A GIANT Frank!??! As if he wasn't big enough...

While perusing the paper today, I came across something that made me do a serious double-take, and THIS was it:

Not Frank...

It wasn't merely the fact that this glorious cat, 48.5" long 'Stewie' from Reno, NV was inducted into the Guinness Book of World Records for being the longest domestic cat ever (read the article about Stewie HERE), but that he is a dead-ringer for my own good-natured, fuzzy-headed little tiger, Frank.  I know that cats are cats, and a lot of cats look like a lot of other cats, but this cat really REALLY looks like Frank.  Here, judge for yourself:

Frank!  (he looks much longer if you stretch him out...)

If you know Frank, you love Frank.  It's as simple as that.  Unless you are Matt, and then you just don't understand how marvelous he actually is.  Frank really does resemble a small-scale tiger.  He has big fat tiger feet that are about the size of my palm when he flexes his toes, he's stripy all over (some places more than others), and when he walks, his shoulders roll under his luxurious pelt in such a way that is reminiscent of his larger, fiercer cousins.  He is svelte, strong, lithe and graceful, and he packs quite a punch, if you are a catnip mouse.  He would pack a punch regardless, but the chances of Frank actually hurting someone are pretty slim.  He is a gentle giant, and he is my sweetheart. 

If you met Frank without first understanding how sweet he actually is, he might be a little intimidating.  The kids next door are petrified of him.  When I let him outside and he does his wild, careening victory lap around the backyard, they back up against the fence.  He is a BIG CAT.  Certainly not as big as Stewie there, but still, he is quite formidable, based on sheer size alone.  He is twenty pounds of muscle swathed in a whole lot of fur, and when you say hello to him, his standard greeting consists of flopping on his back and opening his mouth as wide as he possibly can to show you his pearly whites, which are pretty daunting, I must say.  Is this some feline salutation I don't know about?  I have never met another cat who does this, but maybe because every other cat I've ever met has better manners, or just isn't as confident about his dental care regimen...

He may look ferocious, but Frank is a big softie in every possible way.  Soft of fur, soft of nature, and, dare I say it, soft in the head.  He is not the sharpest tool in the shed by any means, but he makes up for it with his sweet, bumbling disposition and a big friendly smile.  He never seemed to grow up, and while that makes him pretty annoying at times - like, for example, when he used to open the kitchen cupboard in the middle of the night and liberate the potatoes (I walked into the bathroom one morning to find a five inch baking potato sitting on the bath mat, and upon further investigation discovered Frank rolling red potatoes around the kitchen floor with much excitement.  It wasn't the last time he was found playing with them, either.) - I find it most endearing.  The way he looks at me with those sea-foam green eyes, oh my heart just melts.  His deep, rusty, rumbly purr certainly makes up for all those mad dashes around the apartment at 3am, stalking twist-ties and paper balls and god knows what else...

Frank's athletic proficiency and hunting prowess is astounding.  While not welcome at 3am, it is almost always entertaining to see him execute his acrobatics, whether they be in the form of 180-degree turns in mid-air while chasing butterflies (yes, he chases butterflies!) or death-defying leaps after a bit of menacing string, or proudly trotting in and dropping a live mouse on my chest in a fit of ecstasy at showing his mom what he has caught (of course I told him what a good boy he was... after recoiling in horror and making little girl noises...).  While not the best hunter in the world, he sure keeps the flies and moths under control, and hey, maybe we just don't have that many mice in the first place.

Though now nine years old, Frank will always be my little boy.  He has come a long way, but he still channels 'baby Frank' on a daily basis.  Those nights when he purrs so loud and stomps on my chest bring back memories of his little kitten-self sleeping beside me on the pillow in our apartment in Cobourg all those years ago.  He would fall asleep with a grin on his face, only to wake up crying every time a train went by.  He still has a little wee kitteny meow too, which is so surprising coming from such a burly brute - when you hear it, you just have to laugh.  One would expect him to positively ROAR, but he has two voices... soft falsetto, or gnarly yowl. 

How could I NOT fall in love with this guy?

But where did he come from?  What's Frank's story?  A lot of people have suggested to me that he looks like he has some Maine Coon in him.  Certainly in comparing him to Stewie, the resemblance is quite obvious.  He has the size, the paws, the long hair, the tufts on the ears, the easygoing demeanor.  But we will never know for sure.  Truth be told, Frank is 100% Warkworth Barn Cat.  In 2001, the Archers' cat Pippa had three kittens - Frank, Brownie, and Wheezy.  Pippa was a horrid mother who never took care of her babies, and since I was there a lot of the time, I did the majority of her mothering for her.  When the kittens were old enough to open their eyes, they simply couldn't, due to a build-up of crusty goop that Pippa should have been cleaning away, so I would wash the kittens' eyes each day so they could see.  In fact, I was the first living thing that little Frank ever saw, now that I think about it.  Maybe that's why he's so attached to me.  (I like to think so.)


When it was time to find the kittens homes, Brownie and Wheezy were taken up to Cordova Mines, to our friend Sherman's house.  While a great lover of cats, Sherman is pretty boisterous - he subsequently scared the shit out of Wheezy and she was never heard from again.  Poor Brownie met with an unfortunate accident with a riding lawn mower shortly thereafter, but Frank was still kicking around at the Archers' place.  Matt and I even brought him to Hamilton to meet mom and dad and their cat Spot, but we ended up bringing him home again.  It was MATT, believe it or not, who said 'aw, he's so cute... let's keep him.'  I wasn't going to argue with that.  (Thank you Matt)  It was also Matt who gave him his name - after Zappa, of course, who seems to have an important role in almost all of my life's major events thus far. 

So Frank came to stay, and we developed the close bond that we share to this day.  He is the noblest, gentlest kitty I have ever known.  He takes everything in stride, my boy does.  From cutting his nails and brushing out mats, to cleaning his gunky ears, to riding in the car to visit the vet, he just sits passively without fuss or complaint.  He can always be counted on to make me smile, even when everything is falling apart all around me, and I know he will always offer not one, but two furry shoulders to cry on when the world has let me down.  He even gives kisses, if you count violently mashing his nose into your face with as much blunt force as he can muster (he has given me a bloody nose before, so you know he means it.)

At only 38 inches, Frank falls ten or so inches short of matching Stewie's length, but I certainly don't hold it against him.  Size isn't everything, after all.  He may not be the longest cat there is, but he is definitely the sweetest, and I wouldn't trade him in for all the Stewies in the entire world.  You're a very good boy, Frankofelis, and I love you.

Sleep tight, little tiger!

Thanks to the lovely ShannonP for the two head shots of my boy in the backyard... the toothy one and the dreamy one...