All about Cally

... And I don't mean California. I'm talking about my - er, our frandabulous cat, Cally. Yes, she's a Calico, and apparently the name is not that original. Sigh. I'm blogging about her because it has come to my attention that out there in the real world some of my beloved readers are fans of my cat!
How this came to be and how I was not aware of it, I am not quite sure as I try to stay quite attentive to the needs of my small but sophisticated readership base. So from here on out, if you have a request of subject, I would be MORE than happy to write about it for you, as sometimes I scratch my head while thinking of writing topics.
What? how is this possible? are you not living in the land of the interesting and quirky? you may be thinking. I do I do... but I have been living here for nigh on five years, and my eyes have become accustomed to many sights that would have once-upon-a-time been strange. It is a sad but true fact. SO today please excuse me if the topic is somewhat mundane.

Our adorable feline comes from the streets of Nerima-ku, our district of Tokyo, where she had been living in the 'wilds' survivng only on her remarkable talents of charming treats and tidbits from the hands of passersby. We met her in the park on the corner, where she not only convinced us by her pitiful meaows that her very survival depended on us (now that I know this fiesty cat a little better, I am certain she uses this very effective technique on everyone she lays her eyes on), but after we fed her and continued with our original purpose of going to the park (playing badminton), she demonstrated what a good housecat she would make with her very fastiduous hygeine by shyly releiving herself behind a tree, and then the entire time while we played our game, pawed neat line of dirt over neat line of dirt over her small pile, until there was a small mountain with the aesthetic feel of a zen garden on top of her privy. She looked at us coyly after this, as if to show it off.
"Oh my gosh Takeshi we have to adopt this cat!"

Fun cally fact:
she has just one crook near the end of her long tail, which she is rather sensitive about and will growl or murmur a complaint if you try to play with it.

We're not sure if she's a little too chubby or not. It's hard to tell. She has short hair that is very thick all year round and will only reluctantly tolerate it when I try to use the brushing tool called the 'furminator' on her. It seems the cat standard for 'a little chubby' is waay off from humans, as she still has the stray cat instinct of gobbling up any food placed in front of her (lest the other stray cats in her mind get to it first). I think most cats really want to be as big as possible, as this allows them to beat up other cats and steal their food, and 'level up' and repeat the cycle to yet bigger and bigger cats.

Hopefully she's not doing this when we occasionally let her out, but it's pretty suspicious as the week when we were on vacation and Takeshi's mom fed her and did not allow her out, she got remarkably skinny in only a weeks's time. The killer bit? Takeshi's mom admitted she fed Cally twice the amount we asked her to, (apparenly she was not yet steeled to Cally's aformentioned talents of weaseling extra food out of people). And she STILL lost weight. Uh-oh.

But let's not dwell on this, shall we? I still haven't mentioned Cally's amazing ability. She is actually a bit of a supercat. And no, I'm not talking about the weasling part, I think most cats with a bit of practice are quite excellent actors.
Twinkie comes to mind.
"Noooooo I haven't been fed yet!" (what's that bit of food on your plate then?) "I haven't been fed by at *least* one out of the five members of the family!"

I digress. Takeshi and I live in apartment, on the second floor. Yet Cally is an indoor/outdoor cat. We tried to keep her indoors, but she is very vocal about her desire for freedom. So she manages it somehow, through her magical powers.

She doesn't like the stairs, so she (with magical powers including the ability to fly) jumps from the window to an awning of the factory next door. Although it is about two feet down and two feet of open air between, she also on a rainy day wanted IN very BADLY and decided that the jump up and across this gap was nothing to a supercat, and got herself back in.

We have to be very careful because her other superpower is that of Harry Houdini, showing remarkable abilities to escape our apartment, finding any unlocked window and jimmying it open. THe first time she did this we thought for sure we had been robbed, but by a very strange burgaler who only left the window open about five inches and stole nothing but the cat.

"Cally, Miss Cally, there's noone like Ms. Callity, She's broken every human law, she breaks the law of gravity!" ***