Cyndi Lauper. Neon. Princess phones. Bedazzlers.

But sometimes, good things come back when they should have stayed right where they were.

Boy Bands: in the 90s. Lunch: in your stomach. Cats: in their adoptive homes.

Dazzle (placidly being photobombed by Luigi)

There’s one experience that’s bound to rebound on you whether you’re the Emperor of Bhutan or you live in your parents’ basement and wear your hair like Prince Valiant: Feeling alone. In our sane and sober moments, we know that feelings aren’t facts, and that the truth is that we are never, ever, ever truly alone. Even if we try our darndest and catapult ourselves into the darkest holes we can find, we cannot escape being known and loved and held. What we see is not all that is. We are never alone.

Sometimes I wonder if cats know this.

Kittens don’t — but, then, neither do we when we’re young or new or feeling our smallness. Separate a little catlet from his mom and siblings and he will screeeeeeeeeam with the anguish of 10,000 condemned souls. He does not yet know he is not alone. He will learn. Psychologists talk about self-soothing and having a strong “internal locus of control,” but I think — for cats, if not we mere humans — that it has more to do with recognizing that you’re already and always held. Beloved, even.

Dazzle licketh, with gusto, glee and zeal. (Note that she is in a cage of her own volition. Tabby's Place: a cage-free cat sanctuary where cats choose cages. Le Grande Sigh.)

This spring’s retro cats are rediscovering their belovedness.

May 2013 appears to have a kind of feline reflux. For reasons ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous, people are returning their feline adoptees to Tabby’s Place. We never resent a return — once a Tabby’s Place cat, always a Tabby’s Place cat — but we do ache for the cats in the crosshairs.

Dazzle was returned to Tabby’s Place after six-and-a-half years.

Six-and-a-half years. That’s a Ph.D. program. That’s high school and a half. That’s 134 episodes of Splash.

And these were no mere six-and-a-half years for the dazzling one. As you may recall, circa 2007, many cats suffered terribly during a massive cat food recall. The cats at Tabby’s Place were mercifully spared the toxins. Dazzle, alas, was not so lucky.

But the robust white cat with moon-grey splashes was not alone.

Dazzle compels a belly rub by the mere force of her eyes. Thou shalt rub me. Thou shalt like it. Thou shalt not stop. Resistance art futile.

With veterinary care and miracles and time, Dazzle survived, ultimately unscathed by the assault. It would not, however, be her final crisis.

Another six years later, and Dazzle faced sudden surrender.

I confess the dots don’t quite connect for me in this story. People have their reasons for things, and it is not mine to judge. There was something about a move, a shift, a change in circumstances…and a sloughing-off of a cat who suddenly found herself non-essential to the home that had been hers for six-and-a-half years.

That’s even worse than 134 episodes of Splash.

But undaunted and unalone, Dazzle came back to Tabby’s Place, for which we thank her humans. Say what you may about returns, but it is an act of love to bring a Tabby’s Place cat back to Tabby’s Place when you could take the easier, less-embarrassing route and take them somewhere, anywhere else.

I paused Dazzle-belly-rubbing. Dazzle's eyes immediately bellowed: WHERE YOU GOED???

More miraculously yet, Daz has shown herself to still be dazzleable.

No grizzled veteran, Dazzle has rejected the understandable option of choosing a chip on her shoulder. On your very first visit, the cat who’s just been surrendered will lick your hand and chirp and chatter, rolling around with zest and zip and vim (who were, by the way, the three understudies for Snap, Crackle and Pop — but I digress). I could imagine giving up on letting life dazzle me after being let down so hard. Dazzle imagines no such thing. Life sparkles on.

And she just might be the inspiration another recent returnee needs.

Adopted one year ago, Marion and Yelena were part of our Olympic litter of kittens. Alas, this spring the girls were unceremoniously pole-vaulted back to Tabby’s Place. I don’t know the details. I do know the not-kittens-anymore sisters were afraid and puzzled. They seemed almost uncomfortable in their grown-up bodies, unsure what it would mean to be a non-kitten where they’d once been the cutest littlest smidgens.

