An Engineer's Guide to Cats

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHXBL6bzAR4

This made my day. Thanks Nina!

coco is home!!

Yeah!! So far, she has been home for 24 hours and I have not been able to take a picture of her sitting still. So I guess this is just to show off my new furniture arrangements... with all the crap all over...

I am also trying to fashion a scratch box for coco with all the leftover packaging materials. Maybe I'll be able to post that soon. In the mean time, I am going to get materials for my nephew's 6th birthday cake. Hopefully it will be a Spongebob Squarepants strawberry shortcake! (or would that be crabby cake?!)

coco's cellmates

The first cat is brand new today, even without a name tag. Seems like a young baby, kept meowing nervously. The second one is called meomi and she is mean! Every time I walk by or look at her, she hisses at me. The gray cat is really docile and his name is taco...

Coco in jail

well... that is not fair... she didn't do anything... I had to move her so that she needs to be confined for 3 weeks (hopefully the stupid document will be here in time). The people at the facility is very nice and thanks to Catherine, I have a 20% off discount for being an employee at NTU (Coco is in the NTU vet hospital quarantine facility). So it would roughly cost me 250 dollars for the 3 weeks.

Here is the room that Coco is at and the cage that is open is hers. There are right now only 4 cats there. Her immediate neighbor is a gray cat called Taco, also from the States. He doesn't seem to be interested in anything. Hopefully he is not depressed since he is in jail. The big cage covered in a towel has 2 cats from the States, one of which is an ill-tempered black cat, called Onyx. He does seem interested in Coco's toy, unlike coco. Here is a paw shot:

One funny American reference:

Coco to Taiwan

I'd like to think I am a reasonable person with an average intelligence level. I even completed college in an top-tier Taiwanese university (although not without hurdles). I somehow even got a Ph.D. at an Ivy League!? So how is it that I can't understand the 'simple' procedure to bring my cat, Coco, back to Taiwan? Coco landed with me today in Taiwan after a month in SF. During that time, I called my vet in New York, set up a new vet in SF, and scheduled appointments with the California USDA. I called the Taiwanese equivalent of USDA (BAPHIQ) several times to confirm that I have everything needed to bring Coco back. And of course I am still 2 criteria short. Even though the form listed the name of the vaccine that Coco received 7 months ago, apparently with all the vet in Taiwan, they don't know which kind of vaccine it is (whether it was an activated or inactivated form of Rabies vaccine), which took me less than 3 minutes to find online. Also, while they accepted my vet's email saying that the vaccine was a booster shot in previous exchanges, since the USDA didn't stamp that letter, it was not good enough. So later tonight, I have to make more phone calls to the US to contact the USDA, my vet and who knows what. ARHHHH!!!