In Bhutan we have Geymo the cat. In Nashville we have Poofie. We need a cat in the Nashville house because we have lots of field mice. Poofie was feral and lived in the woods around our house. She was a killing machine so her name, selected by Namgay, is ironic. We'd always find pieces of little animals on our steps as offerings from her night hunting. Slowly, Namgay tamed her and now she lives inside among the needlepoint. She and Namgay have a routine: in the middle of the night sometimes she wakes us up with a staccato me me me noise that sounds like our burglar alarm. It means she's caught a mouse. But now she doesn't kill. She waits for Namgay to jump out of bed and grab the plunger. Her work is done. She moves aside and Namgay chases down the mouse and traps it under the plunger. Then he slips a piece of cardboard underneath, sealing the mouse in. He takes it outside and lets it go beside the pond, so that he or she can find its way back to the house another night, I always think. Namgay's turned our cat into a Buddhist.
