Three Two years ago today sucked, but I have lots of fond memories:
You’ve been found not worthy.
And he is still watching and judging all of us.
*** Update **
Two years. I am old and senile. Now I feel like I am not at the appropriate level of grief for two years.
schrodinger's cat
Lubs the Tunch! Thanks for the photos.
trollhattan
Awww, I do so miss His Royal Floofiness. Sending you both my good thoughts.
gogol's wife
We love you, Tunch! I think about him all the time, and proudly wear my “Obey” sweatshirt.
shell
Oh god,I remember that heartbreaking post.-
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
Tunchie! Such a handsome boy. He’s probably looking down and glad he got out before Thurston moved in. ;-)
Pogonip
I liked “high on catnip” so much I bookmarked it the first time you ran it.
How’s Steve?
SiubhanDuinne
Love these pictures, and thank you for the thread I (and others) have been asking for.
But is my calendar off? I thought it was just two years ago, not three? Or maybe I’ve totally lost track of time.
Regardless, have always loved Tunch and miss him pretty much constantly, even if it’s in the background most of the time.
schrodinger's cat
To get my orange tailed Turkish van fix, these days I check out Shiro Neko’s blog. He is like Tunch’s long lost Zen master brother.
Elizabelle
Twas a marvelous cat, was Tunch.
Somewhere, his host is thinking of giving him a 10th life and ejecting him back to chez Cole.
The middle pic: looks like a cat in a fur igloo.
Karen in GA
Three years already? Aw, sweet Tunch — it’s like he was just here yesterday.
MomSense
Tunch! He really was magnificent.
Baud
That was one sad day.
SiubhanDuinne
@Pogonip:
Do you remember the one of Tunch looking in through the screen door? I love that picture!
Karen in GA
@SiubhanDuinne: You’re right, it was two years.
SiubhanDuinne
And please, a moment to remember wonderful General Stuck (we learned for sure on July 13 that he had died a couple of weeks earlier). I still think about his adorable Charlie and hope he’s doing well in his new home.
July 13, 2013 sucked great big donkey balls. What an awful day it was.
danielx
We have been weighed in the balance and found wanting.
Also too, we’re not worthy.
Miss him a lot.
Garbo
Regal, he was.
sharl
Good boy Tunch…good boy.
:-(
:-\
:-)
Baud
@SiubhanDuinne: Yep. Stuck was great.
kc
What a fine cat.
JustRuss
Not to be a nit picker, but wasn’t Tunch’s demise two years ago? My own favorite kitty met the same fate as Tunch about a year before he slipped this mortal coil, and Facebook was just kind enough to remind me that it was 3 years ago that we lost her. (Thanks FB, you sure know how to brighten my day)
kindness
Still a gorgeous kitty.
Hope your sister never brings her dogs over ever ever ever.
SiubhanDuinne
@Karen in GA:
I tried to read that post last night and couldn’t. It still makes me sob. Same now, can’t get past the first sentence.
But remembering Tunch brings me enormous joy. He was a Cat among Cats.
Hungry Joe
Magnificent bastard. That post was, and still is, a punch in the gut. Tunch was a great cat, and “Tunch” — Cole’s online creation — was an unforgettable character.
Cole was always telling us that Tunch was a nasty, unlovable beast … until one day he confessed that Tunch was in fact a sweetheart who loved just about everyone, but he (Cole) just got a kick out of telling everyone about how mean he was.
SiubhanDuinne
@JustRuss:
Yes, July 13, 2013.
Time flies even when you’re not having fun.
Valdivia
Oh Tunch. Such a wonderful boy. Miss him.
@SiubhanDuinne: I miss the General a lot. He was always such a presence. Sigh.
SiubhanDuinne
@Hungry Joe:
I remember that! Not that anybody was really surprised. I think everyone here knew that Tunch was a kind of marshmallow.
Oh wait. He really WAS a marshmallow.
SiubhanDuinne
@JustRuss:
And I’m sorry about your kitty. Facebook can be insensitive like that, but I suppose they mean well. Have you acquired any new kittehs since then?
the Conster
Long live Tunch. Long live General Stuck. They both left us way too soon, as the good ones always do.
SiubhanDuinne
Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin.
jl
Thanks for Tunchpixfest. I will always remember from now on that July 13 is TunchDay.
SG
All hale the Mighty Tunch, ever and after. Magnificent bastard he was and I miss him.
JPL
We all shed some tears that day. There is a rescue organization that was able to help rescue a lot of animals in Tunch’s memory. For that I’m grateful.
HRA
Seeing or reading about Tunch always reminds me of the dishwasher incident and how i laughed till tears came down.
