Kenda tends to be the aloof one, mostly hiding in the background. And yet he also pretends to be royalty. This why I'm constantly referring to him as King Kenda. He decides when it's time to be petted or cuddled. This is usually when I am lying on the couch reading and he wants a warm spot, or when we are sleeping. Who he sleeps with is determined, of course, by who has the nicer blanket.

He wasn't always this way. We found him a week after our wedding. We were at our favorite comic book store, and had been standing around for quite some time. I decided to go next door to Kwik Shop and get drinks. When I walked out I saw a guy walk out to his car to find a black cat sitting on his hood. Granted this wasn't a smart thing for the cat to do, but what they guy did next wasn't either. He hit him off. That got my attention. I was so mad I couldn't speak. I just walked over, picked up the cat, glared at him and walked away. I cuddled the cat a little until the jerk left. Then I set him down while I went into the store to get drinks and something for him to eat.

He gobbled the food. I went back into the comic store and asked the owner about the cat. She said he'd been around a few days, so she'd taken to feeding him. After a while we left and there was the cat waiting at the door. We took him home and named him Kenda.

As he grew older, he got less playful. He still cuddles, but only when he comes to us. Strangely, he's not very good at jumping. He prefers to find steps up to where he's going. Probably the result of some bad falls after trying more dangerous jumps. He's also the whiner of the family. He has no problem letting us know when we've messed up or forgotten to feed him.

A couple of years later we decided to try to bring another cat into the family. We adopted a beautiful black cat named Clementine from the Cat Association. She was fiesty, energetic and cute. Unfortunately, she was also bossy. She terrorized poor Kenda.

We took her back and tried another cat, a little kitten named Thai Foon. But that's another story.