Tommy the canyon cat hasn’t been around for a couple of days, so presumably he’s on temporary leave with his professional caregiver and will return presently.

In the meantime, here’s some video I shot from the front steps of the atelier the other day before his departure.

I’d say he could give that freaking bobcat a run for the money if he felt like it.

The saga of Tommy the canyon cat continues.

Yesterday, Tommy appeared as if by magic on the atelier’s upper deck—which has no access or egress from below—apparently by climbing a rubber tree and making a leap for it.

Then he couldn’t figure out how to get back down and, pissed off, hunkered under a table, above, to comtemplate his next move.

In the interest of expediency, I carried him through the atelier and deposited him in the front “yard,” above, where he could rapell down the hill to his own house when the moment struck.

As it turns out Tommy’s master is convalescing away from his home; and while Tommy has a caregiver who feeds him and puts him in at night, he’s bored and so has sought out the houses hereabouts where people are home during the day—which is more or less every one of them.

So we’re all getting a whole lotta Tommy but nobody minds because he’s got class and, as near as I can tell, hasn’t made a lunge for any of the birds. Yet.

There’s a plan afoot, of necessity, to temporarily outsource Tommy to a professional cat-sitter at a location some distance away; but there’s a concurrent groundswell among the neighbors to figure out how to keep him in the ‘hood, where his righteousness is an inspiration to us all.

Meet Tommy, a canyon cat whom I believe belongs to a neighbor but I’m not sure because he isn’t packing I.D. and I don’t want to piss him off by asking.

Tommy’s been hanging around the atelier for the last week or so for no apparent reason, which would fit the canyon zeitgeist perfectly.

Yesterday I was chilling on one of the chaises famously defiled by the now legendary bobcat when Tommy popped into view, mewing and purring and doing the whole adorable-cat shuck and jive.

After he sharpened his claws and rolled around in the dirt, he padded off for parts of the property unknown.

I suspect Tommy is coming around expressely to stalk the manifold birds that frequent the atelier’s hanging gardens. If so, he’s got another thing coming; first croaked Western Jay I spy in our boy’s fangs, he’s on the next train to Bakersfield.

Seriously, dude, take heed.

In the meantime Tommy’s welcome as long as he sticks to Fancy Feast though he’s getting close to adorable-cat overkill. Yesterday I was heading out and damned near stepped on him ’cause he was racking on the front steps.

He mewed piteously but I’m not falling for that; save the Method shit for the dramaturges at the Strasberg Institute, Mr. Nine Lives—it’s on Santa Monica right by the 7-11 and that key-cutting shack.