Alison Miller, Dracula & Frankenstein
I got a cat when I was 11 years old. He was born under the deck of a friend’s house. At age 11, in the 1990s, I assumed that the way to get a cat was to have it be born outside your house. When my now-husband and I were first dating, I told him I wanted a black cat and an orange cat someday (in that order). Two years later, his mother let us know that she found kittens under her deck, and I said that if there was a black cat in the litter, I’d love to give it a good home. That’s how Dracula came to live with us, just before Halloween in 2019.
Dracula had a wild ride of a first year. Our Halloween baby was so small when he came to live with us that we had to give him a collar with a bell so we couldn’t lose him in the shadows under furniture! He went to work at my husband’s pet-friendly office almost every day up until March 2020. During that first summer of Covid, Dracula spent time at rented houses in Vermont and the Catskills, and just after Labor Day, he got a little brother.
Frankenstein, orange and white with a wildly long tail, was born in a different backyard and as an only child, I immediately worried I wouldn’t know how to share my love with them equally. As it turned out, my capacity to love and care expanded proportionally. Frankenstein arrived at our home on Dracula’s first birthday and that was not a present our original little guy had asked for. Luckily within the first few weeks, they developed an interest in one another which then turned into a general friendliness, maybe even a real friendship. I think they love each other but neither would be the first to admit it.
“I’ve been working from home consistently since the start of the pandemic and my little monsters have proven to be solid officemates.”
I’ve been working from home consistently since the start of the pandemic and my little monsters have proven to be solid officemates. We’ve also had a chance to really get to know each other. My favorite thing about them is that they are two absolute individuals. Despite their differences, they’ve seemingly worked out among themselves that Frankenstein will sit with my husband, and Dracula cuddles up to me when we’re on the couch. It was so thoughtful of them to make that easy for all of us. Part of the decision to have two cats was so that we each had one to pet while watching television.
Frankenstein is curious, brave, and loves to play. In the morning when the sun is shining into a bedroom window just right, we can reflect light off our phones onto the wall like makeshift laser pointers. Leaping into the air to catch the light is an ideal Frankenstein morning. He’ll climb anything that he can, and he is just as adventurous when it comes to food. Frankenstein purrs almost constantly, shrieks with joy when we return home from the world outside, and waits until my husband and I are asleep every night to curl up between us with his head on my pillow. I melt every time I wake up to his face in my face.
Dracula is cautious, perhaps a little nervous. At the suggestion of rain, he takes cover deep under the couch. His ideal way to spend a day is sleeping in the middle of the bed, under all the covers. He’s good with other people but does not want to be without his full-time humans. We took him to visit my parents once and left him alone with them for an afternoon. When we returned, couches were moved away from the walls and there was a ladder set up in the middle of the room where he had been hanging out. I then saw him emerge from a corner while my parents sighed big sighs of relief. As it turned out, the moment we left, he hid. And my parents thought they lost him. We can all laugh about it now, but he hasn’t been invited back.
Opening my heart and home to these two little guys has changed my life for the better. I feel an overwhelming sense of pride and joy in my ability to give them a life they seem to love. Their midday zoomies and unwavering desire to join my video calls will never stop making me laugh. “Having cats” has certainly become part of my personality–in a good way, I’d say. My husband and I got engaged and married while they hung out at our apartment, clueless to the life events happening on the outside. While Dracula and Frankenstein will never know that they were the inspiration for the signature drinks at our rehearsal dinner or that I’m writing this essay right now, it sure means the world to me.
Alison Miller lives in Brooklyn, NY with her husband Ben, cats Dracula + Frankenstein, and two unnamed fish. She works in Advertising and enjoys sampling every flavor of sparkling water on the market.