THE MAOCRACY: MY CAT BUZZ

The Maocracy


Mao is the Chinese word for Cat 猫. It is written with a animal sigh 犬 ，which, by the way, means Dog, and a sound sign “miao” 苗,which stands for aboriginals. It is very graphic. The word Mao 毛 is also a universal word for Chairman Mao 毛主席， the Chinese Communist Party‘s former Chairman. This connection is strongly established in the modern politics and the great leader of the Chinese revolution is so famous a world icon that the word MAO is almost the sole bearer of the Chinese Chairman’s surname Mao 毛. This pronunciations has , though of a different meaning, meaning Hair 发. In the ancient Chinese, human hair is 发（pronounced as fa，) animal hair is 毛 (pronounced as mao)。 But grey hair on the head is more likely be called Mao 毛，than Fa 发. Why we go into linguistic to explain cat and hair, Chairman Mao, and Miao? That is because my cat is named Chairman Miao, and it has become a problem that we have come to refer to as the issue of the Maocracy in our little republic of the cats.

Once upon a time there is a cat called Buzz. It is a cat that a homeless family brought to the shelter where I have been working for the last 8 years. We have a rule that cats and dogs are not allowed to stay with their families in the shelter. If the family wants to stay, their pets need to be arranged to stay in somewhere else. This is one of the reason why some families or individuals refuse themselves the service of the shelter. They would rather stay with their pets. This bond is so strong that when the Donner family drove all the way from Alabama to California to stay in our shelter, they brought their cat Mimi with them. I did not see the cat Mimi for a few days until my shift. It was a cold winter night and at about 10 pm, I heard Miaomiao, a cat was at my office door. It was a black and white, short hair tabby cat. It had a little pink collar with a tag. It was raining outside and the cat looked miserable, like a soaked chicken, as the Chinese cliché says. I immediately recalled the rule of the shelter that we were not to allow the animals in. However I did not have the struggle to do or not to do. I just opened the door and let the cat in. I did not let it stay, I just let it to stay away from the rain. I was sure that it did not serve me to let the cat stay. But It was so wet that I need to dry it. It was a very cooperative cat. It let me touch it, it let me dry it. It did not struggle and when I opened a can of tuna for it, we became a relationship. It devoured the whole can of tuna in no time. It is a young cat, not quite fully grown, but I did see its potentials. It would one day be a king cat of the deserted lots and foreclosed houses. It attacked the human food tuna better than a hungry child. It licked its paws and addressing its face in a totally satisfactory manner when it finished the whole can. It must have been very hungry. It was not too difficult to approach a cat. It had its simple agendas. I watched it eating and recalled another cat its name was Dave. It was an outdoor cat. A day like this would find him still roaming the hills where my landlord and I shared a big mansion. I did not do much to care about Dave。It was my landlord’s cat, but it slept indoor anytime it came into the house through my window. It knew its ways to survive. That’s my total experience of taking care of a cat. I honestly do not know much about the Maocracy, or the ways of the cats. This one, at least for the time being, was not a problem. I decided to let it stay till the rain stopped. It stayed. It found a soft spot among our clean blankets stacked high on the shelf, and settled comfortably before I could find where it was and making no fuss, it fell sleep. I kept reading my Karl Marx and the shelter was quite. All the three houses and the residents were asleep as sound as this cat and I was the only one on watch. I could hear my supervisor’s words now in my head, “We can’t let cats or dogs in the shelter. We have small children, the animals might attack kids, and we do not want to be held liable. Yes. Sir, we would not be held liable. You have my word.” The rain stopped and I logged on the office log book that between 11 pm to 1am, a homeless cat was in the office. But I made it clear that this cat was an emergency humane service receiver, and it was not staying. After I logged in the information, I decided to turned my reading light off and go to bed. I picked up the cat and let it out. It stretched its limbs and ran into the dark night. And I ran into my dark night of dreams too.


I was awoke up by the miaomiao of a cat and its scratching and soft knocking on the door. I turned lights on and found that same cat staring at me by the door. It wanted to come in. I thought for a while, what the hack, and let it in. It went under the bed and hid there, until I got up in the morning. I turned lights on at 5.30 am and fed the cat another can of tuna. It finished the tuna in no time. It was a great sport on food.

