Wherein Biko rules the roost

How I came into my names.

People often think I am named after a famous person, but I am in fact named after a character from an anime and manga series. Mommy says the famous person people think I am named after is Steve Biko, the late South African nonviolent anti-apartheid activist.

My first person was a soft lady that listened to gospel music and called me Dusty. I don't remember her very much but when I went to live at Operation Kindess, the people there knew the name she called me.

After I met Daddy and chose him to give me a a home, he named me Biko after the character B-ko (Biko Daitokuji) from Project A-ko and gave me the middle name Mira because he liked the sound of it.

I have some traits in common with the character B-ko: I am thoroughly spoiled, calm and poised in public, and have a tremendous temper. I do not think think I am arrogant and I do not have an obsession with gaining someone's affection, although I am bonded with my Daddy. (Daddy says it's an obsession.) Grandpa says I have a superiority complex, but he's a dog person. Hmph. He's just jealous because I peed on his leather jacket the first time I met him.

Daddy's kitten [daughter] quickly nicknamed me Psycho Cat and Crackhead, but nobody calls me those names since Daddy's kitten moved away. Before Daddy's old kitten left, he brought a Mommy and her human kitten into our house. I had to teach Mommy's kitten how to play nice because she kept wanting to get right in my face, but now La-kitten is housebroken, likes to play with me and calls me "Biko Biko Sweetie".

I told Mommy I was fierce like a tsunami, so Mommy calls me "Tsunami Mami" and sometimes "Kitty Loaf" when I am taking up all the space on her chair.

Daddy calls me lots of things depending on his mood: "Stinkerbelle", "Kitty Meatloaf", "Furry Meatball", "Furbag", "Hairball", "Firbolg", and some things in Cat that Mommy doesn't know how to type.

My Tail of Devotion for Biko Mira

This is a special Tail of Devotion

See All Tails of Devotion

Is there a 12-step program for catnip?

I finally got the people trained to understand my request for catnip. (They tried to be sneaky and called it "kitty crack" for a long time, but I figured out what they were talking about.) Today Daddy was grossed out because I left some regurgitated dry food on the floor and he saw a lot of catnip in it, so he asked me if I needed an intervention.

Is there a 12-step program for catnip?

Jungle cat, mice beware!

The best part of all the holiday decorating two-legged people do at my home is the nice nap blanket they put down under their light-up tree. (Daddy calls it a quilted tree skirt, but it sits on the floor and I nap on it.)

They haven't gotten there yet, but Mommy did the next best thing for my favorite nap area: she brought in the potted citrus trees from the patio and put my big cardboard tray in the middle of them so I have a jungle-y hideout.

Hopefully she'll put some mice [rolled-up plastic bags] in my jungle for me to hunt.

Why does Mommy keep singing "bag of cat"?

Daddy used to take me out to see the kids at the elementary school in a bag with a nice mesh top for me to see out of the top of in every direction. It was okay, but funny when he carried it because it had a shoulder strap. He stopped later on because he wasn't home in the afternoon anymore, but Mommy said I deserved a better bag to go out in than a Rollerblade bag that probably smelled like feet.

A couple of days ago, the child-kitten came in from shopping with Mommy and Daddy giggling. She put down a me-sized bag with mesh on the ends and opened up the side. I sniffed at it and she tried to push me in! Mrow!

After she went to bed, Mommy opened up the entire bag and put some catnip in it for me. I laid down in the bag for awhile and let her carry me around in it. I like it the most for rubbing my jaw along the corners of the bag. Its teeth (zipper teeth) are just right for scritching me.

The kitten-child wants Mommy to take the dog-bone appliqué off the side of the bag. I don't care if it stays. The humans might read it as "fierce animal inside"!

I don't know if I like this Found Cat.

Daddy has done something I was not expecting: he brought a new cat into the house.

I knew they were up to something when Daddy brought a box that stank of sick, dirty cat into the house and Mommy closed me out of the bathroom, then put a litter tray (so not private!) in the bedroom for me. I could smell the cat in there but Mommy did not let him out that day, so I was just annoyed.

Later that day, she went in there with toys I didn't play with and wet food, then with her camera. She was up to No Good.

When she sat down at her clickety screen with that camera, I staked out her lap to find out what she was up to. There was a strange cat on the screen instead of a picture of me! Quelle horreur!

She said that smelly cat had climbed up into the fender of Daddy's car and wouldn't come back out, so they had to take the car to the shop to get him out safely, then decided to bring him home because our local no-kill shelter is pretty full. Mommy put pictures of him on local websites advertising a Found Cat.

They gave him a few days in my bathroom to clean up and rest, then they let him out into my house, where he promptly laid down and smelled up my new pillow. They took him to my veterinarian to check for a microchip and get checked out, but he came home with no more identification than he left with and a big scratch on his belly glued together. The phone rang a lot, but all of those people were missing cats that had different neutered or clawed status than this feline houseguest. One lady visited twice because he looked like a giant version of her missing cat! I liked that lady.

Now this Found Cat has been here for almost two months. He eats out of my dry food dispenser, but he leaves the occasional wet food to me. He makes stinky poops in my litter box, but Mommy started adding a finer-textured litter to the box that I like more than the old kind. And he gets to sit on Daddy's lap in the study when I don't, but he doesn't like to go outside on the balcony so I have that whole area to myself with the jungly potted trees and new bird feeders.

I don't know if I like him, but he knows his place. Most of the time.

Daddy is Mine. The Found Cat will learn.

The Found Cat has been here almost five months. He keeps trying to love on Daddy, but he'll learn that Daddy is Mine.

This is what he does most of the time: sleep.

This is what I do most of the time: sleep somewhere else.

I think he's learning.

If I could dictate a note to my humans...

...I might consider it.

Sometime overnight, I peed on the loveseat in the study. Then this morning after Daddy left for work, I pooped on the mat in front of the litter box.

Mommy is baffled because this is only the third time I've peed on something in eight years. Daddy told her I must be mad about something.

It's too bad Daddy is the only human around here that speaks Cat; he's been sick all week so I can't tell him anything. Hmph!