Moxie and Mojo are 10 years old today! They were part of a litter of four born at a breeder’s in Puyallup, WA, on April 11, 2016. We brought them home on July 1st of that year, when we took the above photo. Mojo is on the left, Moxie on the right.
They are now somewhat larger.
April 16
Jan and Bree meet up in Boston for a last-minute whirlwind tour of two colleges. Bree has been waitlisted at her top two choices, but was accepted at Boston University’s College of Engineering and Smith College. She needs to choose which of those colleges she would like to attend. As it happens, both colleges offer back-to-back days for accepted students to visit the colleges and help make their decisions.
When Jan lands at Logan Airport, Bree’s train is still in Mystic, CT. But the silly free bus from Logan takes forever to come, and another age to actually make its way downtown — so Bree gets to South Station before Jan does.
The two check into their hotel near Fenway Park, then go out to eat for hotpot at Shu Da Xia. They make the mistake of getting a broth that’s too spicy, and make another mistake by eating far too much food. They have to walk slowly on the way back to the hotel.
April 17
Bree visits Boston University with Jan in the morning, beginning with a series of presentations and panel discussions in the morning. There’s an option to have lunch at the student cafeteria in Warren Towers, but after taking a brief peak to confirm the level of food on offer, Bree wisely opts to abandon the tour. Instead she and Jan have a good meal of pan-fried dumplings at Spring Shanghai.
Bree’s made arrangements to meet up with a Choate alum named Qin. He’s picked Pavement Coffeehouse as a meeting point, and Jan and Bree arrive with a few minutes to spare. Unfortunately, Qin failed to spell out that Pavement is a coffeehouse chain with many locations — and he’s sitting in a branch twenty minutes away. The new plan is to meet up at Boston University’s Booth Theater.
Qin gives Bree an informative tour of the large theater building and facility, including the extensive costume shops and various classrooms. He also introduces Bree to a faculty member from the College of Fine Arts, and the faculty helps answer a number of Bree’s questions.
After the theater tour, Jan and Bree pick up a rental car and head to the town of Northampton in the middle of Massachusetts. Tomorrow’s visit day at Smith has filled up the few hotel options in town, so Jan and Bree are staying in a bed and breakfast in a rural area outside of town.
April 18
The Old Mill Inn, as its name implies, occupies a former mill structure on a small river. There is a picturesque but loud waterfall.
Jan and Bree make the short drive to Smith College, and spend the morning touring the campus. Bree gets to attend a sample class taught by a professor of film studies; there’s also a student panel and various other activities. For lunch the two walk into town, where Bree’s delighted to discover a fairly good Taiwanese restaurant close to campus. (Access to decent Asian food is high on Bree’s list of college requirements.)
There are more events in the afternoon, but by the middle of the afternoon both Bree and Jan are tired so they retreat to the inn.
April 19
Jan has some time before he needs to head back to Seattle, so after he and Bree have a good breakfast at Toasted in Northampton, they drive to Hartford for a visit to the Wadsworth Atheneum.
Jan had seen the museum many years ago when he lived for a summer in Hartford, but he doesn’t remember ever going inside. Bree’s intrigued by their description of their extensive costume and historical clothing collection, but sadly only a few items are ever on display at a time. Still, a helpful docent marks out on the museum map where to find the current displays, and Bree and Jan have fun tracking them all down.
After lunch, Jan drops Bree off at the Hartford train station for the train back to Wallingford, then he drives to Bradley Airport for his flights home. For some reason, the second flight takes an unusual route south over the Eastside region east of Seattle. He’s able to snap a photo just as the sun disappears behind the Olympic Mountains, with the 520 bridge in the foreground. The point where the bridge approaches Seattle is Madison Park, the neighborhood where we live.
April 25
We celebrate our 28th wedding anniversary! We go out to a great set menu dinner at a restaurant that’s new to us, Altura on Capitol Hill. Our seats at the bar give us a great view of the flurry of work required to finish and plate the courses.