Then one of the early risers came to the office to get some supply of toilet paper. It was Steve. He was a tall single father with a 4 year old boy. He was working for a fishing company, packing and stocking. He always got up before 6 am. He walked up to the big box where 96 rolls of extra soft, 100% recycled paper tissue, made in USA, was stacked. He took two rolls and saw the cat.

“Hi, this is my roommate’s cat!”

“is that true?”

“They lost it for a few days.”

“Where did the cat stay?”

“In their car. They rolled the window down a bit so the cat can breathe. It must have sneaked out from the window. They could not find it for three days. “

“well, in that case, tell them that the cat is in my office. “

In no time, the family came in PJ’s. They were so happy to see their cat, they called it Mimi.

The girl Caroline held the cat in her arms and kissed it profusely. And the girl’s mother, a small, fragile lady was almost in tears. The father was the head of the house, his wife had mental issues and was on social security. His name is Bob. Bob told me that the cat had come with them all the way from Arkansas and it never ran away. It enjoyed the ride and slept in the car until they arrived in our city after 2000 miles on the way. This family had been our previous clients three years ago, and now they lost their residence again. They came to California for the shelter, and they knew the rules that the pets are not allowed in the shelter. I asked them how they could take care of this cat if it ran away all the time and they suddenly asked if I would be kind enough to adopt this cat. It never occurred to me that I would keep a cat. “ It likes you, we can tell, please adopt our cat, ” both the mother and the daughter begged me. It was really sweet to think a cat would like me at first sight. I was urged on by their trust and assurance and told them that I needed to talk to my husband first.

No problem, my husband shared their verdict that the cat really liked me and we would be agreeable parents for the cat since we didn’t have children between him and me.

After work, my husband came to pick me up and this time I had for a fellow traveler a cat. I held it tight until we got home. We immediately stocked up on food and water, its litter box and its contents, and it became our cat.

It was a very beautiful cat, with brownish black strips on the forehead and white paws--“four little hoofs in the snow”, like one old Chinese poem described.

The cat loved us. It has brought a big dimension to our life. Instead of a life of two, now it has become a life of three. Instead of two watching TV, now three are watching TV. Instead of two sitting in the sofa, now three are sitting in the sofa. Instead my kissing only my husband , now I am also kissing my cat, and I believe, more than I am kissing my husband. Instead of my husband being home alone, when I am at work, he is home with a cat. Instead of having the existence of two in our household, we have an existence of three. What a change, and we welcome the change with the excitement of falling in love all over again.




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Our relation with our cat is not a “relation” in Karl Marx’s sense. He pointed out that animals do not have relations with society. (except they are sheltered members of Sonoma humane society ). Since I have been a steady fast follower of Marxism, I call our relationship with the cat a connection. And boy, we are connected as if at first sight. Feeling our closeness with it makes us realize how terrible it must have been for the family that has to give up their pets. Since this old host family is in the shelter and I always work on Sunday shift, I decide to bring the cat to work with me, and have supervised visit with its previous family. The girl Caroline and her mother were still in bed when I arrived in their room with the cat. They suddenly woke up to this great day dream and found it real-- that their pet cat Mimi was here. The cat knew them so well that it jumped into bed and stuck its head in the pillow and started to dig. I told them that I would have the cat back when I knock off and they said they fully appreciated my consideration to let them resume their connection with that cat.

This supervised visit continued for about a month until one day I let the cat out of the bag. At our staff meeting, I somehow mentioned that the cat puupuued in the office and we had to make an emergency rescue. My supervisor asked in astonishment “Do you mean you have brought a cat to work?” Well, I have to admit guilty as charged. “If only Auntie knew, she would fly into a rage.” Auntie is our second highest supervisor. She was very fundamental in carrying rules and accept no nonsense. She was actually more authoritarian than our first supervisor. She was merciless if she was in the right and you are in the wrong. We have a coinage that to be Hilary-ed means to be busted by Hilary for our mistakes and errors. Our errors are mostly negligible, yet of enhanced importance . Our shelter closes at 8 am. The staff on site is responsible to make sure all the windows are closed and locked. All the lights are off, all the coffee makers are off and all the fans, Tvs, radios, computers and games are off. There are three houses and 7 rooms and occasionally a light was left on or a window was not locked. I had been Hilary-ed a few times because I left the office light on once or twice. So, after the staff meeting, the connection of this cat with its previous family was cut and we are the only family that still keep our connection with this animal unsevered.

