Monday, March 13, 2006

Oldest Cat on the Blog

I notice that many Singapore bloggers liked to put up pictures of their cats ( Example). I too have some pictures of my family cat, Mimi. I dare not say she is the prettiest but I am pretty certain that she is the oldest; at least her photos are.

You see, Mimi was the our cat we kept back in the 1960’s to early 70’s when we lived in our kampong in Lorong Kinchir. I mentioned and showed a photo of her when I blogged about our kampong dogs during the Chinese New Year holidays (as part of the celebration of the Year of the Dog).





Mimi liked to sleep in warm places. One of her favourite places was on top of our television set. Often our visitors mistook her for a stuffed cat. One visitor got a shock she awoke and moved.

She also liked to sleep on our beds. No matter how much we tried to kick her off, she would climb back; until we gave up. Those days, some of our school buddies liked to visit and stay overnight in our kampong house. One night, my brother’s good friend, Raymond got a shock when Mimi jumped up and snuggled between his legs in the middle of the night.


Mimi was more fortunate than our last dog Barney. When we moved out of our kampong in 1974, we had to leave Barney behind in the care of our cousins. But we brought her along to our new HDB flat at Farrer Road.

Initially we had some problems with her and she kept defecating in our living room. But later, we managed to train her to do her business in the toilet floor; and on the grating cover too. Wasn’t she smart.

Unfortunately, when she became too old, we had to bring her to the vet’s to have her put down. But all in all, I would say she had a pretty good life for a kampong cat.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your pictures are so nostalgic! I love that second shot of Mimi...

Victor said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Victor said...

Chun See, I thought you wanted to wait till 'The Year of the Tiger' to do a tribute to Mimi? Can't wait or ran out of topics? Unlikely to be the latter reason since you have been more prolific than Kenny Sia lately.

Joking only of course (trying very hard to put my negativity aside). Your Mimi story is very captiviting (just like her eyes). Just curious, was her name chosen in remembrance of someone you knew?

Chris Sim said...

Sorry for being a wet blanket, but I'm never a cat lover. Luckily, there are people like you, so cats never need my love,anyway. LOL. But rest assured I'm not proned to torturing cats or any animals for that matter, very unlike the chap who was caught recently for having tortured and killed several cats.

When I was growing up in Club Street, there were many stray cats in the neighbourhood. They pissed and defecated everywhere in the house. And meowed and fought in the middle of the nights. Their cries in the middle of the night can scared the hell out of you. It sometimes sound like a baby wailing it's eerie. And have you ever noticed how the cats will stare back hard at you with a defiant look when you stare at them? They are proud creatures. But your mimi did look quite dainty and pretty, though.

Lam Chun See said...

None of my siblings remember how she got that name. I suspect a character in a tv show.

Francis Ho said...

U must be thinking of 'Kuching' of late which prompted this cat story!
So when are you going to play 'sakai tourist' there? ;)

A nice and fitting tribute to the "oldest cat on the blog"!