A rare shot of Yelena, as captured by Jess.

But even non-kittens aren’t alone. You don’t have to be the cutest or littlest or best or sparkliest to be held.

Marion is already proving that in a new forever home. And Yelena…well, let’s just say her event is the marathon, not the 50-yard dash.

Yelena’s not doing cartwheels. She’s not Adam-level elated. But neither is she moping or griping or sniping or pining. Yelena is okay. She’s relearning the rhythm of letting herself be loved, and we’re letting her go at her own pace (much as, like goofy giddy kids, we’d love to press fast-forward and moosh every inch of her being right away.) An inch more each day, Yelena radiates the calm of a creature quite settled in her okayness. Her circumstances have swerved far from “ideal,” but she retains her peace. (She retains it under the cages in her room right now, ergo the dearth of Yelena photos.)

And you just know our girl will be giving peace a chance in a new home before long.

Luigi licks Dazzle's food. Dazzle licks Luigi. Life is delicious.

As of this post, Daz and Yelena are rediscovering their safety and their hope in a room with rollicking good guys Mario and Luigi.

And for each of them, life gets less lonely with every choice to trust, and to open the door to the love that’s already knocking.

Thus saith the orinch herd: the results are in. Sort of.

Cole making the best of things, as taken by stellar staffer Jess

The following comes with a Shaq-sized disclaimer: None of the following medical details are iron-clad yet.

That said, here goes.

Where we last left our brave marmalade midgets, four out of four had tested FIV+ using the SNAP test. With bitten nails and bated breath, we awaited results of the more definitive FIV antigen test.

I believe in eating our vegetables first, so let’s blast through the bad news: Cole came up FIV+.To be precise, Cole came up “FIV+ with a 94% certainty, to be retested by SNAP test when he reaches the age of six months.”

But now dessert: Chooch was FIV-. Mayberry was FIV-. Chase was FIV-. (All with a 94% certainty, yadda yadda.)

And now the wrenching moment: everybody knows you can’t mix vegetables with dessert. (No offense if you mix creamed spinach with eclairs, you rebel, you.) Since the non-Cole trio were almost certainly FIV-, we couldn’t keep them with Cole — but since there was a 6% chance they were FIV+, neither could we put them with other cats. Since Cole was almost certainly FIV+, we couldn’t keep him with his siblings, or any other FIV- cats — but since his immune system is still developing, and there’s a 6% chance he’ll turn up FIV- in six months, neither could we put him in Suite FIV. This was a kitten without a country. Separation was imminent.

Cole & Qually cuddlin' it up

Everybody knows you can’t separate kittens from all other cats. Still, if we loved them (and we loved them with approximately the heat of 10,000 suns, give or take), we had to do it.

Chooch, Chase and Mayberry remained in the kitten nursery. Like the Little Prince on his lonely voyage, Cole moved into a makeshift mini-nursery.

The men’s bathroom.

No, I am not making this up. Tabby’s Place has approximately 3 men and 872 women of the human variety, so this would be a calm, comfortable place for him.

Well, maybe not comfortable.

If you’ve seen Critters 2 or observed people riding a roller coaster, you may think you’ve heard screaming. You have not. You have heard tiny little weakly squeaks. I say this with authority: you have not heard screaming until you’ve heard the sounds from the Tabby’s Place men’s bathroom.

Clearly Cole had not yet learned the comforting truth that he’s never alone.

But “lonely” never lasts - especially not for orange kittens with funny little close-set eyes and banshee screams.

A volunteer who shall remain anonymous to protect the innocent — let’s just call him Qually — inquired about the screams at lunch one day. Touched to the heart, Qually asked if he might, perhaps, spring Cole from his prison/nursery for a few minutes, as long as he promised to keep him separate from the Lounge cats. The answer was a thrilled-to-ribbons “yes.” (Since Lounge residents Mittens, Skittles, Beatrice and Raja, average age 146, move approximately once per decade, we didn’t anticipate much action.)

For the next twenty minutes, everyone present feasted on a display of pure love. Qually and Cole simply delighted in one another. There was face crawling and chirping and laughing and purring, muffin-making and cooing and cuddling and joy.

