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Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Happy Birthday Ramses

Today is the birthday of our Chief of Security, Ramses. He's enjoying a quiet day off, snoozing in the garden, looking forward to his traditional all-you-can-eat birthday dinner of "saltcrunch" (cocktail shrimp) this evening.


Ramses is eight years old. He joined the ADB, Inc., team in August 1999, replacing Blackie, who had been our security chief for the previous 17 years.


Ramses is a Bengal Cat, a cross-breed between Felis Bengalensis (South Asian Leopard Cat) and Egyptian Mau, a spotted showcat. Bengal Cats are bred for cat shows, but Ramses was judged "not gold medal class" and sold to us as a pet. Ramses is 1/8 wild and only four generations out of the jungle. He can jump eight feet straight up and can jump a ten-foot clear span. On his most recent rabbit hunt, he closed from more than 10 feet behind the rabbit to just barely out of reach in a matter of seconds, lost a little ground when the rabbit made a 90-degree turn that Ramses could not match, and was still within a foot (more than 50 feet later) when the rabbit escaped through a hole in the neighbor's hedge that Ramses could not fit through (not in a hurry, anyway).


Ramses is a big cat, at 15 pounds. He looks like a bulldog wearing a cat suit. His arms and legs are heavily muscled, and he walks like a tiger. He dwarfs his big sister Isis, who weighs only 9 pounds, cannot jump as far or high, but is faster at a dead run.


Bengals shows us what God intended cats to be, the full-color version of the black-and-white copies that 5,000 years of human breeding made housecats into. Bengals are loving lap cats, until they see a rodent (or another cat, or a bird, or anything moving) at which point its "game on" and an explosion of feline motion. When he was a young kitten, Ramses actually stalked a cow, not realizing how far away it was or how big it was. Ramses insists on having his share of Leanna's Sunday Dinner presented to him uncooked. (Isis, a proper lady, insists on her meat being cooked.)