Lauren Yoshiko & Mojo Jojo
Mojo Jojo a.k.a. Mojito; a.k.a. eMoji came into my life in a moment of loving, serendipitous deception. I was living with my slightly younger sister at the time, who knew I had been considering adopting a cat. I’ve always loved animals, loved our family pets, and pet sitting for others. I’d looked at some local adoption listings, but I was scared of being too tied to where I was living, travel limitations, etc. One day after work, I opened the door to see my sister holding a tiny, perfect five-week-old striped tabby. She told me she and a friend had seen a “free” box at a nearby park, heard meowing within, and upon finding the kitten, she knew it was meant to be. She said it was totally up to me, and if I didn’t want him, her friend would keep him. I, of course, was totally taken by this fated moment and welcomed the destined kitten into my home. That first night, he basically slept in my clavicle. The next day, I met the real Mojo. As in, when I got home from work and released that kitten from the bathroom, he tore around the apartment with the fury of a dozen puppies. Meowing, zooming up the sides of the couch, pouncing claws first and rabbit-kicking the night away—and thus he was named Mojo Jojo, after the mischievous villain in the Powerpuff Girls. I didn’t care that he was psychotic, though, I loved that this wild kitten magically fell in my lap.
By the end of the week, my sister came clean: she’d actually just responded to a Craigslist listing and drove out to a farm outside Portland to get this kitten with her friend. She felt terribly guilty, and I was initially pretty upset. She told me about the bustling farm he’d come from, surrounded by all kinds of animals. That he had been the last kitten there. Maybe I was mad at her for a few hours, maybe a whole day—but ultimately, it was meant to be, and I’m forever grateful to my sister for bringing Mojo into my life.
When he was still just a kitten, I brought him with my sister and me on a trip down to our hometown, about three hours away. He was freaked out at first, but eventually just settled in for the ride. He loved running around at my mom’s huge house, where he’d get to go outside onto the deck for precious nature outings, so every time afterward, I brought Mojo with me. My mom kept a litter box around, and Mojo knew that if the car ride lasted longer than 20 minutes, he was going to the big house he loved.
“I love that he’s a little unruly and wild, I think indoor cats deserve to be.”
It’s a damn good thing, too, because a few months after I became a cat mom, I got a job managing the harvest at a sun-grown medical cannabis farm located in my hometown. We were still to sell most of the product in the Portland market, so the next 10 weeks were a chaotic on-and-off pattern in Portland and back to Roseburg three hours away. Mojo stayed at my mom’s for weeks at a time, then back home to wander a maze of jarred pounds stored in my apartment. He was my little harvest bud, and over time he got more used to my mom’s house and going outside. Now, as a chunky-yet-stately six-year-old cat, whenever we visit my mom’s, he gets to be an indoor/outdoor cat for the weekend. He sits on the back patio furniture and stares out at the wilderness, chases bugs and lizards around, greets my stepdad when he leaves for the gym at the crack of dawn, and keeps my mom company when she smokes her evening cigarettes. I worry about the wild animals and acres of forest surrounding her house, but he’s a homebody. He stays close to the perimeter of the house—he’s a city boy after all.
Mojo is still Mojo, and I have the faded/recent scars from playful and/or vengeful scratches to prove it. But I love that he’s a little unruly and wild, I think indoor cats deserve to be. I’ve never been comfortable with the way humans de-animalize pets into perfect little therapy robots designed for human convenience. I want to feel empowered to be angry or sweet whenever I feel like being so, and I do my best to impart that freedom to my cat as well.
Lauren Yoshiko is a writer based in Portland, OR who covers the culture and commerce of cannabis. She writes the Broccoli Report for @broccolimag, a twice-weekly industry newsletter for creative entrepreneurs in cannabis and hemp.