cats | Tien Chiu's Blog

September 22, 2025 by Tien Chiu Leave a Comment

Fritz

We said goodbye to Fritz yesterday.

He’d been battling lymphoma for two years, and finally it was clear that his time with us was ending. That didn’t make it any easier, of course: we loved him immeasurably and his passing has left a huge hole in our hearts.

Fritz was the friendliest and most social cat imaginable. When the doorbell rang, Fritz would run to the door to see who would pet him next. And they always did, because Fritz loved everyone and everyone loved Fritz. I’ve never met a cat as friendly and beloved by all.

Wherever we were in the house, Fritz would come along – sometimes demanding attention and sometimes just content to sit quietly nearby. We were his people, and he wanted to be with us.

He loved attention. Even after lengthy adoration sessions, he’d still be purring, soaking up the love, rolling over on his back to ask for more belly rubs. (Which he got, because we love him and who can resist a fuzzy cat belly?)

He had no sense of feline dignity whatsoever. To paraphase the Bible verse, “For what shall it profit a cat, if he should gain dignity, and lose his belly rubs?” Here he is, asking for a belly rub, floppy paws and all.

Even his flaws were adorable. As a youth, he was a hoodlum where socks were concerned. He’d dig socks out of our laundry and cart them off. (And nothing was as fun as attacking a large pair of socks!)

He made a great laundry topper, too. (Because clean clothing is sadly lacking in cat hair.)

He loved Zoom calls. More people to meet! He would jump up on my wife’s lap during team meetings and walk back and forth, tail-waving hello to the people on camera while collecting his share of pets from my wife.

Fritz also made a cameo at the end of all my webinars. He was much admired, and justifiably so – he was every bit as beautiful as he was friendly. (I’m dreading telling all his adoring fans the sad news.)

He was a born photobomber. As soon as I set up for a photo shoot, he’d dive into the frame.

Photos weren’t the only thing Fritz loved bombing. Show him a birdie and he’d instantly turn into Kung Fu Kitty:

Here he is, licking his lips in anticipation.

Many cats don’t get along with others, but Fritz and Tigress loved each other. They’d cuddle up together, or engage in their favorite Olympic sport – Synchronized Sleeping.

Here are two more of my favorite photos of Fritz.

And here are our first and final pictures of him.

Fritz was with us for exactly twelve years (today would have been our twelfth Cat-Iversary with him). Not nearly long enough for so much love.

Fritz, we’ll miss you.

September 22, 2021 by Tien Chiu 5 Comments

Cat-iversary!

Today is a day of celebration! Huge congratulations to Tigress and Fritz, who exactly eight years ago came home from their first successful hunt. And what a hunt it was! They “bagged” not just one, but TWO humans to adore, worship, and serve them for the rest of their lives.

Here are the mighty hunters the evening they arrived:

And here they are a few days ago, snuggled up together:

Fritz and Tigress snuggling — Snuggly cats!

Fritz still loves his belly rubs:

Fritz flopped over demanding a belly rub — Belly rubs are therapeutic!

And Tigress still likes to sleep at the top of shelves. (It’s nice to have friends in high places!)

She’s very Zen, so perhaps she’s engaged in sectarian dialogue with HH the Dalai Lama while she naps?

Tigress sleeping on a shelf above a postcard of the Dalai Lama — Tigress the Zen kitty

As a spiritual master, Tigress would be the first to tell you that if you love something, you must let it go free. If you don’t, how could you chase and kill it again???

Tigress hunting a feather toy — Tigress hunting

Yes, it’s been eight wonderful years. Eight years of being sat on, meowed at, mercilessly ordered to hand out the cat treats, and subjected to arbitrary demands from a tyrannical and utterly marvelous pair of cats. Here’s to many more years of “supervision” from our wonderful cats, Fritz and Tigress!

Fritz and Tigress providing supervision for some quill-winding

September 22, 2019 by Tien Chiu 1 Comment

Cat-iversary #6!

Yes, it’s now been six turns around the wheel with these adorable kittens:

Fritz and Tigress on adoption day, 9/22/2013

They are now middle-aged kitties, with occasional middle-aged-kitty health issues: Fritz went to the vet earlier this year with a urinary tract blockage, and Tigress needed anesthesia for a periodontal deep-cleaning, though fortunately she didn’t need any teeth removed. We are not looking forward to brushing her teeth for her!

(Fritz’s teeth were just fine – apparently his fetish for chewing on cardboard and packing tape is good for something!)

The cats, however, are still eager studio assistants. Here’s Tigress assisting with a studio shoot, by guarding my samples from would-be sample molesters (i.e., me!):

Of course, every photo looks better with a cat photobombing it, especially if the cat is wrinkling the silly little bits of fabric and getting cat hair all over them! But somehow humans never seem to understand that. Go figure.

Also, sometimes humans get their priorities wrong and need to be reminded of who’s in charge. Here Fritz is laying down the law in the middle of a photo shoot (yes, he did get his belly rub!):

The cats, of course, continue to excel at cat things. Here’s Fritz, practicing the ancient art of Taking Up Enormous Expanses of Bed:

And here’s Tigress, mere moments before the human decided that perhaps all that yarn needed to be relocated:

Lest you think this mere paranoia, this had happened to an innocent skein of yarn earlier in the week:

So yeah, it’s a good thing that our little furry fiend…

….is also infinitely adorable:

Here’s to six wonderful years, and hopefully many more to come!

September 22, 2018 by Tien Chiu 1 Comment

Cat-iversary #5!