April 26
Our cat Mojo is missing. He and Moxie spent the night outside as they sometimes do — but in the morning only Moxie was waiting outside the door. We make occasional walks around the neighborhood all day, giving the whistle sound that usually brings him running. We can’t find him anywhere.
April 27
Mojo is gone. It’s been more than a day since Mojo went missing, so we put up “Missing Cat” posters on our block. Rebecca, one of our neighbors across the street, tells us that yesterday morning she and her neighbor had found a dead brown cat on the neighbor’s lawn. The cat was most likely the victim of a coyote. Rebecca shows us a photo, and while it’s a little hard to tell from the photo, given the coloring and timing it’s almost certainly Mojo. They had already disposed of the body before we began our first neighborhood searches.
We’re devastated. Mojo just turned 10 this month and we looked forward to many more years with him.
Liya shares a photo she took of Mojo sleeping in one of his cat beds yesterday evening around 5:30 pm. This is the last photo we have of him.
April 29
At lunch with Jan and Liya, Lyn asks Liya: “What are the people in your lab doing while you’re on vacation here?” Liya: “They are wallowing in sadness until I return.”
It’s a beautiful spring day, so later in the afternoon Jan and Liya stop by the Japanese Garden:
April 29
Bree decides to attend Boston University College of Engineering. Some factors in her choice: the city of Boston; the non-stop flight from home; the breadth of engineering classes; the substantial costuming design program; the active university theater with frequent productions; and the local theater scene. She’ll begin classes at the start of September.
April 30
Jan and Liya do a day hike to Big Creek Falls along the Middle Fork Snoqualmie River. There’s good clear weather, pleasantly warm but not hot. Along the old forest road there is plenty of trillium.
On the way back home they stop at Snoqualmie Ice Cream.
April 30
Some of the many things we would like to remember about our cat Mojo.
Mojo was born on April 11, 2016, one of a litter of four ocicats that also included his brother, Moxie. We visited Mojo and Moxie at the breeder’s house a couple of times, then brought them home on July 1st.
Mojo was the chillest cat we ever knew; you could do pretty much anything with him and he was generally fine with it. If you picked him up under his forearms and held him out, he would just hang straight down (he was quite long) until you put him down again. One day Evan did that and, when Mojo didn’t try to wriggle out of his grasp, declared, “Our cat is broken.” We eventually concluded that Mojo lived only in the present. When you picked him up, he had no desire to return to whatever he’d been doing. Rather, his only thought was: “I am being held.”
In other words, Mojo was kind of stupid. We own a set of puzzle feeders: contraptions that require a cat to do a bit of work to extract treats. Moxie could always solve any feeder, but Mojo could only solve the simpler ones. Mojo later learned that the way to solve the most difficult puzzle was to wait nearby while Moxie solved it and then take the kibble away from him.
Another indication of Mojo’s simple level of stimulus–response awareness: whenever we decanted cat kibble from a large bag into a plastic container, Mojo would come running in hopes of getting kibble. He would do this even when he was already in the process of eating kibble elsewhere.
Once we came into a room and found Mojo resting on a cat platform near a screen window. One of his claws was stuck in the screen. He must have stretched out his forearm at some point, gotten his claw snagged in the screen, and then stayed in that position.
Cats instinctively know how to use a litter box and, when they’re finished, to use a paw to scoop sand over their droppings. Mojo was a little confused on that last point. When he was finished, he would stretch out his paw to the litter box’s plastic bag liner and futilely swipe his paw against the plastic.
While people said both cat brothers were handsome, Mojo was easily the more charismatic and poised of the two. He kept his fur immaculately clean and always looked great. He looked quite dapper, especially after Bree bestowed upon him a collar with a built-in bow tie.
Mojo had the softest, fluffiest belly. Whenever you paid him any notice, he’d flop onto his side and roll onto his back — he wanted you to pet his belly. Many normal cats will tempt you to do this, then suddenly close their claws around your hand like a bear trap. Mojo never did that; he just wanted belly rubs. When you rubbed his belly, he would close his eyes, emit a deep rumbling purr. He would eventually stretch out his forearms and slowly extend and retract his claws.
