On The Personalities Of Cats

My husband is a Yankee through and through.  Reserved until you know him well, not demonstrative and rarely emotional.  I, on the other hand, am the product of Midwestern parents with strong ties to the West coast.  He jokes that he married me to do his talking for him so that he doesn't have to be friendly with strangers!  Courtesy of my family tendencies plus all the moving around I did as a kid, I can talk to pretty much anybody at any time about anything and do it with a smile on my face.

From his perspective, you know where you stand with a Northeasterner.  Although they may be slow to warm up, once they do you know you're a real friend and not just a casual acquaintance.  From my perspective, Northeasterners often initially come off as standoffish, and casual acquaintance with say, Midwesterners is a lot more comfortable.  

Anyway, I was thinking about this because it appears that we have both a Midwestern cat and a Northeastern cat!  Bings is as sweet as it gets.  No fuss at the vet, no problem to pick up and love on at any time, purring machine.  Darcy, on the other hand, is 20 pounds of cat attitude in a three-pound body!  Although he can also be a real sweetheart, it's on his terms.  He does not like to be held, he's the one who's done most of the hissing at the dog, and he howled bloody murder at the vet!  He crawls onto my chest in the morning to be loved on as soon as I wake up and will readily allow himself to be petted, but he wants no part at all of being picked up.  He's the independent one of the two.

Anyone who has ever read Pride and Prejudice will be laughing at this point.  We decided which cat would get which name before we really knew their personalities...we sure got that one right!