We used to have a cat named William. She was a sweet fluffy black and white cat, but woe to anything you owned that was colored red. She’d take it and it would be hers. Full stop, end of record.

We found this out one year we had room for a Christmas tree in the “new” part of the house (granted, the first part of the home was built in the late 1800s, so the “newest” part of the house may be a more accurate description). We put up the tree, knowing that cats love trees, as we did most years - but this was William’s first tree experience.

And she undecorated the tree for us. She’d break the red glass balls trying to take them to her hidey-hole; we finally removed the remainder or shoved them far enough back and up that she couldn’t reach them. All red ribbons were gone in short order. Candy canes she left alone after collecting one or two, and lights she let alone (mostly because the tree was only lit when we were home and generally in the room).

At the end of the holiday season, we moved a sofa to do a thorough post-holiday clean up, and found her stash. Her dusty stash of red ribbons, predominantly red ornaments, and a couple of those candy canes.

Helvi’s nickname in utero, before we realised he was a she, was Wilhelm.

The last time she visited her cousins, she was barely walking and all of the “unsafe” toys were kept in another room. She was encouraged to play in the main area with the baby safe toys. This time, we let her go wherever, and do whatever, since she’s not much of a swallower of small things, and she had four protective kids kind of keeping an eye on her.

She hardly left the living room. Its main attraction, to her, was Lego Land: one of those 9-12 basket bin shelving units for keeping toys together. Filled with tons of Lego bricks of every size, shape and color.

And she picked out all of the red ones. Dropped them on the floor, and started kicking them under the storage unit during “cleanup time” when she thought we weren’t looking. When she thought we were looking, she’d put the non-red ones in random bins, and the red ones in the red bin that was at her waist level.

She likes jewel tones, and complimentary to jewel tones. But red? Wins. Every time. Guess we “named” her right the first time.