He found it comforting to sit in his cat carrier — but he disliked the journey down the block to the vet. Once there, the vets always loved Mojo, and he was fine with them. One time a young woman vet tried to listen to Mojo’s heart and lungs with a stethoscope but she burst out laughing: “He’s purring so much, I can’t hear anything!”
Mojo (and Moxie) oddly preferred dry kibble to wet canned food. Mojo would eat wet food when he was hungry, but he was obsessed with getting his daily allotment of kibble. If we weren’t quick enough to feed him his evening kibble, he’d sit beside us and meow until we loaded it into his (simple) puzzle feeders.
We played a game with Mojo where we’d sit at the bottom of the stairs to the second floor, then fling a bit of kibble through the kitchen and into the front living room. Mojo would go running after it and pounce on it with his forepaws. Coming to a sudden stop, his butt and tail would pop up. This cracked us up every time.
Although Moxie was the more curious and adventurous brother, Mojo grew to be the dominant brother. Mojo began to get an edge in weight on Moxie when they were young, which in turn made it easier for Mojo to win wrestling contests and therefore ensure he got more food. Mojo gradually claimed for himself the litter box, the automatic kibble feeder, and the best spot on the cat tree. He eventually grew to be quite a robust (but still trim) cat; at over 16 pounds, he outweighed Moxie by 3 pounds.
Mojo and Moxie would sometimes play a game we called, “Lick, Lick, Chomp”. They would take turns grooming each other — and eventually Mojo would open his jaws and clamp them on Moxie.
Mojo would occasionally tackle Moxie out of nowhere, in the same manner of the movie character Kato tackling Inspector Clouseau. Over the years this gave Moxie abiding anxiety, and Moxie learned to keep careful track of where Mojo was. Evan eventually summarized the two brothers this way: “Mojo definitely has mojo… but Moxie doesn’t really have any moxie.”
Some years ago Mojo broke his left top fang somewhere outdoors — maybe he fell? A vet dentist removed the remaining bit of tooth. As a result, sometimes when Mojo yawned he’d end up with a small curl in his left upper lip. In these moments he looked like a gangster.
Like many cats, Mojo loved boxes, even (or especially?) boxes that were too small for him to fit in. Once he poked his head into an empty Lego box lying on its side. The box was bigtall enough for him to squeeze into, but so narrow that he got stuck in it with his back legs sticking out. He tried walking forward, and propelled himself — and the box — across the floor.
Bree constructed many projects for Mojo: a newspaper structure for a class project, an exploding kibble toy (which scared Mojo), an overhead Lego crane that would dangle a feather from the second floor to the first, and a cat scratching arch constructed from humangear sporks.
The creations of Bree’s that Mojo (and Moxie) loved the best were two cat beds she made for Jan’s office desk: a circular ring dubbed The Circle of Comfort, and a plush upholstered rectangle called the Rectangle of Repose. Mojo often passed the day moving back and forth between these cat beds. He couldn’t really fit within either cat bed; some part of him always extended past the edge. When Jan needed a break from work, he always had a cat in easy petting reach. Mojo was a great assistant.
Mojo forced a tiny change in the physical architecture of our house. The master bedroom has a pocket sliding door, and Mojo learned that he could sit outside this door and repeatedly push on it with a paw. He would make the door go bang bang bang bang bang, and after many minutes of this, he’d open a gap between the door and the door jamb. Mojo could then force his paw into this gap, open the door, and enter the room. In response, Jan taped a short strip of wood to cover the lower portion of the gap between the door and door jamb. Mojo learned to overcome this obstacle by reaching up above that strip of wood. Jan taped up a taller piece of wood; Mojo turned out to be able to reach higher than that. Finally Jan glued a substantial piece of wood trim to cover the entire gap from floor to ceiling and painted this to match the door jamb. This defense finally held. Subsequent owners of the house can puzzle over the presence of this very odd bit of door trim in a place that no pocked door ever has trim.