Five years ago, one of the last bastions of human freedom fell to invading aliens…

…and there was much rejoicing.

Of course they were the kings and queens of all they surveyed:

They were yin to each other’s yang:

They watched TV together:

Fritz and Tigress watching TV — Fritz and Tigress learning to sew

Napped together:

New Olympic sport: synchronized napping!

And hunted self-driving android mice together:

They became expert photobombers:

And, of course, they ruled the household with an iron paw:

Tigress and the iron paw — A displeased Tigress

Needless to say, we are thoroughly besotted with our ~~despotic alien tyrants~~ adorable cats, and look forward to many more years with both Fritz and Tigress!

Happy cat-iversary to us!!

June 27, 2018 by Tien Chiu 7 Comments

The importance of good nutrition, and the uselessness of arguing with cats

I haven’t posted in awhile because I’ve been dealing with a series of cascading crises. It started with the tomato plague. I noticed that some of the tomatoes weren’t growing well, and were developing purplish veins on their leaves. Within a week or so, most of the tomato plants were developing purple veins and looking very unhappy. I showed pictures to a tomato expert and to the local Master Gardener’s program, and they agreed that it was probably tomato spotted wilt virus. Which is (a) deadly, (b) contagious, and (c) untreatable.

This would only have been seriously annoying, except that about 3/4 of my plants were the two nearly-extinct varieties that I was trying to preserve. Because I believe in hedging bets, I had given about ten plants to two friends, but there were closer to forty tomato plants in the middle of my plague-stricken garden.

So I took immediate action, and spent four days moving the apparently-uninfected tomatoes to a friend’s back yard, 30 miles away, and transplanting them into new containers.

Meanwhile, I had sent the photos to my friend Linda, who happens to be married to my ex. Rob (who is an expert botanist, among many other things) thought it might be a nutritional deficiency – magnesium or iron, possibly coupled with waterlogged soil in the bottom of the self-watering pots. B. had also suspected a nutritional deficiency. So what the heck, right? The plants were already infected, so I had nothing to lose. I mixed up some Miracle Gro liquid fertilizer (which contains iron) and watered one of the stricken tomatoes with it.

Here’s what it looked like on the 11th:

Clearly dying, right?

Well, here’s what it looked like just one week after adding the fertilizer/iron supplement:

Tomato 7 days after iron/magnesium supplement applied

Yes, that’s right. Seven days!

So then I mixed up a lot more iron/magnesium supplement and watered it in. Five days later, all the tomatoes were looking normal and growing like mad. WOW. I had no idea that nutrient deficiencies could be that dramatic!

So yay! Crisis with a happy ending. The tomato plants are way behind where they should be at this stage, but I should be able to get fruits out of them, and that’s the only thing I care about this year – collecting seeds to keep the varieties going. And they are starting to flower!

The Fuzzy Mix are still adorable. Here’s one that’s flowering:

And here’s a slightly bigger one:

I was a bit concerned that they were flowering at such a small size, so I emailed Tim Peters, the breeder. He said that Fuzzy Mix is a determinate dwarf tomato! Which means it will stay small. And the fruits should be red and yellow striped. I can’t wait to see the ripe tomatoes – the plants are pretty now, but stick on a bunch of red and yellow striped tomatoes? Gorgeous. The perfect decorative tomato plant for people with limited space and a desire for pretty plants and tomatoes. Tim is a genius.

The Fruity Mix plants look much more like conventional tomatoes:

The wonderful thing about Fruity Mix is the incredible flavor of its tiny tomatoes, which unfortunately can’t be experienced all that well on a website. When the tomatoes are ripe, I’ll post one on Facebook so you can all taste it there. 😉

The rest of the time has been spent running around after other major crises – the latest one derailed me for nearly a week, which of course caused other things to become crises. Like the 90-minute lecture I’m scheduled to present in 11 days, which I had planned to write last week and which of course didn’t get done, turning it into this week’s crisis. I have the outline for it…does that count? 😉

So why am I working on this blog post? Well, the art of procrastination has a long and (uh, sort of) honorable history, and I needed a break. This was made clear to me a short while ago when someone came by and informed me that it was time for me to do my One Job, which (in this case) was giving him a belly rub.

“Fritz, I’m busy!” said the human.

“How can you possibly be busy?” said the cat. “Whatever you’re doing is not your One Job, and is therefore totally trivial, irrelevant and useless. So do your One Job! Because I want a belly rub.”

“But I’m busy! Go away, I’ll give you a belly rub later.” said the human, scritching his head and then going back to work.

“Okay, fine,” said the big black furry thing, jumping up onto the desk:

“I can’t see, Fritz! Get down!” complained the human.

“Okay, sure!” said Fritz:

“Fritz, how can I type when you’re sitting where my keyboard goes?” complained the frustrated human.

“Well, it’s only fair,” replied Fritz. “If I can’t get what I want, you shouldn’t be able to get what you want, either.”

“Okay, fine,” said the human. “I’ll just wait for you to get bored and go away.”

“Okay, said Fritz,”we’ll see who caves first.” And lay down for a nice long nap:

He got his belly rub, of course.

(Human vs. cat: cat always wins. Cat thinks human is really stupid for not having figured this out by now.)

Anyway, that made me realize I needed a break, so I wrote this much-delayed blog post. Now I need to get back to work…except that I see another cat coming by to inform me that it’s time to do my One Job.

Sigh…such is the life of a human cat-slave.

(Fortunately, I’m sure I’ll get my slide deck done in time. I know what I want to say, I just need to write it all down and add photos…if the cats will let me. Maybe I need two self-driving mice…)