The author – Scarlett the Cat- gives her most regal pose.
Evans “Buddy” King
Columnist
Scarlett here, filling in yet again for the Boarder. He tells me he’s been in a “slump” recently. I wasn’t sure what that meant so I asked him and he said it was a baseball term, so I read a couple of his baseball books.
My conclusion after getting up to speed with the baseball vernacular was that the poor guy has never exactly had a “hot streak”. I guess you can call it a “slump” when you go from middlingly mediocre to pitifully pathetic, but the last few weeks the Boarder hasn’t even gotten up to the plate.
When he started this writing thing around the time I came on the scene about 10 years ago, I begged him to do his columns on an old school typewriter and mail them in. I said, “please, please, please don’t put them on the internet, the darn things will be out there forever”. I said if you just type them up like columnists did in the day and mail them in, there would be no lasting evidence, we could have plausible deniability, and we could use the really bad ones (most in other words) as cat box liners. But no, no, he thought cyberspace was the way to go, to my lasting embarrassment. I still get emails and texts from friends and family saying, “you mean you live with this guy, does he even have brains enough to even feed you?” Oh well, I digress.
This morning, I agreed to jump in and write one for him again. I have decided to do a book review. Always safe and makes it easy to meet deadlines.
I chose “Tortitude: The BIG Book of Cats with a BIG Attitude” by Ingrid King – the Boarder says she is not related to him as far as he knows. (It was obvious to me since Ingrid can string thoughts and words together cleverly and coherently.) I understand she boards in Northern Virginia with two torties – Allegra and Ruby – I like that name Ruby! For those who have never seen me, I’m a tortoiseshell myself and quite striking. If you don’t know what a tortoiseshell is, they say we are not a breed but rather “just” a genetic mutation. Could be fake news though.
They say we are essentially the negative image of a calico, that where they are white, we are black – so instead of looking bland and washed out and boring, we are vibrant and striking and dramatic. And like calicos, we are almost all female. If you see a male tortie, it’s a unicorn, if that makes sense.
I’m quite familiar with Ingrid’s work since it’s a coffee table book and I have slept on it a lot over the years. I know all the Boarder’s coffee table books well. This will be easy.
Ingrid’s main premise in her book is that torties are “fiercely independent, feisty and unpredictable”. She also refers to my kind as, “strong-willed, a bit hot-tempered, and often very possessive of their humans.” Seems a bit harsh and judgmental, but I can’t argue with some of it. I mean, when you’re born to the manor, you control the manor, right? Plus, I think we mainly came from Ireland, so that probably explains my short temper sometimes, but you try living with the dweeb I live with and let’s see you hold yours!
I do hardily recommend Ms. King’s book. It contains page after page of pictures of beautiful torties and great quotes about cats from mainly famous people. I will give a few examples of the quotes, some of which I agree with and a few I don’t.
“I love cats because I love my home and little by little they become its visible soul”. – Jean Cocteau. Truth. Can’t argue.
“You can’t look at a sleeping cat and be tense”. – Jane Pauley (The Boarder said she was a fox in the day- I didn’t know they could write!). This sleeping thing gets way too much attention. Some days I only get in 18 – 20 hours myself.
“Time spent with cats is never wasted”. – Colette. Captain Obvious here.
“In ancient times cats were worshiped as gods; they have not forgotten this”. – Terry Pratchett. See “born to the manor” above.
“Cats are magical. The more you pet them, the longer you both live”. – Anonymous. Been saying.
“The mathematical probability of a common cat doing exactly as it pleases is the one scientific absolute in the world.” – Lynn M. Osband. I have to take exception to the reference to “a common cat” – I know of none, but otherwise an accurate quote.
“One cat just leads to another.” – Ernest Hemingway. The Boarder says he wants to take me to Ernest’s home in Key West for some reason. In fact, he said there are six reasons?
“In order to keep a true perspective of one’s importance, everyone should have a dog that will worship him and a cat that will ignore him”. – Dereke Bruce. You’ve never heard of a working breed of cats have you?
“Cats can work out mathematically, the exact place to sit that will cause the most inconvenience”. – Pam Brown. Duh? Not our problem.
“There is something about the presence of a cat . . . that seems to take the bite out of being alone.”- Louis J. Camuti. Not sure the Boarder felt this way when I decided to take down the grass cloth wallpaper soon after I moved in.
“There are two means of refuge from the misery of life – music and cats”. – Albert Schweitzer. Our house is full of music and me, so the Boarder must not be suffering misery.
To conclude, I recommend Ingrid’s book to all cat lovers. And Ingrid, speaking of cats and music, and in light of this good review of your book, a commission on increased sales would be nice. The Boarder and I listen to a lot of Jimmy Buffett, and like he sings, we sure could use some “mail box” money“ cause “ya never know when those hard times will hit ya.”
Scarlett
July 13, 2025