Cole approves of his foster home. Photo by Squebecca.

And it turns out Qually was only getting Cole warmed up for a better chapter.

Danielle had sent out an e-plea to our volunteers, asking if anyone might have the space and sweetness to foster Cole, at least until his definitive six-months-of-age FIV test. Monday evening, we got our golden yes from a volunteer angel-human we’ll call Squebecca.

The final golden sparkle on this story: Squebecca has already indicated that she will consider keeping Cole forever. This — like the pendulous medical information in this post — is all still very uncertain.

But love is certainly the one thing that’s testing positive for Cole the kitten. And no test on earth or in heaven can change that.

We sincerely believed Natalie could play nice even without Prozac.

We were a bunch of dunderheads.*

Nat the sweet paradox

Our wild orange woman has always rocked boats (and houses, and Casbahs). Since blazing into Ringoes from Kentucky, Natalie has not experienced one single, solitary dull moment. It’s been her mission not to allow anyone else to do so, either.

Nat is easily the most effusive cat in Suite B. Pick her up, and she’ll rub her entire soul all over your face, complete with bluegrassy purrs and rapturous blinks. Fail to pick her up, and she’ll catapult onto your shoulder from the floor, imposing her affection on you. I’ve seen her do this to 4-year-olds. I’ve seen her do this to a 91-year-old man in a wheelchair. I’ve seen children of all ages melt in the wake of her mushiness. I’m a ball of putty in her paws, and she knows she’s one of my all-time Favorite Cats That Have Ever Been Born.

But Nat is also easily the most volcanic cat in Suite B. Mid-lovefest, something will come over her. If you’re lucky, you’ll see her expression change. On Planet Natalie, it’s a fine line between “I love you more than marshmallows” and “I HATE YOU AS I HATE HELL AND ALL MONTAGUES AND YOU ALSO SMELL LIKE CHEESE.” Rubbing turns to biting. Melting turns to bleeding. Laughs turn to screams. Even if you’re 4 years old. Even if you’re 91 years old.

And then she’ll return to pure affectionate innocence again.

Even asleep, Nat looks a bit nervous.

Given this whiplash behavior, combined with her ever-volcanic ways with her own species, we started Natalie on Prozac shortly after her Tabby’s Place debut c. 500 BC. This has kept a lid on our little volcano’s violence. (OK, a loose lid. Maybe more like Saran Wrap. But still an improvement.) Truly, Nat seemed happier without her tendencies towards warfare. I’ve been told by People Who Are Smarter Than Me that Prozac works best in cats whose “problem behaviors” are rooted in anxiety. So, it would stand to reason that Natalie herself felt less anxious - hence the decrease in her maulings of other beings.

In her 2613 years on Prozac, Natalie’s done just beautifully. So it was with fear and trembling and hope that we agreed to wean her off the drug this spring. Maybe she didn’t need it anymore. Maybe we’d broken her brutal habits once and for all.

And maybe I am, in fact, the Queen of Spain.

This week, Natalie greeted a certain staff member who shall remain anonymous, but whose name may or may not rhyme with Splane, in a most notable way. No sooner had brave Splane entered the room, than did Natalie launch onto Splane’s leg, claws out, screaming and tearing and riding aforementioned leg “like a hobo jumping a freight train.” (Those are Splane’s own words.)

No diet on heaven or earth would make Adam calm...but this one did make him less likely to annihilate his neighbors. Winning!

That wasn’t all. Nat fought cats. Nat fought humans. Nat was clearly anxious…and angry…and ready to assault everything.

Nat was on the fast track to a Prozac encore.

It was another staff member - let’s call her Fanielle - who gave Natalie a reprieve from her medication. Although Prozac is typically well-tolerated, and certainly an improvement over a Suite B bloodbath, any medication has its long-term risks - and any medication makes a cat “less adoptable” in the eyes of most humans. So Fanielle suggested one last thing before going back on the ‘zac: The Calm Diet.