I also miss General Stuck. He was a fine and wonderful person.
John Cole
@HRA: WHICH dishwasher incident.
TaMara (BHF)
It was two years – a few months later I lost Harley and because John found Steve a week or so after Tunch left us, I didn’t question my decision when Zander popped onto my radar 10 days after Harley left and adopted him pretty much on sight.
In sad news, my neighbors had to put down their big, stunning Great Dane this weekend. He dwarfed Bixby and topped out at 210 lbs. I am heartbroken. He was my Great Dane fix for years until I decided I could handled a dog again.
I’m off to buy them a rose bush for the backyard to remember him….
ETA: And I cried about Tunch almost as much as I cried for my neighbors’ dog. They just find their way into the heart, don’t they.
EthylEster
What a cat.
jnfr
We all miss him too. I still have a FEED shirt.
satby
@SiubhanDuinne: It was indeed. I think I cried all day.
Continued peaceful rest to Tunch and General Stuck, and good wishes for Charlie, wherever he may be.
rikyrah
Tunch always freaked me out, but I could feel your love for Tunch in every post you wrote.
SiubhanDuinne
@John Cole:
Gonna assume it involved nakedness.
Omnes Omnibus
@SiubhanDuinne: ::shudder::
asiangrrlMN
When I found out about Tunchie, I thought it was a sick joke. Rather, I HOPED it was a sick joke. I was devastated to find out it was true. I miss that fat bastard still. P.S. That video still cracks me up, even though it also makes me sad.
Emma
That glare sees right into your thoughts and dismisses them as shallow and unworthy. Tunch now sits in the lap of Osiris and directs traffic.
SiubhanDuinne
@TaMara (BHF):
I’ve seen pictures. Unpossible.
Condolences to your neighbors.
TaMara (BHF)
Dude,. you posted about it. I never remember the day my pets leave me. Denial or what, I don’t know. So I’d say your grief level is just fine.
<3 Tunch forever.
Omnes Omnibus
@Emma: To be fair, most of my thoughts are shallow and unworthy. Not really much of a stretch to figure that out.
SiubhanDuinne
@satby:
I was in a restaurant, dining alone, and burst into tears when I saw the thread headline. The waitstaff were all very concerned about me, and of course trying to explain I was sobbing for a faraway cat I knew only from photos and anecdotes — hard to be taken seriously. But it was for me (as, I’m sure, for a great many of us here) a terrible, devastating moment.
I often think of Devon and Seth. They must have been in torment for a long time over their (innocent, but ultimately responsible) roles.
Rosalita
Awww Tunch. Thank you for sharing so much of him with us. Balloon-Juice: come for the politics, stay for the pets.
Can we get back to having some more pet posts?
TaMara (BHF)
@SiubhanDuinne: This. I was visiting family. Had no idea how to explain to them without them thinking I was crazy.
shell
That third picture is so great. He looks like a barely set pudding, slowly spreading out.
SiubhanDuinne
@John Cole, top:
Not at all, John. You have managed to pack three years worth of grief into two calendar years. What a tribute!
Pogonip
@JustRuss: Did anyone see the news story about the lady in England who prudently didn’t want her real name plastered all over the Internet, so she opened a Facebook under Ethel Mertz or some such silly made-up name. This, I gather, is a big no-no on Facebook, so when they caught her they barred her, and such is the hold of Facebook that she went to court to change her name to Ethel Mertz so she could get back in!
The last update I saw, after the publicity, Facebook relented and let her into Ethel’s account under her real, original, name, which is now, of course…plastered all over the Internet!
So what is it about Facebook that gets such a hold on people?
sharl
I’m glad a couple folks upthread mentioned Charlie, Gen. Stuck’s doggie. I couldn’t recall his name for the life of me.
Wasn’t Charlie taken in by Stuck’s kinfolk back in Ohio? I seem to recall that coming up in comments here at some point.
SiubhanDuinne
@shell:
Tunch the blancmange.
DougJ
It’s better to burn out than it is to rust. The king is gone but he’s not forgotten.
Baud
@sharl: Yes, I think that’s right. I want to say his sister took Charlie.
beabea
What an awful weekend that was. A dutch oven of grief as John put it.
But I think Tunch lives on in the countless pets whose lives were saved thanks to the moneybomb the BJ community raised for MARC in Tunch’s memory. All while mourning the loss of Stuck.
In all the internets, no place like this.
HRA
John Cole, the one where he came where you were sitting with suds all over his face.
SiubhanDuinne
@sharl:
In my iPad photo album I have, over the years, collected a number of photos of BJ pets — Tunch, Li’l Bit and the Bohdi, all of John’s piglets, and several sweet photos of Charlie.
