Our Cats

We are currently living with five felines that have domesticated us.  In addition, we are fostering three kittens until August 7th.  Since Yeongmi and I married we've had two other cats that are no longer with us.  We've also fostered eight cats (counting the kittens), all since we moved back to Utah in September of 2023.

Teddy, Moki, and Midna  2024

I've written before about my first cat, Cindy, who came into my life when I was a small child living in San Gabriel, Calofornia.  She living with our family when we moved to Phoenix, Arizona and again to Idaho Falls, Idaho.  She passed away sometime in the early 1980s after I moved away from home.

There were no other cats in my life until 1993.  By that time, I'd earned my Ph.D. and moved to Orem, Utah to teach at BYU.  We were at a pet store and saw a beautiful; young tuxedo cat.  We bought the cat and called him a birthday present for my daughter, Lynn.  Given the stated age of about 9 months, we figured he was born around July 4th, so we called him Uncle Sam, or just Sammy for short.  Sammy was a great cat.  He was indoor/outdoor and he stood up to all the dogs that roamed or occasionally got loose in our cul-de-sac.  Sammy moved with us to our new home, also in Orem, in 2007.  But he suffered kidney failure later that year and we had to put him down.  Lynn and I were with him when he passed.  That was one of the saddest days of my life, and brings tears to my eyes just writing about it.

Sammy in his prime

On a visit to Idaho Falls around 1999, we picked up a kitten from my sister, Glenette.  He was a long-haired cat with a dark spots on his eyes, kind of like a Siamese.  We named him Bandit, because he looked like he was wearing a mask.  Bandit was good cat, if a little dopey at times.  He was ostensibly our son, Alan's, cat.  I really loved Bandit and he lived with us for five or six years.  Toward the end of his tenure, he began having problems with not using the litter box.  We tried a variety of fixes, but to no avail.  Reluctantly, we surrendered him to the local shelter.  This is a decision that haunts me now, and one of the things I most regret doing in this life.  He did not deserve to be sent away, and a more mature me would have figured out a way to adjust and keep him close.  Tear to the eyes and all that again.

Bandit in one of his favorite positions, lying in the driveway.

In 2007 after moving to our new home, we adopted two cats from the family of one of Joan's friends, Sophie.  The first was an orange and white tabby they had names Hobbes, but who we renamed Moki.  Sammy was rather curmudgeonly by this time and wanted little or nothing to do with a kitten, and Moki was lonely.  So after a couple of days we adopted his last available littermate, a calico kitten they had named Ladybug, but who my kids named Midna after a character from the Zelda game, Twilight Princess.  They chose this name because she has a dark spot over one eye that looks the the mask the character wears (sort of).  Moki and Midna are both 17 years old now and are slowing down alot.  
They have been a source of unending joy to me, especially Midna.  she and I have a very deep bond.  I've learned a great deal about loving animals from them and I will miss them horribly when they are gone.  I'll be writing more about them in later posts.

Moki 2007

Midna 2007

We adopted Momo in November 2017.  She was a stray living around the compound where my two sons were sharing an apartment.  They were worried about how she would do when winter came.  When they asked me what I wanted for my birthday that year, I told the to bring Momo to our house.  We took her to the vet and they found no microchp, but she had been spayed and declawed.  The vet guessed she was about three years old, so her unofficial birthday is November 7, 2014.  She was quite thin, when we got her but quickly ballooned.  I'm not really sure how she got her name.  The kids in the compound called her Moo Moo because of her black and white cow spot coat, so maybe from that?  More on Momo later as well.

Momo 2017

I left BYU in 2018 and Yeongmi and moved to Arlington, Virginia.  I worked at the US Congressional Budget Office from May of 2018 to September of 2023.  Momo came with us, while Moki and Midna stayed in our old home in Orem with our kids.  We sold that house in 2019 (and it's price doubled 9 months later when COVID hit), so the Moki and Midna joined us in Arlington.  I retired in September 2023 and we moved back to Utah, to Herriman this time.  Once we settled in we began fostering.  I'll write more about that later.

In late November 2023, I noticed a post on Facebook for a cat that needed to be rehomed.  I'd seen a lot of these, but this was for an older cat that a family needed to rehome and he had lived with them for almost 12 years being adopted as a kitten.  The thought of him going to a shelter and waiting for several months to find a new home seemed wrong to me.  I thought since all of our cats were relatively old, that maybe he would fit in.  Going from three to four cats is potentially entering crazy cat person territory, and I agonized over it for a while.  When Yeongmi gave me the go-ahead we made arrangements to adopt Teddy.  The family who brought him were heartbroken that they couldn't keep him and some tears were shed.  Teddy had a rough 48 hours, but then settled in.  As with Midna, Teddy and I have bonded deeply.  He's a fairly big boy, but he and I love to cuddle.  His favorite is when I rub the top of his head with my beard.  Again more on Teddy later.

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Teddy and I

As I mentioned earlier, we have been fostering through Best Friends Salt Lake since we moved back to Utah.  We had one long-term foster, Battleship, who will appear in a later post.  After that, we decided to try short-term fostering.  We took ne cat just overnight, for example.  We signed up to foster Enoki for 10 days.  She had been picked up in West Valley in February or March and was in pretty bad shape when she got to Best Friends; really bad teeth, open sores, eye infection, upper respiratory problems, etc.  They took very good care of her and got things fixe up.  They though she was about five years old, but when the dentist went to remove all her teeth he told them she was much older than that.  So she is somewhere between five and ten years old.  We picked her up mid-March and then took her back a few days later to be spayed and brought her back again that same afternoon.  She recovered quickly and we discovered how much she loves to play (a great deal). Despite her age she is a small cat,, only about 7 pounds and she come across as six-month-old kitten.  When Best Friends contacted us about bring her back for a weekend for an adoption showcase, I said "No, I don't think so."  We adopted her instead.  If going from 3 to 4 was a hard decision 4 to 5 was at least twice as hard.  You wonder if you can properly care for that many cats and give them the attention they need.  Fortunately, Enoki get along with everyone.  And when you're retired you have lots of time to devote to spoiling cats.

Enoki aka Little Girl

Well, that's all for now.  I'll post more later about our foster experiences so far.  And I'll give you all sorts of details on our five cats; enough to cure your insomnia.