The Calm Diet contains magical substances like tryptophan and hydrolyzed milk proteins and fairy dust to “help maintain the cat’s emotional balance.”

I am not making this up. There is a Calm Diet. Yes, really. This is a thing.

And lest you accuse us of quackery, this appears to be a thing that works.

We were as skeptical as you’d be if you heard Megadeth was merging in a supergroup with The Wiggles. The Calm Diet! we whooped. Maintaining the cat’s emotional balance! We cackled.

Nat prepares for the sweet taste of success. Calm never tasted so good.

And then we fed. We watched. They calmed.

Adam stopped pummeling cats. Violet dropped the “N” from her name. Virginia stopped flattening neighbors. Suite C was soothed (well, somewhat). The Calm Diet was the thing.

I’m the first to admit that we may well be seeing what we’re looking for. There’s no pure scientific way to measure whether or not cats are calmer. But we’re becoming believers.

The wizards behind the Calm Diet state that it’s “formulated to support cats in situations associated with stress and anxiety.” Well, steal my socks and call me Feetsie if that doesn’t describe a situation called Being Alive for Natalie. Even when she sleeps, our little orange enigma has one ear alert to action, anxious and excited and all atwitter. Some cats (and humans, present company included) are just more prone to experience life in full, oft-overwhelming color. Nat’s not a bad cat (as if there were such a thing) - she’s just exquisitely sensitive. And, when it all gets to be too much, instead of burrowing under a blanket or watching a Downton Abbey marathon, she works it out by reenacting There Will Be Blood.

Sometimes we all need a little help getting calm…and if that help tastes good and brings a reprieve from Prozac, I know one little Kentucky volcano who’s ready to eat up.

*Be it known: AutoCorrect accepts “dunderheads” as a word, but not “dunderheaded.” Just like a thesis adviser.

**I know I don’t really need to tell you this, but be it known that neither I nor Tabby’s Place are officially endorsing the Calm Diet. Maybe the Calm Diet will work for you, but maybe it will turn your cat into a giant naked mole rat. And that would be sad. So please, if your cat is a Natalie-flavor maniac, talk to your vet/behaviorist/exorcist, OK?

Ever have a Crazy-Making Thing make you grateful?

Ever have a Crazy-Making Thing make you stop and realize: Waitasecond. This Crazy-Making Thing should have happened to me approximately 1,000 times every week since birth, and this is the first time. Which means I’ve been spared approximately 1,664,000 crazy-making things. Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition!

This spring, a certain Crazy-Making Thing is the cause of gratitude at Tabby’s Place.

Halladay

Like any good sitcom cast, the human crew of Tabby’s Place is made up of recognizable characters. Jonathan, for instance, is our Fearless Leader. Danielle is our Cool Head In Crisis. Dr. C is the Woman Of Science. And I am the Cockeyed Optimist…or the Naive Idiot, depending on your opinion.

Naive Idiots say obvious things to identify themselves as naive and idiotic. Things like “Isn’t it amazing that we’ve never had an FIV+ mama cat with kittens who test positive, too?”

I’ve learned, of course, not to actually say such things. If I were to make such a statement, Cool Head In Crisis and the rest of the crew would leap upon me in protest: “DON’T JINX IT YOU NAIVE IDIOT!”

I will state right here that I do not believe in the phenomenon of “jinxing” things. Surely you’ve heard of jinxing. The reasoning goes something like this: don’t announce anything too positive too loudly, or you’ll make it un-happen. Don’t say that something has “never happened,” because that’s a sure way to make it happen.*

But back to the hypothetical FIV+ mama cat and babies.

Mayberry & Chooch

As you savvy folk know, FIV (feline immunodeficiency virus) is an immune-system-slammin’ disease transmitted between cats by deep bite wounds - or in utero. Cats can live long, healthy lives with the virus, which doesn’t deserve its scary reputation. Still, it’s no small thing, and adopting an FIV+ cat is not for everyone. In nearly ten years of Tabby’s Place, we’ve had galumphing hordes mama cats and kittens - but we’ve never had an FIV+ mom.

