Tabs

Tabs met Heidi Klum through Tim Gunn, his mentor, and from the moment Tabs met Heidi, they hit it off. Every year she invited him to her annual Halloween party, but with him being a workaholic and all, his schedule just never allowed for him to make it, except for that one year…

Picture it: Los Angeles, 2011. Tabs was booked for a kitty modeling campaign in LA with Dolce & Gabbana, but at the last minute, famed photographer Steven Meow-shell came down with a cold, so the shoot was cancelled. Tabs decided that instead of spending Halloween handing out candy to the local kittens, he’d surprise his good friend Heidi and crash her Halloween party.

And because Tabs was such a good pal, even though he had access to all the top stylists in the fashion world, instead of going for broke with his Halloween costume, he decided to keep it simple and go as a pumpkin so he wouldn’t upstage Heidi.

It wasn’t until halfway through the night that she realized the rotund jack-o’-lantern in the corner was Tabs. At first, she thought it was just Michael Kors, since both of them were the same shade of orange, but nope. It was the world’s premier international kitty supermodel.

After that, they spent the rest of the evening talking modeling shop and schmoozing with Hollywood A-listers and the fashion elite.

That conversation was actually pretty key, because Tabs learned a lot of Halloween party hostess tips from Heidi, and he used all of that info to start a Halloween tradition of his own, hosting one of the most exclusive and iconic annual Halloween fêtes for felines.

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

The days are getting shorter…

Tabs became more of a night owl in his senior years after his retirement, up at all hours, but he still managed to stay busy and productive.

Of course, I made it explicitly clear to him that I could not chauffeur him between the hours of midnight and 3, but he took it upon himself to find alternate means of transportation to his gigs.

Like Uber Black for Cats…

I would just hear the click of the front door sometimes and know he was off to work.

One of his favorite sayings was, “Night time is the right time.” The right time to what, I never quite knew…

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Tabs’s relationship with birds was complicated. On one hand, he deeply believed, to the core of his being, that he was a birder.

Not a mouser, but a birder 100%.

This, of course, was all fine and good till he actually had to work with birds. I can’t imagine how challenging it must have been to pose alongside a coworker, while also wanting to gobble them up.

But Tabs was a consummate professional. He never actually ate a bird on set…that we know of.

I’ve been thinking about him a little more than usual today because we have a woodpecker issue. The exterior walls of our condo are being pecked into Swiss cheese by a gang of angry woodpeckers!

OK…I don’t actually know if they’re angry, but I think they are.

I don’t think Tabs would have viewed them as his enemy though. During his golden years, he was kind of like the cat equivalent of the Dalai Lama, and he was all about zen and living peacefully with other creatures, including ones you want to eat.

Oh, how I wish I could evolve to that state of enlightenment with these woodpeckers…

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

Oh, man! Fall was my former employer’s favorite time of year. It meant the purr-fect combo of comfy temps and low humidity for fabulous fur.

In fact, he did all his best fur work in fall. Best kitty modeling fur campaigns, that’s for sure.

He loved fall fashion, too. Chunky scarves, boots with the fur (faux fur, of course), and he also had a thing for down vests and cozy ties.

I don’t know if you knew this, but Tabs was the first to make tabby lunchtime walks a thing. He basically pioneered the entire feline lunchtime fitness craze.

He kind of blew the world away when he introduced the idea of two lunches per day. Before Tabs, cats just weren’t doing that.

That’s just how he rolled. He was always a forward thinker.

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

Tabs was a firm believer in flexibility, both in terms of dealing with surprises in his professional life (like the night we ran out of gravy), and with regard to his sumptuous body.

Being a yoga master and a feline fitness champion, he understood the importance of stretching in being able to hit purr-fect kitty modeling poses.

Needless to say, he took stretching very seriously — so seriously that his Extreme Tummy Shaping DVD from 2015 is still the bestselling feline fitness DVD of all time.

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