Tales of 3 cats #1: Maowi the 3H Gentleboy
Prelude
I must have been a cat in one of my previous lives, if there is any ;-). I can talk to cats in the sounds of cat language without knowing the meaning. But the cats must know what I am saying since they always respond to me repeatedly and are friendly. My family (actually my brother) in Beijing used to have an outdoor cat when I was young, and the cat kept following me around all the time when I was at home, and once even showed up on the 2nd floor balcony of my friend's apartment about 1.5km away, when I visited her there.
Maowi the Healthy, Happy and Handsome Gentleboy
In March of 2011, my son took 3 month old Maowi, alone and abandoned, off the street outside his dormitory and took him to the local SPCA, fixed him and formally adopted him, despite my protest remotely. Two months later, we met Maowi when my son came home for (grad) school summer break. When we picked them up at the airport, my son dropped Maowi onto my lap without warning. This dearest little thing, he just looked at me with his big and bright eyes, then sat on my lap, not moving much and not even making a sound. I was instantly melted by him.
Two months later, my son went back to school and decided to take Maowi with him. At 4am that morning, I got up and took Maowi to his litter box so he wouldn't be bothered by his business on the planes (note I don't force him to do his business often, but when I do, with good reasons, he always does it for me, still the same today). After he finished, I bent down and started to cry, he raised up and kissed my nose, as saying "don't worry Mom''.
In Dec 2011, we decided to buy a condo for our two "sons", especially for the hairy one as he is an indoor cat and needs space for running. It was at the very bottom of the housing market there, and we bought a foreclosure but nice 2bed 1.5bath condo for a very good price. You can call it luck, but I am 100% sure it was all Maowi's doing.
Note we did use the condo ourselves as the vacation base for 3 winters and enjoyed it very much. There is also a funny story wrt Maowi: we couldn't find our annual US park pass in the first winter when we were down there, and were wondering if or not to buy a new one. But the very next day, when we came back from a shopping trip, the pass was sitting right on the middle of the carpet in our bedroom. I asked my son, he had no idea why and how as he didn't goto the room at all. So only possibility is that Maowi must have heard our disucssion and found the pass for us. 
Next summer, my son's study and research work got intense, plus he loves high altitude climbing (extreme and very dangerous to my taste), and often needed to be away for days, so he bought Maowi back to us. Maowi became a US and Canada dual citizen.
We have been keeping Maowi indoor/deck for two main reasons: to prevent his killing and prevent him being killed. But he did try to sneak out and was successful a few times. The very first time when he ran away one evening, after being home for just a few days, I was really worried and couldn't sleep. Sure enough he was back at 2AM, with some fish scales on his body and smelling very fishy. For the next two days, he just ate and slept (and did business) without saying a word. So it must have been a very frightening experience for him. BTW, Maowi is a very logical and stubborn cat, when he runs away, he always comes back to the same door and waits for hours, before looking around for another entrance.
Maowi loves to play with squirrels and birds, as it doesn't matter how gentle he is, he is still a cat with a killer instinct. He will imitate bird sounds every time when he sees a bird outside the window, regardless if the bird can hear him or not. One time, he killed a small bird on our deck and took it to the deck door to show me. I screamed loud automatically without thinking, and it must have scared Maowi to death, as he refused to eat any food for two or three days afterwards. Poor bird and poor Maowi, and very silly me.
ps. Photos of young Maowi and the condo we bought for two "sons" are in "远程买房记" link below
https://bbs.wenxuecity.com/fdcj/1809545.html
To come: #2 Zuma the Unstoppable bully and #3 Lucy the Impossible girl
