(Approximate reading time: 12 minutes)
I am writing now about a very special friend of mine, who I made in Lima, Peru. People sometimes laugh here about me when I say, that he is the best friend I have here. I don’t really know why they say that, actually I don’t really care. Maybe because they never had a best friend. Or maybe they never felt a friendship to a cat.
To a cat?
Yes, to a cat! These animals with their four paws, their 270° radar ears and long whiskers. My best friend is called Lugh, but some people get confused with Garfield when they see him. Lugh has as well an orange colored fur and characteristic stripes on his back. And comparably to Garfield’s appearance, Lugh has exactly the same humanly problems, e.g. overweight, laziness and the fear of vacuum cleaners. Maybe these are not the problems of every human being, but at least the ones from myself.
And here we are why Lugh and me are such good friends: Because we can identify with each other and share mutual interests. I like canned tuna, Lugh as well. Lugh likes to oversleep all day, I do sometimes the same. And we both are very curious characters, who want to explore and discover the unknown.
Cats might have their own character, but are predominantly shy and nervous animals who prefer the defense mode, when someone new is approaching their territory. Lugh is different: He is a very friendly and curious cat, welcomed and accepted me very friendly in his territory. Another distinct sign for the Peruvian hospitality.
Lugh lives together with another cat, called Enya. Both have their names from important gods of the Irish mythology and Enya is the mother of Lugh. But only in the mythological Celtic stories, in real life both cats aren’t related to each other. So, they live together in the apartment of Susan, their ‘real mommy’.
Garfield-Lugh is always very nice and friendly to Enya as well, but she doesn’t thank him for that. Au contraire: She usually wants to cause fights and bullies him around 5-6 times during the day as you can see on the following videos. Like in real life as well, it’s always the woman who likes to start to fight.
The poor and innocent overweight cat usually quits the field and retreats the female cat her space. He wouldn’t dare to defeat the girl, although his physique is more thein sovereign. A real gentleman and a sad depiction of ‘the real life’ as well. That’s how it goes, if you live together with a moody bitch!
Lugh however has many vices, but his biggest one is TO EAT. His few kilograms too much on his rips don’t come from black magic. These were all inimitably added to his normal bodyweight, when used to guzzle himself. His own dry food for cats isn’t unfortunately enough for him, that’s why he steals from Enya’s bowl as well. But for all her bad bullies against him, she deserves the diet-version of a bowl of cat food.
And if that isn’t enough, he even tries to steal food from my plate, from the fridge or the trash bin. One could also say, Lugh is born in the wrong body, because he is hungry as a tiger but can only live in a body as a cat. Whilst writing about his birth you should take a look at the following pictures, that show the ENOURMOUS differences between his birth size and the recent state.
For me it is simply incredible, if I take a look to his full size right now:
For me it’s unbelievable how a cat can weight 100 times more after the birth weight. Maybe I should check the Guinness World Records and look if he maybe broke already a world record. With distinct cats, it’s possible to earn a good keep, hinting here at Grumpy Cat.
Another vice of him is to chase reflections. Whenever something like a mobile phone, a mirror or a glass is reflecting sunlight or artificial light, he deactivates his logical mind and enters the hunter’s mode. Unfortunately, he never succeeded to catch one single time a reflection. I told him several times, that his efforts are fruitless and will be fruitless forever, but he doesn’t want to hear that and ignores my wise recommendations. At least I have to admit his willingness and the ‘Never quit’ mentality. One time he was so wild, that he knocked over a whole scratcher.
From the shock in his face you can imagine, that he probably understood doing something wrong and wanted to apologize for that, repetitive meowing. All forgiven!
Lugh is now 4 and a half years old. In human years this would be 33 living years. In this age, you should actually behave very experienced, mature and sovereign. Lugh is still trying to find these behaviors for himself. For 33 living years, he is more a silly person than a senior. But that’s okay, I’m probably the same.
I sometimes think, what job he would have, if he wouldn’t be a cat. Probably being a supervisor, because that matches his interests and talents of observing people at work as well:
Another talent of him is to steal things:
Here he tried to steal money from me. So probably also a criminal career would be a way for him to earn his keep. But I don’t know about the chances of him on this specific career market.
Sometimes he just likes to make a chaos and make me responsible to clean up his mess:
Because of these moments, I want to kick his ass. Another time when he breached my rules and entered the shower, I thought about switching it on to let him learn and understand more about the consequences for his misbehavior. Not being fully sure, if this would be a morally good thing to humiliate a cat, I asked this question in a poll in my Instagram Feed and got a very balanced answer:
So I didn’t do it. Damned, it was a unique opportunity to educate him and I missed it!
But together we also have a lot of fun. Mostly, because I like to make fun of him.
One day, Susan and I tried to shave him. Fat cats have also a lot of fur and Lugh isn’t unfortunately an exception here. It didn’t really work as we all imagined, but at least we tried it…
The best video so far from Lugh is the following:
Thank you Lugh for all the nice moments we had together. I wish you a long and prosperous life with a few kilogram less on your belly!
Your friend Phil
www.traphil.com 