The cats in my life

This essay is requested by my daughter. She wants me to write something about her cats. Since I have only interacted with her cats whenever I came to visit, I figure that I will expand the topic and write about all the cats that I have had multiple memorable encounters with up until now.

Let me start by apologizing to the dogs in my life, Li and Lizzy. I have not forgotten about you guys and I will write about you later. But we should all accept that cats rule!

I don’t know what this cat’s name is

When I was growing up in Ha Noi, we didn’t have a pet, dog or cat. We lived in an old apartment complex, so keeping a pet was not an option. We did have a small coop of chickens for eggs (everyone did at that time), and I remembered going out catching tadpoles for them. When our family moved to Ho Chi Minh city around 1990, my grandpa on my mother’s side helped us buy a house. The house came with a cat! A white and ginger cat!

I vaguely remember that cat now. Grandpa explained that cats stay in houses forever, and that even as the owners moved away, the cats would always come back to the same house. As I am typing this out, I realize that this is quite different from how cats are in the U.S., where they typically bonded more with the people as an extended part of the family. Back then, you get a cat when you want to take care of the rodents, and the cat would likely to bond with the house and the neighborhood as much as the people. At least that’s what I was told. So anyway, we had a house that comes with a cat.

The cat was nice, and he was effective in chasing away rodents. Grandpa was living with us, and he was taking care of the cat as well. I just now recalled that we didn’t have any fancy litter box, but we never had cat pee or poop around the house. The cat must have done his business elsewhere. He was friendly enough that we can pet him now and then as he was stretching out on the greenish tile floor to enjoy the morning sun. The house had a small vine of bougainvillea (hoa giấy) on the second floor balcony, where the red dragonflies, typical of the region, liked to land. The cat enjoyed watching me trying to catch these dragonflies, and helped playing with the poor things once they are captured.

I didn’t remember when he died. When we moved to a different house in two years, he was still living in the old house. I asked my grandpa if we should bring him to the new house, but grandpa said he would run away from the new house to find his way back to the old house. Eventually, I forgot about him until now, when I am writing this essay. I hope that he had lived a long life, and died near or in the house that he was attached to.

The Clemson cats

I didn’t have any significant interactions with cats, until I went and did my post-doc years at Clemson University. We ended up living in the same neighborhood as my advisor, Dr. Apon, and she asked me to help with feeding the cats whenever she and Randy, her husband, had to be out of town. There were BC (Big (Black) Cat), LC (Elsie - Little Cat), VJ (Video Jock), and Kailey. Dr. Apon talked about her cats with much adoration, but those guys were so shy. I have been to her house plenty of times, but I have barely gotten a glimpse of any of the cats. Coming in to feed them was a fun experience. I would open the door slowly, worrying that some cats would try to sneak outside, then stepping inside the house and close the door. Going into the kitchen, I tried glancing around to see if any cat comes out to inspect the stranger, but none did. Cleaning up the left over food and water, then putting new cat feed and water out, all the while mumbling to see if any cat would make an appearance! They never did!

In this picture, BC is to the left and LC is to the right. I think I have seen BC poking around from the top of the stair sometimes.

This is Kailey. I don’t think I have ever seen her.

I definitely don’t remember seeing VJ as well. But Dr. Apon sent me another picture with the backdrop of the neighborhood back then, so I definitely fed him!

And then there was another cat in the neighborhood, from the house at the beginning of the small road leading into our cul-de-sac. The owner of the house is a professor at Clemson University, and his daughter was in the same class as my son. The house has a black cat called Flower. The school bus dropped the kids off at the top of the road, then Willie and his friends started walking home. Flower behaves almost like a dog, wagging her (I assume, never ask) tail and walking up to us. She would be leaning against my legs and asking for pets. Flower sometime would be rolling over on the sidewalk if it was a warm day. I wonder if my daughter still remembered Flower.

