After pulling together $1.75 in change for the bus (I had decided against the forty-five minute walk, but another Yalie I met there told me she’d run), I ended up in Westville, a quaint neighbourhood with flyers for various flea markets pasted on each traffic light. Here lay Mew Haven Cat Cafe, the first of its kind in Connecticut. The cat lounge was outfitted with tall structures stretching to the ceiling and pocketed with hidey holes, little cat homes stacked atop each other. Each time I turned to look at a spot, what looked like an empty couch would materialise as two cats cuddling each other. I drank my first pumpkin spiced latte, “Mr Kitty’s Pumpkin Spice Coffee,” (totally understand the hype now) as Davinci, a big black and white cat, padded past me. Already, I could tell some of their personalities—Davinci, who greeted me at the door but got catty when stroked for too long, was sassy, Dumbledore, a large grey cat, napped through most of the session, unbothered by any amount of attention, and Josie, only a couple months old and so, so tiny, nudged my hand to be petted. Angela, the owner of the cafe, told me that the cafe also serves as an adoption service (she herself has taken in Colossus) and that now was a popular period for adoption—“kitten season.” I thought of the neighborhood cats back home in Singapore, that lived downstairs of public housing flats and were mostly cared for by old aunties and uncles. If a community of cats could exist in the same way here, I thought, Mew Haven Cat Cafe was definitely it.
