About a year after we got Marsha, I decided we needed another cat. A cat to keep Marsha company. Because I thought she was lonely, wiling away the hours while Rockford and I were at work.

See? Even back then I put far too much thought into what the cat might be thinking. I may have a problem.

So I thought Marsha needed a friend, and so I called a local rescue operation and asked them who they had available. They had a fellow who’d recently been found in a Dumpster behind the Juvenile Justice Center. He was young and very thin, and he was, they said, pretty friendly. Because we had Marsha and Marsha hadn’t lived with another cat since her foster home days, the rescue guy and I decided the cat should come over for a few days to see how well they got along.

They sat on opposite ends of the living room for two full days, staring at each other and making the most horrible sounds a cat can make. So maybe I was wrong about the Lonely Cat thing.

And yet we (by which I mean I) couldn’t send that poor, emaciated cat back to the agency.

That is the story of the first time we saw JJ. He and Marsha never really became BFFs, but they did learn to tolerate one another. JJ was much more of the stereotypical stand-offish cat than Marsha, who is more canine than feline in many ways. JJ, though. Every now and then he’d deign to allow you to scratch his head, but that was about it. We loved him anyway.

JJ went to live with Rockford’s sister six or so years ago when we moved. Then a few years later she moved, and JJ went to live with a friend of Rockford’s sister. And then last year she moved, too, and JJ went to live with the parents of a friend of Rockford’s sister. They didn’t move, but they also didn’t want a cat.

But I did. And last week Rockford’s work travels took him oh-so-close to the home of Rockford’s sister’s friend’s parents.

And so.

Welcome back, JJ. We’re pleased to have you home. (And by “we,” I mean “all of us except for Marsha, who is not happy about it at all.)