Julio the thrift shop cat
He's been called dumb and unpredictable, but who can't love him?
The blue-eyed tomcat is asleep at William Temple Thrift Store on Northwest Glisan Street. They call him Julio.
Sometimes he sleeps on a couch, other times on an old paperback novel on a bookshelf near the stereo equipment and lamp shades. Some days he pours himself into a favorite plastic container and contemplates the foot traffic out on Glisan. It’s a cat’s way.
Julio’s co-worker, Jeff, brought him to live here at the secondhand shop in December. He doesn’t find him Julio all that inscrutable.
“Julio’s just a big, dumb boy cat,” Jeff explains. “He’s very loving. He’s got big tomcat cheeks and blue eyes like swimming pools.”
Jeff first met the cat when the stray appeared at his window and looked inside, watching both Jeff and his other cats. The stray would show up periodically to gaze indoors.
“He looked like he’d been getting fed, but after a few weeks I took him in and had him looked at. He hadn’t been chipped or neutered. No one claimed him.”
Julio’s personality is similar to that of Ozzie, the last cat to make his home at the shop.
Asked about Julio’s “sometimes I bite & scratch” sign, Jeff explains, “If he’s asleep on the couch and someone pets him, he might, you know, throw a few swats.”
Since cats can’t be trained, he adds, they aren’t liable for any injuries they may cause.
Despite all, Julio is said to be a very sweet-natured cat who spreads a lot of unconditional love around the workplace. On stretches when the thrift store might be closed for a few days, Julio keeps spreading the love at Jeff’s home.
