It's "caturday": introducing Milenko

First of all, I didn't name him; Connie did. I think Milenko is the name of someone in a rock band, I'm not sure. Anyway, he was her cat, so she got to name him. I almost never call him Milenko. I call him Links or Link-Link or Linky-poo or some other moniker that he probably hates but is too polite to say to my face.

He still lives with us because Connie is in California and getting a cat moved out there would be a project and a half. Plus, he and Tabby sort of go together and I don't want to split them up. (This is how I ended up living with 5 pets -- 4 cats and a dog -- when all I ever wanted was a poodle.)

Milenko is the most affectionate of all of our cats, at least to me. He does this one thing that seems to be an imitation of what he thinks is my hug. I'll go up to him and put my arm around him and press my head against him for a second. So he'll come up to me later when I'm in the recliner or sitting on the bed watching TV and put his head against my chest, holding it there for about a half minute.

He tries to imitate other things that we do too. For instance, he doesn't lie at the foot of the bed like the other cats. He gets under the covers and manuevers himself around until he ends up with his body under the covers and his head on the pillow. Because that's what he sees us do. (We have to be sure he's out of the room before we go to sleep, otherwise he'll hop in the bed in the middle of the night and get under the covers. It's a little unnerving to wake up with a cat on the pillow next to you.)

I'm not sure if he's a little weird or very intelligent. Whatever the case, this imitating-the-humans stuff would be great if he would take an interest in washing dishes or even loading the dishwasher or hey -- what about cleaning out his own litter box. Now there's a real people task he could take on.

Here's Tabby and Milenko when they were babies, up in their "cat condo." Cute, aren't they?