I also have littermates, but they are very different.  Tyrone is full of
mischief; if an item can be found and batted, oh, it WILL be and it will get
broken.  He doesn't care about people, though, because he thinks he's
superior.  He's the gang leader of the house so-to-speak.  The hoolikitten.
He loves to be petted on by anyone, even strangers, but it's my lap he has
to sit on and CLAW.  It's like he thinks it's funny to have me rub on him
and then he snakes me.  I gasp and he just looks at me with half closed eyes
like he's smiling.  He knows he's hurting me and enjoys it.  I love him to
death, but he's a little bastard. That's why his nickname is Dr. Evil.

Chloe, Dr. Evil's littermate, loves anyone and is all over someone who walks
through the door.  She squeaks constantly; annoyingly, demandingly, just
love me, love me, love on me and I mean RIGHT NOW!  She's such a sweet cat,
but I don't think she's got all of her marbles in a bag.....if you know what
I mean.  She's got no sense of balance, she gets stuck climbing the
furniture and the only thing in the world she cares about is looking out the
window at lizards.  She's absolutely obsessed.  Oh, there's one other thing
she cares about.....crab meat.  If I'm picking crab, Chloe's on me in a
heartbeat.

Miss Pua, the poor stray I adopted last summer, is shy of people, but
getting more trusting every day under our care.  You can tell she was abused
and beaten; she's got a funky rib that sticks out (doesn't seem to bother
her) that calls out to me she was kicked.  This cat, this cat, is *so*
sweet.  She's learning to trust people, but she picked me as her main human.
My husband can't pick her up, but I can.  She just doesn't do anything
wrong.  Really!  Oh!  And, she's gotten to the point where she'll lay on my
lap now.  Before this, she'd only touch her feet to my legs when I was on
the couch.  Now she'll lay on my lap.  I so hate to pick a favorite, but
she's mine.

kili

[snip]

This is, in fact, why I prefer their company to that of dogs.
Cats not only show a variety of personality traits, they also
show a huge variety of differing aptitudes.

For example, I once had the privalege of dealing with The Fritz.
You may have heard of me from Liz Singh--Fritz was her cat, and
I was merely given the privalege of living alongside him for a
few years, and of providing comfort during its peaceful last
moments.

Fritz was a genius.  There is no other way to describe this
towering intellect of a cat.  On PBS, during a documentary
on how they broke the codes of the german Enigma machine,
they provided an excellent definition of "genius:"  while
an intelligent individual may think things up faster or
make a few inferences, he is still going through the same
thought processes as the rest of us.  A genius, however,
is capable of thoughts and ideas that "normal" individuals
will never, never concieve of.  And that is the only way
that I can ever describe Fritz.

From swiping the catfood box and then opening it with
ONE SCRATCH, PARALLEL TO THE TOP OF THE BOX AND ONE INCH
DOWN to imitating the "red alert" claxon from the Starship
Enterprise to communicating with actual language as opposed
to making sounds at the two-legs, this cat never left any
doubt of his status as a master of the mental arts.

Tigger, whom I selected from a litter (mother was siamese,
father came from a good neighborhood), was an athlete.
Mind you, Tigger was intelligent, and could operate light
switches and door handles, but mother nature gave him the
Supercat package, and he lorded it over the neighborhood
dogs for over 15 years.  It reached the point where 80-pound
dogs would detour around the yard rather than enter the
terratory of one 10-pound half-siamese cat.  Why?  Because,
even if you COULD see him where he hid out under the
evergreen trees, he could move so fast that you coudln't
see him anyway.  I saw it happen.  He was also very
rough-and-tumble.  My sister would come up to him and
say, "Tigger, I'm going to ABUUUUUSE you!" and he would
start to purr, knowing all the while that he was going
to be getting another fun roller-coaster ride.  (She
lied.  I made sure.)  :)  :)  :)

Now, I have Sweetie.  Sweetie walked up to me in a library
parking lot and decided that I should be his.  He neither
intellectually nor physically gifted, but he is a lover of
great ability.  I have a black cat that follows me around the
house, that curls up next to me on couches when I watch
TV or on beds when I sleep.  The first word that he came to
understand was "purr," and he has used that word to help
succor me during some of the harder times that I have had
to endure.

To say that I have been blessed would be an understatement.
There never lived a king but who should be jealous of such
a variety of riches as God has chosen to visit upon me in
their time.

Jeff

While I miss my clowder, I talk to them directly on the phone, and get
reports every day or two.

Mr. Clark is behaving pretty much as at home, where he's...outgoing in a
firm way?  At home, he'll walk in at his own deliberate pace, rushing only
if there are:
  2- or 4-legged kittens
  Humans who are upset or in pain.
Faced with a hurting human, he'll go right to them, get on their lap, stand
up, put a paw on each shoulder, and lick their face, purring.

There are dogs and cats where he's staying. Since he was an estimated 3
years old when I adopted him, I don't know what experience he's had with
dogs. I am told, however, that he looked up at 3-4 large dogs, didn't
bristle, but let out a restrained hiss that, I am told, clearly meant
"begone". Almost all the dogs ran.  He never speeded up his walking.

At home, Rhonda is apt to be the first out, and quite a showoff for
attention. She and Ding, however, both are hiding in a strange place. She
did come out to talk to me on the phone.

Ding tends to hide except for people he knows well, for whom he may zoom out
and backflip for a tummy rub.  At other times, he's off in his private
dimension.

Now's as good a time as any to ask -- how do you pronounce Tanada?  I
sound it out like "Canada," but I suspect that's wrong.

Oh, Wayne, this last parenthesis got tea all over my keyboard!