Camilla's
tails
For Christmas, Will and Pat's best friends gave her a special package of "tails" for the kitten! Examples: When Camilla is editing, she gets a "de-tail" (black piece of string with a bead on the end with the letter D). When she's feeling cosmopolitan, she gets "A Tail of Two Cities (a copy of the Dickens book). There were 14 of these, believe it or not.
Camilla on video
Two new QuickTime movies show the kitten in action:
Playing Like Cats and Dogs (co-starring Milo the overgrown chihuahua)
Don't have QuickTime? Get it here.
Camilla's Song
Tune: "Tit-Willow," Gilbert & Sullivan
There once was a kitten without any tail
Camilla, Camilla, Camilla
When we saw it was missing we started to wail
Camilla, Camilla, Camilla
We looked in the bedroom, we looked in the john
We looked inside the closets and out on the lawn
But wherever we looked it seemed that tail was gone
Camilla, Camilla, Camilla
The kitten she prayed to the cat-goddess Bast
Camilla, Camilla, Camilla
She wanted a tail and she wanted it fast
Camilla, Camilla, Camilla
The goddess said "No" with a regal meow
"Not even if you sacrificed me a cow
Don't you see you are perfect the way you are now?
Camilla, Camilla, Camilla?"
So we cherish our kitten without any tail
Camilla, Camilla, Camilla
And before her all other pets fearfully quail
Camilla, Camilla, Camilla
As we watch our belongings from bookshelves descend
For our household protection on her we depend
Even though she's deficient in the rear end
Camilla, Camilla, Camilla
Camilla's Story
Camilla is a black cat with no tail. OK, she has one but it's more of a stub than a tail.
She lives in Wells, Maine, with her people, Pat and Will, plus three other cats, two other dogs and a lizard.
Will brought her home as a present for Pat. She didn't know she needed a kitten! She got home from work and he said "Here, would you hold this for a few minutes?" and went in the other room.
Pat was easy to persuade. The top cat, Zenobia, and the chihuahua, Milo, didn't think the newcomer was such a good idea. Fearless Camilla stood right up to the bigger pets, and within a few days she had everyone playing with her. Zenobia still meows at her, but it's Camilla who gets first dibs on the yummy cat food.
She was born in early September 2002. While the lack of a tail is common to the Manx breed of cat, Camilla is not a purebred anything.
Her name is from a Roman word meaning "servant in the temple." It's not a reference to Camilla Parker-Bowles. We're ancient Roman enthusiasts and wanted a Roman name that sounded pleasant. She is also referred to as Camilla the Killa, Camilla Gorilla and Camilla the Thrilla. Oh, and we have endless fun pretending we've just discovered her tail is missing and going around the house looking for it. OK, we're easily amused.
Some more scenes from Camilla's young life:
Excuse me, could someone call Human Resources? I don't think this chair
is ergonomically correct for me.
This
is the picture that's on Pat's desktop at work. It is a grave injustice
that they do not allow kittens in her workplace. Not even after they found
a mouse!
Zenobia
takes a dim view of the new young whippersnapper.
Maybe
I could download a tail off the Internet?
