A Toast to Sir JoJo

If you knew me growing up, you would have said I was absolutely, 100% a dog person.  I put a puppy on my christmas list as the #1 item every year, despite the other three members of my household having pretty severe allergies to them...so when I graduated from college and met several of my friends cats, it surprised even me how much I loved the furry little guys...Eddie was the one who really won me over- which is surprising because now I am not so much his favorite person, but I digress...

this is a story about Joey, JoJo, the Jo-ster, Captain Jo, who belonged to my best friend Bonnie and her husband Andy...

one day after we had graduated Bonnie asked me if I wanted to go to a barn to help her pick out a kitten...not the usual location, but why not I thought...and in that barn, with a goat chewing on my hair, we found Joey, small enough to fit in the palm of our hands, and so ready to get out of that barn, away from the goat...he was so cute, fluffy, and as we would come to learn...active :)

now I didn't spend every day with Joey, since he was Bonnie's cat, but I saw him enough to learn a few things...it is important to stay very still, because humans are just large toys to Joey- any movement is enough to set him to stealth mode, ready to pounce on a hand, foot, whatever...but also that he was not actually cat, but just another human like us...

the biggest testament to that, he was very picky about his food, he loved to be outside when we were all there, and he had a human enemy...that's right, Brett and Joey were mortal enemies, although secretly I know they both loved messing with each other...they had one special experience when Joey was young, and slept on Brett for an entire night, and ever since then, they've been battling like brothers :)  sometimes (but not usually) unprovoked, and other times they'd have staring contests for hours...

my fondest memories are when I stayed at Bonnie's apartment, and Joey came and jumped in while I was in the shower, then proceeded to turn out the light while I was still in there (hey, he was done, right?) or when he would come up and smack Brett in the face for no reason, or the most famous one, when he was peeing in the camping chair, and no one believed me...he thought he was sneaky, but I saw :)

I know they know this, but Joey was an amazing cat, with the biggest personality I've ever seen, and probably ever will see...he made us laugh, cry and life will never be the quite the same without him...