Po and Mập (Fatty)

These guys are my brother’s cats. He adopted Po when he was studying his Master in Russia. Then he brought Po back to Vietnam with him. And then he brought Po to the U.S. once he immigrated here. The cat is a wise traveler! Fatty is Po’s son. Aside from an impressive travel record, Po is perhaps the classic stereotype of a black house cat. The things you have seen on Tiktok, she had done it. Catching birds and small rabbits and leaving carcasses to teach the soft humanoids how to hunt: check. Skippity papping the children when they are giving too much petting: check. Terrorizing neighborhood dogs: check. One time, I was calling my brother as he were taking his kids to the neighborhood playground. I could hear the children (other people’s children!) calling out to greet Po. She was casually strolling around watching out for her neighborhood.

On the other hand, Fatty is a much calmer, and fatter cat. Isn’t that the fate of mommy’s boy especially when your mom is a power lady?

Po and Fatty have been with my brother’s family forever. I am glad that my nephews have such great companions to grow up with, and I also am anxiously worried about the day that Po will go to cats’ heaven. It would be such a heart break.

Snow and Giòi (Worm)

Sometimes after Sophia and Lucas, my two younger children, went to Vietnam with their mother, they had a cat. Worm came first, and don’t ask me why the name. A few days later, they had a second cat, called Snow. Back then, Snow was really snow. Sophia loved the cats. She was always very affectionate with dogs and cats, and it was natural that Snow and Worm bonded with her quickly. The cats were awesome. Sophia loves Worm and Snow very very much! Given the circumstances, I could only see Snow and Worm in person on a handful of encounters. And yet, whenever Sophia and I talk, she would almost certainly update me on the cats, how they grow, what funny antics they are up to now. I always look forward to those conversations, where Sophia would tell me everything about her school, her daily activities, and of course, her beloved cats.

My students are probably already familiar with Snow, as I picked this picture of her peeking over my shoulder as my homepage and Discord avatars. I remembered that day, I visited the kids at their mother’s home before heading to the airport to go back to the U.S. We had lunch, and Snow, without any hesitation, promptly jumped on my chair, then stood on my shoulder to see what we were eating.

I don’t have a lot of pictures with Worm, but the guy is equally friendly and curious. Here is one picture from that same day, when Worm and Snow were inspecting my suitcase.

Maybe Snow and Worm are both the kind of cats that are super friendly. Or, maybe they just know how much I love my daughter and treat me accordingly!

Ki (Lucky)

My wife didn’t remember when she got this cat. Lucky was the original name, but eventually it is shortened to be just Ki. Ki came to the house sometimes after we started dating, but it was still early in the relationship, so I didn’t know much about Ki until later, when the relationship moved to the point where I spent the night there. One of my earlier impression of Ki is that she always liked to stay on top of the fridge. It turned out that my wife had a small bowl with some water plants and some fish, and Ki loved to just lay there and watch and sometimes put one paw in to poke the fish. The fish died, eventually, perhaps due to the stress of a giant cat watching and poking nearby. After the fishes are gone, Ki didn’t go up to the fridge much anymore.

Even though my wife took care of Ki when she was a kitten, Ki spent more time with my mother-in-law a lot more later on. Perhaps some of this is my fault, as I was taking some of my wife’s time and attention away from the kitten. My wife and my mother-in-law’s house is built as a mini apartment complex, which is quite popular in Vietnam. The house has multiple floors, with each floor is a single tiny apartment unit. Ki stayed in my wife’s apartment when she was a kitten, but she has moved into my mother-in-law’s apartment floor since then. She came down to visit every day, patrolling her domicile, but she will spend the night up there. She only came down to sleep whenever my mother-in-law is out of town.

Ki is quite friendly and playful, at her own discretion. She will let me pet her, but when she becomes overwhelmed, she will gently bite and bat my hands away. The best way to pet her is wait until she gets into her bed, then you can spend quite a bit of time scratching her head and hearing she purrs.

A concluding thought

I love cats (and dogs too). Yet I have not been able to bring myself to raise my own cat or dog. This raises the question. Was it about the cats, or was it the home and the people that I love and care about, and it just happens so that these cats have been part of those beautiful bonds and memories? Those cats are no longer just cats, they are part of those people’s families, and therefore, those cats are part of my family too!