Truth to tell, I’m not the world’s biggest dog lover — I like ’em fine, I just have always preferred cats. And if I have to choose among dogs, I’ll always prefer big dogs to small ones. But something about Charlie spoke to me profoundly from day one. If I had had a chance to adopt him myself after Stuck died, I would have done so with hesitating.
Hope Charlie is thriving.
SiubhanDuinne
@Omnes Omnibus:
Thank you for spelling ::shudder:: correctly, unlike some I could name who persist in writing ::shutter::
shell
@SiubhanDuinne:
I was gonna post exactly that, but then went more generic. :-) Shoulda trusted the BJ readers.
Roger Moore
@Emma:
I thought he was too busy making out with Bast.
Elizabelle
@asiangrrlMN: Lovely to see you. Cheers.
Yeah. At first I thought it was a joke too, and then the shock — it’s not.
A lot has happened to John Cole over 2 years. Most to the good, except for Tunch’s demise. Opened the door for Steve, though, and John beat drinking. Accomplishment as huge as the late and universally beloved [lardass] Tunch.
Omnes Omnibus
@SiubhanDuinne: You know that the misspelling is just a minor trolling of our pedants, right?
Roger Moore
@SiubhanDuinne:
But is he from planet Skyron?
SiubhanDuinne
@Omnes Omnibus:
No. I may be universally beloved, but I have no sense of humor.
p.a.
I cried that day. I haven’t had a pet for 30 yrs, except vicariously through John’s and Way of Cats’ and various friends & family. Boy he was big.
Poopyman
@SiubhanDuinne:
Lol, I saw that earlier and resisted the urge.
June 19, Dec 20, January 26, May 5. All sad anniversaries of my own pets. Not to mention people. The years roll on and the calendar fills up with sad anniversaries. I’m already 61, and sure hope getting old is more than that.
Omnes Omnibus
@SiubhanDuinne: I see that from the minion hate.
JustRuss
@SiubhanDuinne:
Yes, we inherited my mother’s two cats a couple months after Tasha died, so if you believe in Providence I suppose that’s evidence. Still, hard to replace a pet you had almost 20 years. Even though she only weighed 7 pounds, she could do the “You’re not worthy” glower almost as well Tunch. She loved intimidating the nieces and nephews when they visited, it was pretty hilarious.
Thanks for asking.
BruceFromOhio
I’ve seen both up close and personal, and you are neither, Gaia bless you.
He was a good cat, and someone loved him and cared for him and remembers him. That’s what matters. And you had the fucking stones to write about it instead of taking vengeance, and that’s what matters, too.
Joy in FL
I will always love Tunch. He is magnificent.
geg6
@SiubhanDuinne:
I was at my sister’s birthday party. A rather large gathering. I burst into tears and had the exact same trouble explaining why to the people who came over, very concerned, to comfort me. I had to go off by myself and have a little cry.
SiubhanDuinne
@Omnes Omnibus:
Told ya.
Exurban Mom
Same as many of you, I gasped in horror and cried as I read the post 2 years ago, and then had to explain to my family why I was having such a strong reaction. I am a dog person–I dislike cats mostly–but Tunch felt like a neighbor, a character in the town, beloved and appreciated even though he had his moments. I am bereft all over again.
A Ghost To Most
Stuck and Tunch; that weekend sucked.
The good news is I am sitting next to my cat Maple, who we adopted in honor of Tunch two days later. The sight of her walking on grass for what was obviously the first time in her life is something I will never forget.She is a fine (if chunky) addition.
So there’s that.
Betty Cracker
@SiubhanDuinne: I freaked hubby out by saying, “Oh Christ, NO!” and bursting into tears when I read the news. I explained, but he didn’t really get it. You couldn’t, unless you were one of us.
The way Cole handled the situation with his siblings — with love and compassion — speaks well of his character, IMO. He was fit to be the caretaker of such a magnificent creature. And of this Island of Misfit Toys he created.
Pogonip
@Roger Moore: No, Cole had him fixed. (No wonder he gave Cole The Glare so often.)
Riley's enabler
I was at home alone and was a wet red mess crying over that post. Ugh. Hard to believe it’s been 2 years. Going to go cover myself in foster kittens now.
gelfling545
A fine & handsome fellow. Still missed by all his admirers.
schrodinger's cat
I had gone on day trip to Saratoga Springs in upstate NY. When I came back home say this news and couldn’t believe my eyes. Tunch is the Ceiling Cat of Balloon Juice, ruling over his minions with a floofy paw.
Omnes Omnibus
@Pogonip: Doesn’t that stuff come back in the afterlife?
