Meet Ronny

This is Ronny our 1 year old SPCA kitty. Earlier this year while Sophie and I were making a quick stop at Pet Smart for dog food, she noticed a display of animals close to the entrance, so why not take a quick peek, right? This is where she found our sweet cuddly little black kitty. We couldn’t have another animal, right? And besides, Dad doesn’t like cats, at all. So I blamed it on Ed, we just couldn’t have another pet. My poor girl wept and cried, “But Mom, it’s Grimalkin, just like Benjamin West’s kitty”. We just finished a book about the childhood of Benjamin West, the first American artist to achieve an international reputation, and he had a black kitty named Grimalkin. This touched me. If we adopted him it would be like making literature come alive for Sophie. Ok, so I was sucked in and Ed was soon to follow because when I called him he said to bring him home. When we introduced Grimalkin to Ed his comments were, he’s black, his coat is rough, he’s not even very cute, and was he the only kitten there. Yes, Grimalkin was all of those things but he was not the only kitten to choose from. I explained to my sweet husband that this kitty was a representation of Benjamin West’s cat and that he would be the best cat he ever knew. So after a couple days saying here Grimalkin Grimalkin Grimalkin, it was time for a name change. So we enlisted Sophie to think of a new name. Off went our determined and decisive daughter to take a bath and think of a new name. What would it be? She shortly emerged from the bath and announced, “His name is Ronny, I want to name him after Uncle Ron.” Great, a cat named Ron… Uncle Ron by the way is a retired Navy Seal and not the most likely of candidates to have a kitten named after him. So Ron, Ronny, it was. Now Ed was absolutely not a cat lover and Ronny was certainly nothing to look at, at the time, but what an amazing cat he has been.

Vivian, as seen in the picture, thinks he is a koosh ball and likes to lay, yes lay on top of him and oddly enough it seems they have bonded during these interludes. Jake is in denial and says he doesn’t like “that cat”, but in frequent unguarded moments he can be seen playing and wrestling with him. Sophie thinks he is a dress up doll and, as seen, will stick him in the stroller adorned with crazy glasses for a ride around the house. I think we should have named him tag along, don’t laugh its better than Ronny, because he absolutely hates not being in the dead center of the action.