Nikita Richardson & Junie
We never had any pets growing up except for fish—which lived in an old TV that my dad converted into a fish tank—and a pet mouse that my immigrant parents begrudgingly let me adopt when I was 13 after I created a compelling presentation. That said, I’ve always known that I’d own a cat one day. (My first job was as a kennel assistant at a cat clinic near my high school.) But I kept on putting it off, primarily because I wanted to make sure I could give my cat the best life possible. A few years ago, I started cat sitting for a friend from my community orchestra and the idea of fitting a cat into my life became less daunting. In October 2019, I finally went through with it and adopted Junie.
I believe my finding her was kismet. I was supposed to visit my friend in Austin and then a huge windstorm came through and my flight was canceled. I woke up at 5am the next morning to see if I could fly on standby, but it was a no-go. So, I started scrolling through Instagram and there she was near the top of my feed. (I don’t even remember following @kittykindcats, where I adopted her from.) In the picture, she’s staring up with these big green eyes and the accompanying text reads, “Eager to greet. Loves to play & cuddle. Sleeps at human times. Will kiss you lots.” She had been in foster care for six months with no offers to adopt her, which boggles the mind. They’d featured her half a dozen times and mentioned that she wanted to be adopted alone, was not food-motivated and about three years old. Everything I wanted in a cat! I sent an email at 5:30am expressing interest in adopting her and two weeks later, I went to her foster parents’ apartment in Hell’s Kitchen to get her after a very thorough vetting process. The first thing I noticed was that she was smaller in person—she weighs just 8 and a half pounds—perfect for a studio apartment.
Her foster dad mentioned that she hates carriers and that she would cry the entire time she was in it. I ended up taking her home in a shared Uber and true to his word, she cried the entire time. I just kept apologizing to the other two girls in the car, both of whom were very understanding.
Once I adopted her, I became kind of obsessed with figuring out her origin story. Using her medical records and some old-fashioned sleuthing, I discovered that she was found behind a bodega in Jamaica, Queens by a couple. The boyfriend took her in and when he took her to get spayed, she was already fixed, which leads me to think that she was born around humans and maybe even had people who loved her because she’s not skittish, which was another big selling point for me. After the couple broke up, he gave her to KittyKind.
For the first six months we were together, it was more like we were roommates than companions because I wasn’t at home a ton. But since the pandemic, we’ve become two peas in a pod and I can interpret every single one of her many, many meows. Junie likes post-nap belly rubs, laying in bed with me all day, napping in the window hammock above the radiator, exploring new places, climbing up on my desk, playing tag, dental treats, brushies, sleeping in late and going out into the hallway or onto the stoop. She hates baths, people who she doesn’t know like that, being in her carrier, overstimulation, cat harnesses, loud Zoom conversations, hair dryers, other cats, and being held for too long. She is also not a lap cat, but that’s a very small tradeoff for an otherwise well-behaved cat who is affectionate in so many other ways.
We’ve been together for nearly a year and a half and she is such a welcome presence in my life. The novelty of having a creature in my home with her own motivations and autonomy never fails to fill me with wonder and appreciation.
Nikita Richardson is a senior staff editor for Food and Cooking at The New York Times. She lives in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, and loves a good hobby.