Everybody dance now, because that’s the good news. Think about it. Savor the amazingness of it. People Who Are Smarter Than Me estimate that 4% of free-roaming cats have FIV - and somehow ten years of Tabby’s Place moms and kittens have eluded it.

Well…almost ten years.

Alas, my friends, and alack, my foes: orange-and-white glamour girl Halladay has tested FIV+.

Halladay came to Tabby’s Place through the superheroine efforts of our vet tech, Denise. Trapping Halladay and her younguns involved crawling through grease and grime in a dark, dank Philadelphia warehouse. (I’m picturing a reenactment of the old War of 1812 song about how “they ran through the briars and they ran through the brambles and they ran through the bushes where a rabbit couldn’t go” - except urbanized. And felinified.)

Cole

The orange family’s Tabby’s Place arrival was a triumph. We got them! (And by “we” I mean “Denise, but we collectively took credit for it”!) We loved them! They were happy! They were healthy! They were orinch!

The SNAP test was less of a triumph.

We SNAP test every cat who arrives at Tabby’s Place, to determine whether she has FIV and/or the more sinister feline leukemia virus (FeLV). The test surely obtained its name from the fact that unwanted results cause humans to bellow, “Oh, snap!”**

Oh, snap, indeed.

Halladay snapped crappily: FIV+. This would be crazy-making enough if she were a solo sista - but our girl had four babies.

Transmission of FIV between moms and kittens is a squiffy thing. When an FIV+ mom has babies, the little ones are often born with FIV antibodies. This will make them test positive on a SNAP test. (Oh, snap snap snap snap….) However, antibodies do not make for an FIV+ cat…at least, not necessarily. As the kittens grow, they frequently shed those snappish antibodies and become FIV-. There’s hope that they will shed the antibodies as late as six months of age, so it’s a waiting game of fervent praying and re-testing.

Chooch dreams on

As proclaimed by the great philosopher Tom Petty, the waiting is the hardest part.

Earlier this week, Halladay’s four smidgens - Cole, Chooch, Chase and Mayberry - all tested FIV+ on the SNAP test. (OH SNAP SNAP SNAP SNAP!!!!) But they’re only about six weeks of age, so there are at least two retests in their future.

First, we’ll challenge the SNAP test with a newfangled FIV antigen test. This one will specifically test the kittens for the virus itself, not just the antibodies. According to our Woman Of Science, the antigen test has a 94% accuracy rate — so if the quartet tests negative there, things are looking very good.

Good…but not certain. Yet.

If Halladay’s brood tests negative on the antigen test, we’ll wait until they hit the six-month mark, then re-SNAP ‘em. Only the SNAP test has near-100% accuracy…and we don’t want to take any chances putting maybe-FIV+ kittens with decidedly-FIV- cats. We also want to be able to provide potential adopters with the full facts about the kittens.

Mayberry shows you her crib

Meantime, it’s limbo-land for the orinch family. We can’t put Chooch, Chase, Cole and Mayberry with FIV- kittens, just in case they’re FIV+. But we don’t want to put them with FIV+ cats, since they very well may be negative.

Head spinning yet?

Here’s the great glittering silver lining in all this: the kittens are together. They are outrageously, absurdly, off-the-wall happy. They’re all loved on an epic scale. They have their own nursery here at Tabby’s Place, where they practice purring and wrestling and losing gravitation in bouncy bliss.

And do you really think four little orinch puffs are going to have trouble getting adopted, FIV+ or otherwise? If they do, you can paint me green and call me Gumby.***

Proving this point, Halladay - a Cockeyed Optimist in her own right - has already been pre-adopted. So she has FIV. FIV = unadoptable? Bollocks! She’s already loved and claimed and on the fast track to forever. Since being sprung from that Philly warehouse, she’s been spared more scary things than we can imagine.

Halladay practices hamming it up for her forever home

And there’s no jinxing that kind of goodness.

I’ll keep you posted on Halladay’s honeys as their test results come back. But, in the meantime, feel free to holler out good things with no fear of jinxing them. Gratitude wins - and nothing can snap that.