One day I was in the office and my husband called me. He told me that the cat had ran away. It was a winter night and he went around the neighborhood, calling its name. By this time we had landed on a name that we have found that had grown onto us --“buzz”. Buzz was a word that easy on the lips, it had enough width and depth when shaping the mouth, and the vowel “u” puffed out loud and crispy. It carried the volume of air as long as you keep up the momentum and its sound travels as far as it can go. It is very short yet very satisfactory adequate and one can put a variety of emotions into making the sound. Our buzz certainly realized that it had been called a different name, and since it is the only one aimed at when the name is sounded, it accepted it without revolt. It became our Buzz and we really got the buzz when we address it. My husband kept the doors wide open and wrapped himself in the blanket and sat in the door way waiting for Buzz to return. It did not, and my husband lost a whole night of comfortable sleep. He was pale and disorderly when I got home in the morning. I started to Miaomiao around the neighborhood, went all the way to the back of the woods where wild cats roamed. And sure enough, our Buzz showed its little head and waited for me. I walked slowly to it, and it did not run away. It expressed a non verbal desire to be picked up and I got the message. I picked it up and held it in my arms and kissed it. The cat was not punished and was being condoned for its behavior of running away. On this point I was not quite sure if I and the cat saw eye to eye. My husband was relieved that the cat was caught but showed a little misgiving that the cat was so cooperative with me than with him. He suffered so much for staying up all night in the cold and the cat did not seem to understand its part in his misery. He went into his room and got into bed, trying to get some sleep. Buzz had not being an indoor cat. Its owner told me that Buzz was one of the 5 cats born on the farm that also has 8 dogs and 12 horses. Buzz was roaming with the dogs with the rest of its brothers and sisters. There were big open space on the farm and Buzz was a good sport. I realized that it was not possible to keep Buzz in door especially now Buzz showed early adolescent tendencies. It is more than 7 months old and it kept spraying around house. To which I was totally unaware of. Only until my husband disclosed Buzz spraying incidents did I realize that I had to understand Buzz’s behavior as sensual and materialist in nature, and we need to adopt some materialistic action to reshape its animal nature. We called the cat doc and arrange for it to get fixed. The appointment was two weeks from then and before the date, Buzz disappeared totally. We let Buzz out to the back yard and thought as usual that it would come back when it felt hungry. It had its collar and harness on its body and against all our hopes and reasoning, it did not reemerge from the back yard. At the same time the family at the shelter suddenly exited themselves without leaving a word where they were going.

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Whether the cat ran away or got killed or kidnapped, or found its way back to the shelter and left with the family remained a mystery. Every one who knew that our cat had gone encouraged us not to lose hope because some cat would return, even it may take years. We started to receive clippings about missing cats returning, and our hope was kept high by one story that the cat returned after 13 years of absence. We surely wish that my cat can return but not after an absence as long as 13 years. It was like missing our son, and 13 years of missing our son is something incomprehensible. Our restroom on the second floor faced the back yard and it was from that back window I always found Buzz perched there, sun bathing. It always looked up at me when I miaomiaoed at it and it miaomiaoed back. We kept our dialogue going while I run down stairs to let it in. It never failed. Buzz always returned. Now it had been 3 days since Buzz left. I went to the window every ten minutes hoping to find it there. Sometime I felt that miracle could just happen before my eyes that the empty fence suddenly pushed my cat Buzz out of its wooden back and a white fur ball rolled down the fence. It started to become surreal when I gazed the fence and eagerly anticipated the white fur ball emerge. It did not materialize, and Buzz remained away somewhere in the universe. We hope against hope and our heart jumped widely every time we heard a miaomiao, sometime it is real, sometime it is only an illusion. We put all the toys in its little crib and food at the backyard in case it was hungry and looking for food. But it never showed up. We marked the date on the calendar and it had been 30 days since it ran away. My husband’s mother suggested we put out advertisement to offer 50 dollars to anyone who brought back the cat. I deadly objected to it. Buzz was a free cat, it was still free and alive. It would come back if not being held hostage. If somebody got it, why they would let it go if in the first place they already took its freedom and made it a captive. If the cat had the free will, it would use it to come back. I wound not use my money to pay ransom if somebody had it. I would not encourage pet theft and also I would not believe that if Buzz was held hostage, the owner would let it go at all. Buzz was just too cute to let go.