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodinger’s cat: Careful about using the term minions around here.
MazeDancer
Tunch! Such a beautiful boy!
Like all of you, I, too, found the words of the headline of that dreadful post impossible to decipher, to even compute. Especially while shouting “NO! NO! NO!”.
But as many noted Tunch was beloved and brought love. And this is always a wonderful thing.
Everyone, take videos of your pets. Those videos bring smiles for many, many, many years. You will be glad you have them.
Emma
@Roger Moore: Immortal godlike kittehs!
Nicole
Two years, three years, whatever. I don’t think grief is a straight line; it comes in waves. It’s just eventually the waves become further and further apart. Heck, if they talk about him long enough my dad and his sister can still tear up over the death of the family Kerry Blue Terrier who was hit by a car at age nine. In the 1950s.
Continue to RIP Tunch; you are still much loved and missed.
ET
My first thought when I saw that picture where he is lying on back I thought was were seeing the aftermath of him laying waste to his toys. Not that he was just laying wasted.
donnah
I’m just repeating the crowd here, but I think being part of a community, even online, has moments like this, of shared emotion and that’s pretty amazing. When I read that post, I remember being a little confused, not believing what happened. And when it became clear, I cried like I’d lost a good friend.
Because I had.
John, it says a lot that you have pulled together a community like this, and I’m glad to be here and share the good and the unspeakable moments with everyone.
NotoriousJRT
John, you spent time in a “dutch oven of grief,” so I am not surprised two years feels like three. Miss Tunch the magnificent.
Olivia
I was horrified seeing your post after that horrible event. I am so sorry that the pain is still there for you but it really is hard to get past things like that.
A year ago, I lost my beautiful shiny black green eyed cat. He was the best cat and only 6 years old. I raised him and his brother after their mother was killed by a car. Their eyes weren’t even open when I got them. I cry every time I think of him and I guess I should be over it but I’m not and I don’t know when I will be over it. His litter mate is still here with us and I never realized how hard it would be on him to have his brother gone.
PaulW
Tunch.
Obey.
FEED.
CaseyL
Oh, hell, yes I remember that day and that post. Gasped. Clicked on it, hoping it was a horrible joke of some kind – hadn’t John just posted some silly thing about Tunch barely hours before? – and was sobbing by the first sentence.
No one was around but my own kitties – who got some pretty fierce hugs and cuddles.
Tunch as Ceiling Cat is a wonderful idea!
Pogonip
@Omnes Omnibus: I guess we will all find out!
Omnes Omnibus
@Pogonip: I expect to be a naked mole rat in my next life.
Aleta
Had a huge white cat, orange tail; he played the piano at night when he wanted some action. Used to come into the living room when people were over, with a new tampon in his mouth, wrestle it out of its crinkly wrapping, then out of the cardboard, and then toss it around by the tail like a mouse. (Perfect cat toy, really.) You could pitch to him and he would bat quite a ways out. He talked a lot, and it was always something important sounding. He died at 10 from negligence. Maybe 10 years ago now? I could still cry if I think too long.
Tunch reminded me of him, and yeah I wept 2 years ago today.
satby
@donnah:
Indeed! look what you made John. And thank you.
Even grief is easier shared.
schrodinger's cat
@Omnes Omnibus: Why? Did I miss something?
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodinger’s cat: I was just teasing SD. She finds the minions creepy and unfunny.
Drunken hausfrau
Still the magnificent fat bastard.
Love.
P.s. Need a Steve fix.
Pogonip
@Omnes Omnibus: Are you going to live in an exhibit, running through those little tubes?
I wouldn’t mind being a naked mole rat. They seem like happy little critters, one big happy family.
Omnes Omnibus
@Pogonip: That remains unknown.
RobertDSC (Quad Intel Mac)
You are greatly missed. RIP, Tunchinator.
YellowJournalism
Still love that cat.
HeartlandLiberal
Your grief is appropriate. It has been over four years since our beloved cat Josephine did not come home one morning, and we still tear up if stop and think about it hard enough. It was like loosing a child. I still look for her to be waiting in the driveway when I drive up coming home. After more than four years, I still look for her, and feel that pit of sadness knowing I will not see her.
This link will probably throw this post into moderation, but here is my last picture of her, owning my chair at my desk in my study.
http://edgeinfotech.com/wp-content/uploads/Josephine1-20120601.jpg
Paul in KY
@SiubhanDuinne: Miss the General. RIP!
Paul in KY
@Olivia: Sorry you lost him so early.
Paul in KY
@HeartlandLiberal: What a beautiful cat she was. Very sorry that happened.