*But just in case the jinx phenomenon holds any water, I hereby proclaim: Tabby’s Place has never received a donation of $950,000,000,000 from Warren Buffett. We have never had 95 cats adopted in one day. Marcus Mumford has never asked me to marry him.

**Also called an ELISA test. Click here if you’re a Person Of Science and want more detail.

***No, no, actually you can’t. No. Really.

Photo credits: Halladay by Jess The Magnificent. Kittens by Mrs. Marcus Mumford Flangela.

They say you can’t like everyone you meet.

They say a lot of things. Hank says: bollocks.

Hank smiles into Mark's camera

That’s not quite right. Hank more likely says, “I reckon not, pilgrim.” (Being named Hank = instant ticket to being a cowboy for life. Even if you’re from New Jersey, and you happen to be a cat. This is how we roll. Or ride.)

With an easy-going speed stuck on “tumbleweed,” Hank distinctly does not dislike anyone. You may be a dictator. You may be a marauder. You may not like folk-rock. You may be the kind of person about whom the nicest thing people can say is, “well, he has an inoffensive-looking forehead.”

Hank likes you.

Hank will chirp in circles around your legs, greeting you as though you’ve just brought in freshly-roast Roast Beast for his personal consumption…every time you enter, whoever you may or may not be, with or without aforementioned Roast Beast.

And here’s the real reckoning: whoever you are, even if it’s against your will, you’ll like Hank.

Don’t try to resist it.

You may be a hater. You may be such a hater that, everywhere you go, strangers roll down their windows and bellow, “don’t be a hater!” You’re going to like Hank.

Hank has the kind of “happy eyes” that only seem possible for stuffed animals and cartoon characters. Perpetually squinting into a smile, Hank’s peepers shine from a cowboy with only happy trails in view.

I reckon Jess took this beautiful photo of Hank, and the next one.

We don’t know the full details of Hank’s pre-Tabby’s Place meanderings, other than that he was at a large public shelter in north Jersey. We reckon, though, that nothing good leads an 8-year-old smiley-cat to an “open-intake” shelter.*

But, then, Hank doesn’t spend much time peeling scabs off the past. Would that we could do the same.

Every creature - feline, human or nutria - finds a way of dealing with the bad cards life turns over. Some hold ‘em, building an impenetrable shield of pain that never forgets the ache and never forgives. But a round, hard little anger-ball is no place to live. (Picture it as a turd, except somehow uglier and smellier and angrier and sadder. Yes, a sad, angry turd. Don’t set up camp in the sad, angry turd.)

Some fold ‘em, foreclosing on all possible paths. No hope = no disappointment, they reckon. But no hope = no hope, and without hope, you’re blind to miracles, blind to red skies at night, willfully blind to your own redeeming moment.

Most of us do the best we can, holding and folding and grasping at the poetry where we can get it. We make our own camp blankets from the materials on hand, and we learn to keep warm, or at least warmish. My own tendency is to wrap myself in words, a lacy coat of armor that lets in half-light when I walk out into the overwhelming starry night of More Than I Can Understand. Your cloak may be humor, or beauty, or prowess, or any number of glittering gold things. And, all the while, we’re all stumbling towards the truth that Someone is ever waiting to wrap us in a better cloak of invincible, immortal hope.

Simple cowboy cats like Hank bring us back to the essence of hope and forward-gazing smiles. “Excelsior ever upward” might be the words on the bumper of Hank’s Conestoga wagon.* Whatever happened before Tabby’s Place, it’s all dissolved into chirps and chatters, figure-eights around human legs and long naps next to Natalie. Forgetting the past, he presses ahead towards the things for which he was made.

Would that we could do the same.

Excelsior Henricum!

He may squint those eyes half-shut, but Hank’s anything but blind to the best that’s yet to come. The old trails are behind him, and he’s not about to give up before he gets his miracle.

From the look of those smiling eyes, I’d reckon it’s already here.

Happy trails to you, Henricum.**

*Then again, this was the same shelter that sent us fellow luminaries Patrick, Mario, Luigi and Purple. They are doing something very, very right, and we salute their efforts with love. We are all in this together.