So Mojo’s morning routine was to meow outside Angela and Jan’s bedroom waiting for one of them to come out. When Jan went to open the door, he could hear a small thump as Mojo flopped over. When the door was opened, Mojo would be there on the floor with his belly up.
Mojo loved being outdoors. For the first part of his life, we kept Mojo and Moxie indoors. We owned a mesh outdoor tent for cats called a “catio” that we would set up on the back patio. We’d put Mojo into this, and he’d be transfixed by the noises and smells of the outside world.
The beginning of the pandemic in March of 2020 brought a big change to the cats’ lives. The five of us (plus Jan’s mom, plus later our family friend Evrim) were spending all day cooped up inside with the cats, and Evan and Angela began to struggle with cat allergies. (Later, Liya and Bree also developed cat allergies.) Their cat allergies worsened to the point where we had to consider giving away our cats. In desperation we tried letting the cats outside so that they weren’t inside with us all the time. This worked, and Mojo and Moxie were delighted to be able to explore the outside world.
From that time, Mojo would happily go outside every day. He rarely ventured further than a house or two away, or sometimes directly across the street. He would sometimes sit in front of our house and try to get passersby to rub his belly. Sometimes Jan could look up from his office in the front of the house, and see a person or two who had stopped and was smiling at something out of view. Sometimes they would be taking a picture of that something. They were always looking at Mojo.
Mojo generally wanted to do whatever his brother was doing, but he drew the line at following Mojo out into snow. On the rare winter days that brought snow, Mojo would sit outside near the back door under an awning on a patch of deck that had no snow on it.
In the wintertime, he much preferred to enjoy the Japanese-style kotatsu table we set up in our family room. This low table has a quilt over it and a heating element underneath, so it makes for a cozy place to warm up. When the fall weather grew cold enough for us to set up the kotatsu, Mojo would come running and get under the table even before we managed to get the quilt over it. Anyone sitting down to put their legs under the kotatsu might suddenly exclaim, “Oh, there’s a cat under here!” (Although it could just as easily have been Moxie as Mojo.) If Mojo baked too long under the kotatsu, he’s would crawl halfway out from under the quilt and cool off his head.
Despite being kind of stupid, Mojo was a lethally capable hunter. In 2021 he began to catch and play with baby bunnies. In later years he would kill them (or birds, or rats) and leave them on the back patio. To give the prey animals a fighting chance, Bree attached a bell to Mojo’s collar. He killed more animals, so Bree attached more bells. Eventually he had enough bells that he would jingle wherever he went. We gave him the nickname, “Mr. Jingles”.
In May 2025, Mojo suddenly became seriously ill while we were traveling. Evrim took him to a 24-hour pet hospital where they helped revive him. Mojo had an extended convalescence, during which he would sit in the garden watching birds fly overhead, in much the same way recovering human patients watch daytime TV. Mojo eventually made a full recovery. We could tell he was back in top shape when he resumed a habit of his: when we opened the front door for him, he would make a jaunty trot into the living room.
Mojo had an evening routine. Once he’d had his wet food dinner and his evening kibble share, he’d jump up on Jan’s lap while Jan read a book. When Mojo was young he wouldn’t sit in anyone’s lap for long, but he eventually came to realize this was a good way to: a) stay warm and b) get more belly rubs. He was a large cat, so required a large lap. Angela had to put her feet up on a footstool to create sufficient room for him. At some point in the evening, while Jan and Angela did the New York Times crossword together on an iPad, Mojo would take this as his cue to walk back and forth across both laps, bumping his face into the iPad over and over until they finished and returned to reading. Mojo would then take up position on a lap again.
If Mojo and Moxie went out in the evening, Jan would call them back to the house before going to bed. He did this by going to the front door and the back door and whistling a little whistle of alternating notes. Mojo was very reliable — Jan would eventually hear jingling coming towards him in the darkness, then see Mojo come trotting back into the house. If Mojo were already inside when Jan did the whistle, Mojo would nevertheless come running to Jan from inside.
We already miss our stupid, wonderful Mojo beyond words.
