Biff!

Mac is the most annoying little cat. He is stubborn to the point of delirium (mine, you understand). I have seen footage of lion-cubs snatching food from their mothers' jaws; so I guess has he. His having appointed me adoptive mother, it follows naturally therefore that my food is his food, and so he is determined to take it from my plate.

It doesn't help, probably, that almost everything I like, he likes too; except chillies not so much, it's Barry who's the chilli fiend.

But anyway, this morning as every morning, there I am with breakfast, and there is Mac trying to help himself. And I start by pushing him away, and he comes back; and I try tossing him off the table, and he comes back; and I end up just biffing his nose as one might a puppy's, only in Mac's case it has no effect, he just keeps coming back.

Barry by this time is also on the table, sitting with conspicuous virtue a foot away, not at all trying to raid my plate. So I am going biff! - biff! - biff! and losing patience all the while, and Mac just keeps coming back -

and suddenly biff! - but that's not me, that's Barry biffing him, full in the face, just like me. And Mac's taken aback for a moment, but then he comes back, and -

Biff!

And, biff! - and so on, until I was done eating, Barry just kept biffing him away. It was kind of wonderful, and I almost choked on giggles-and-toast. And the wonder of it was, Mac didn't retaliate at all. Usually when they squabble he falls upon Barry with teeth&claws and Barry runs away. I guess food changes the equation, or the dynamic.

And then I gave Barry the plate to wash, and Mac came to join in, and Bazza biffed him again a couple of times, till he'd got all the best buttery crumbs for himself. Then he did let the kid join in.

On the artistic symmetry of cats

I've written 2000 words today, which I think is probably enough; so in a desperate attempt to stop working, I was just looking more closely at Mac's coat, to answer a question that has teased mildly at my mind a few times when I've been out of the house.

The answer is that no, he is not quite exactly symmetrical, in the patterns of his fur. He's a tabby, in dark shades of browny-grey (there's probably a proper word, but I don't know it; I'm not strong on visuals), and I'd like to call him a mackerel tabby, but I can't; I've seen cats with real fishbone patterns, and he doesn't have that. Though there is lots of stripy, there is also blotchy, kinda like camo. And where there is blotchy on one side, there is blotchy on the other; where there is stripy on one side, there is stripy on the other; and there is a midline to divide 'em. But the midline does not run quite exactly down his spine, and the two sides are not precisely mirror-images. It's like an artist's impression of symmetry, rather than the thing itself. I like this.

Also, for interest's sake: the word tabby comes via French tabis, and (apparently) from 'Attabiy, the district of Baghdad where tabby silk was made.