**No, I don’t think cowboys actually drive Conestoga wagons. But Hank would. Don’t be hatin’.

***That’s “Hank” in Latin. Given Hank’s obvious and extreme well of wisdom, it’s only right that he have a high-falutin’ name to match his amblin’ Western one.

Loud ones. Proud ones. Tenors. Talkers.

And even the ones whose songs surprise us.

Bleu, 500,000 pounds of perfection. Super-sized, soprano-squeaking perfection.

If you look at Bleu, your brain immediately hears a sound. Unfortunately, it’s the wrong one.

The boy is beautiful. The boy is robust. The boy is…enormous. Understandably, your brain will assume that he’s a basso profundo.

Once again, however, a cat has confounded a human brain. (Don’t take it personally. It’s their job.)

When this colossus of a cat opens his mouth, your ear will expect Barry White, but it’s Barry Gibb you’ll get. He may be the size of a Volkswagen, but Bleu’s voice is better fit for a bicycle. With training wheels. And streamers.

Squeep!

For all his enormous girth, Bleu sounds almost afraid to speak.

Meep! Eee! Eep.

It’s as though the mighty cat still pictures himself looking like this…

Bleu back in the day.

…rather than this:

But don’t you worry, kittens: we’re working on Bleu’s self-image, one lovefest at a time.

When Bleu (along with sister Feta) was returned to us, he was rather petrified. Once again, the scarediest of cats came from a home. It seems that cats who have been in the shelter “system” for awhile are quicker to roll with the changes and let us love ‘em than the ones who have just been expelled from a home. It makes sense: if you’re leaving a crowded “kill shelter,” even the unexpected is an upgrade. We see this in fearless explorers like Patrick, who are elated on arrival. It’s like they’re leaving Mordor; whatever this strange Place of Tabby may be, it can only be more magical than what’s been left behind. You know - and you’re right - that there are far, far better things ahead.

But evicted housecats don’t know. After a life of relative stability and things like couches and ceramic dishes shaped like fishes, “different” can feel an awful lot like “loss.” Kill-shelter refugees can easily sing the music of the spheres — surrendered housecats worry that they may never sing again.

Time and again, it’s the housecats who come to Tabby’s Place hiding and hissing, scared and scarred and spinning with broken trust. Even if their journey to Tabby’s Place was paved with love, all they see is loss.

At first.

I like to believe that the fearless cats, the freak-flag-flyers and loud-singing hams, are just the “vocal coaches” our shy surrenders need. Amidst the post-traumatic stress of being surrendered, Bleu has met such celebratory cats as Sam and Eek (not to mention Cecille, who’s more than happy to make him feel like an American in Paris: “Quelle énorme chat!“) Their happy-heartedness has a way of getting stuck in your head (exactly like the Thrift Shop Song, except completely different). Between these loudly-joyful influences and a whoooooooole lot of skritching from the humans, Bleu’s finding his voice.

His tiny, little, squeaky, fabulous voice.

The best is yet to come, Bleu. And, Felis Catus folk, that goes for you, too. There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.

Photo credits: All ultravolunteer Jess, except Petite Bleu (taken by Danielle) and the cat that ate St. Louis (unknown person who is surely awesome, and very, very brave: source).

There is no Congress at Tabby’s Place. We are bereft of representative feline government. Suite B cats stay within the bounds of Suite B, and Suite A cats patrol the borders of Suite A, and never the twain shall meet.

Or at least, rarely.

Mario & Luigi "The Weedge"

In the annals of Tabby’s Place history, there have always been cats who dream of a unified Tabby’s Place. It may look like Natalie only wants to escape so she can race up and down the hall meowing like a nutjob, but really she’s the Benjamin Rush of her era, yearning to rally all cats around a common dream. It may strike the untrained eye that Toby’s only reason for busting out of Suite FIV is getting picked up by humans as he scrambles up and down the hall, but in truth he’s a modern George Washington, waving the flag of Tabby’s Utopia.

