The story of CJ

Many of you know my cat—mostly through my incessant social posts.

But few of you know the story of how we found each other.

I was chatting with some friends the summer before my second year of university, and one of them mentioned a cat had just had a litter of kittens at a farm near their parents' place in Quebec. He told me if they didn't find homes for all the kittens, they'd have to put them down.

Naturally, that was my reaction and I quickly told him I would take any kittens they had left.

They had two left, and we were united the next week.

A boy and a girl, and had no idea what to call them. My roommates at the time gave me a bunch of options. The last cat I named was Boo after Boo Boo Bear from Yogi Bear.

I had recently volunteered at the Genie Awards and got to meet William Shatner, and grew up watching a fair amount of Star Trek with my dad, so decided I would name him Captain James Kirk. We tried to shorten it to Kirkie later, but ended up shorting it to CJ—and the name stuck.

My roommates at the time didn't want two cats in the house, so I had to give his sister up to my parents. They named her Molly and they still have her at their house in St. George.

CJ has his quirks, that's for sure. Chasing his tail, meowing constantly, always needing to be the centre of attention—don't know where he gets it from.

He loves Gary, that's a fact... literally crawled into his arms of his own accord for this photo:

He's been with me through the good, the bad and the ugly—mostly because he keeps coming back for food and doesn't know any better. He's peed on some valuable bags and clothes, but I still love him.

Needless to say, I'm glad he's around and just celebrated his 8th birthday on March 25, 2019 👏🏼