No More Bo

Bobo died at home on July 17th. We were with him. He was 18 and lived a long, unique life, seeing much, enjoying a lot of it and leaving an indelible memory for the many people who he encountered.

Before the NYT and George Clooney

a while back, my parents started exploiting me for holiday card ideas as a way to entertain their friends. I kind of like it, since it means i have fans all over the world, but they never ask me for creative input, so i feel a little burnt about the whole thing. still, this one came out pretty great, and i don't mind at all being credited for the birth of surrealism. These are three of the panels:

Card Panels

These are the rest of them:

Holiday Card

I like this one a lot, although they left out some of my favorite ancestors, like Sonny Bobo and Meher Bobo. Idiots.

here i am as some famous artist...my ear is fine, thank you very much!

Infinite Cats

I did this last year - the idea of the infinitecat website is to take a picture of one cat looking at a picture of another cat on the website looking at a picture of another cat on the website looking at a picture of another cat on the website looking at a picture of another cat on the website looking at a picture of another cat on the website looking at a picture of another cat on the website looking at a picture of another cat on the website looking at a picture of another cat on the website looking at a picture of another cat on the website looking at a picture of another cat on the website looking at a picture of another cat on the website looking at a picture of another cat on the website looking at a picture of another cat on the website looking at a picture of another cat on the website looking at a picture of another cat on the website looking at a picture of another cat on the website looking at a picture of another cat on the website looking at a picture of another cat on the website looking at a picture of another cat on the website looking at a picture of another cat on the website looking at a picture of another cat on the website looking at a picture of another cat on the website looking at a picture of another cat on the website looking at a picture of another cat on the website....yawn. You get the idea.

Personally, I found the whole exercise exceedingly tedious. I was supposed to be looking at some cat named Boo who was looking at Jefferson, but truth be told i wasn't paying the slightest bit of attention. I was just humoring my dad. I'm pretty sure my eyes were closed in this picture, but don't tell him that. He'll just get mad. For what it's worth, I'm cat number 587. Big whoop.

My dad thinks he's an artist

Can you believe this piece of crap? It doesn't look a thing like me...I had to be nice and pretend that I liked it when the old man showed it to me...thank goodness my mom is the artist in the family.

Sleepy time.

Bo the Bachelor Cat

Bo the bachelor cat lived with Robert the slob.
It was a small apartment in a big building, and Bo and Rob always got in each other's way.
When Rob would throw his smelly sneakers on the blue chair in the kitchen, he almost always hit Bo, who slept there every day.
When Bo curled up in just the right spot on the bed, Rob would get sleepy and lay down right on the same pillow, pushing Bo aside.
One day, Rob and Bo sat down and tried to talk about their problems.
Meeeerrroowwwww! said Bo.
You're a stinker, said Rob.
The talk didn't really help.
The next day, Rob stepped on Bo's paw as he stepped out of the shower without looking.
Wooorrrraaahhhhh! SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS! hissed Bo, as his black fur stood on end.
You stupid cat, shouted Rob, who had landed, without any clothes, on the tile floor, right next to a couple of empty soda cans he had left there.
That didn't help, either.

On Friday night, Bo was supposed to go play with Princess, a pretty girl cat who lived downstairs.
Bo liked Princess, and wanted her to like him, too. He spent all afternoon licking himself clean, smoothing down his fur and getting his whiskers to look just right. Bo was very proud of his whiskers, and took extra time to make sure each one was in just the right place.
By the time he was done getting ready, Bo was purring like an air conditioner. He went looking for Rob. He found him on the couch, watching TV as usual, and flicked his tail on Rob's hairy leg, adding a friendly but serious meow that said, let me out, I have places to go. Rob ignored him, and continued stuffing his face with hot dogs and chocolate cookies. Rob kept watching his show, and didn't pay any attention to Bo.
Bo was getting mad. Princess was waiting, he was ready and Rob was keeping him from seeing her. And what difference was it to Rob, anyway? Bo had had enough, so he bit Rob's leg. Rob screamed and tried to slap Bo, but missed. Cursing, and holding his leg with one hand and a hot dog in the other, Rob huffed and puffed to the door, and opened it. Bo ran between his legs, and was down the stairs in a flash.
He scratched at Sara's door. Sara was the lady who lived with Princess. She was nice, and gave Bo those special salty chicken treats and chucked his chin with he came to visit. Bo liked her a lot.
Bo was glad Rob never tried to cut his claws, since they were long and sharp and made quite a racket on the metal door. He hadn't been at it long when something slammed into the other side of the door. Bo stopped scratching. Something must have fallen off a shelf, Bo thought to himself without really considering how something falling off a shelf could have landed sideways on the door with such power. Oh well, Bo thought, it wasn't his problem what happened inside Sara's house as long as he got to see Princess.
Within a minute, Bo had forgotten all about the noise inside the apartment and got back to his scratching. All he could think about was Princess' long, soft fur and her pretty green eyes. Finally, the door opened with a sigh and Bo scampered in.

The next night, Bo the bachelor cat got tired of playing with Princess--she was asleep anyway--and decided it was time to go back home and curl up in his favorite chair. He was hungry, and didn't care for the food in Princess' bowl. Well, he had cared for it well enough when he ate most of it in the morning, but he didn't care for it now that it had been sitting there drying out all day. And plus he wanted to leave a little for Princess. She complained a lot about having to watch what she ate, but he didn't want to be the direct reason for her diet when she woke up.

Bo wandered around the apartment for a while, meowing loudly while he worked out a plan. He saw Sara taking a nap on the couch in front of the television set, jumped up next to her, and batted her on the mouth until she got up and let him out.

+ + +

When April came, Bobo packed his best tuxedo, took a last long drink of water, and set off for the Cat Convention. It was his first time at this annual gathering of felines, and he had high hopes for meeting some cool cats, having some frolicking fun and picking up some useful tips for getting his way more around the house once he got home.

On the first day, he attended a meeting in which cats from all over the city shared stories about how they were treated, each one more luxurious than the next. Bobo always suspected he could be taken better care of, and after what he heard he knew it was true. There were tales of silver plates for food, special fish dishes imported from Europe, twice-daily brushings, scratching posts the size of tree trunks and backyards planted full of catnip.