Don’t tell me you can’t see it. With the right leadership, the Lobby could be a rotunda, where cats from all corners and subcultures could air grievances and solve problems. Say there’s a shortage of Dumb Mice one year. (Every summer, the cats depend on a certain quota of Dumb Mice who wander into the solaria for the apparent purpose of being beheaded. Bonus points for Dumb Lizards, of which we once discovered half.) Speaker Levi would bellow, “The representative from Suite C has the floor.” Virginia would propose a solution: serenade the mice, seducing them by song. Loudmouth Hawkeye would second the motion, offering to be the Serenader in Chief. Ada would demand, “Only if I get a throne made of swords!” Cecille would mutter, “Quelles morons!”

And that’s politics for ya.

In all some seriousness, however, there are rare moments when suites meet and boundaries tumble. For these utopian moments, not just any cat will do. It takes…a Mario.

Mario, by SuperMark

Mario came from the Patrick Delegation of North Jersey. That means he was on the not-so-utopian list at a high-kill shelter. This is bad enough, but there’s even deeper darkness in Mario’s past. This cat did not always have the name of a super plumber who saves princesses and hangs out with toadstools. Let’s put it this way: in the Patrick Delegation’s six cats, only one had a name unhorrible enough to keep.

That name was Purple. ‘Nuff said.

Hank was Hairy. Patrick was Gaell.

And Mario…Mario was Dreamsicle.

Naming a large male cat “Dreamsicle” = animal abuse. And human abuse. And reality abuse. If you are reading this and you are the human bean who named Mario “Dreamsicle,” I wish you a lifetime of happiness and pudding, but I think you may be a Very Bad Person. Or at least the Gary Busey of cat namers.

But Mario, a true statesman for our time, has shown he can overcome adversity and inspire the Tabby’s Place nation.

Luigi demonstrates his opinion of politics, by Mark

Our butterscotch-and-white boy came to us a little bedraggled and raggedy, his teeth a little grizzled and grouchy, and beating a heart murmur of unknown origin. (Ahem. “Unknown origin” = bollocks. If I had been named “Dreamsicle,” I’d have developed a heart condition too. But I digress.)

Yet through the Dreamsicle days and dental drama and more, Mario has never pressed pause on the the sweetness. Our super old boy wouldn’t spit fire even after a feast of fireflowers. He’s been so easygoing, he lowers everyone’s heart rate to a yogafied, delta-wave, Norah-Jones-on-the-radio level of calm. This Mario isn’t making pizzas or squishing Koopas (unless he does that when we leave at night, which is highly possible). He’s mooshing humans, and cats…and uniting the realm.

While most of our cats live in either suites, adoption rooms or Community areas, Mario is currently presiding in a sort of limbo. Mario and his friends have finished their Quarantine period, but Tabby’s Place is at maximum capacity - so we don’t yet have spots in a suite for Mario and his comrades. Meantime, it’s been Mario’s job to keep the peace in the strangest makeshift monarchy of all time.

Parental guidance warning: this photo of Halladay's halflings may leave you in a permanent state of yelling SQUEEEEE. Which could get in the way of your future aspirations to be a senator and/or sane person.

Mario’s constituency is a motlier crew than the cast of Celebrity Apprentice. There’s Luigi, he of the ever-open mouth and moony moosh-me eyes. There’s Patrick, of the aforementioned mad mad mania (OH MY STARS I LOVE MANIA!). There’s Feral #90, the wildest and angriest madre ever to emerge from our trap-neuter-return work, and her four growing babies. And there’s big-haired, big-hearted Halladay and her four too-orange-for-Ohio babies. (I have no idea where that came from. Take heart, good people of Ohio: I do believe orange is still permitted in the Buckeye State.)

These are twelve cats who would never, ever under ordinary circumstances share a Tabby’s Place suite. Heck, Feral #90 is counting the days ’til she can secede from the republic and live up the “R” part of TNR. (That’s “R” for “Return” and “Renegade” and “Rip humans to shreds if they get near my younguns.”)

But somehow, they’re making it work. This land is their land.

How did it happen? The smart money’s on Mario. And that, amici, is the stuff of dream…sicles.

Photo credits from top: Nintendo, Flangela, Mark, Mark, