partway through the chat, the vet looked over my shoulder at Loiosh, Tom, & Hades, all of whom were curled up napping on the bench behind me: “How. How do you do this.” I shrugged; I just get lucky I guess?) It might’ve been the teeth thing itself, come to think of it; I really need to start bringing him to the vet when he doesn’t need any treatment at all, so he can get used to vet visits that don’t involve getting stabbed again. Of course, the stabbing happens monthly these days, which makes it harder to schedule further visits on top of that …

… might need to apply some churu to the situation.

[Loiosh is looking off to the left; my hand emerges from the bottom of the photo, again, to scratch his cheek. He looks slightly less entirely unhappy.]

Applying some love to the situation never makes things worse, either.

[Loiosh has turned his head so my hand is under his chin. His ears are still unhappy but his whiskers are starting to perk forward a bit.]

… might take a whole LOT of love.

originally posted on Patreon; support me over there to see posts a week early!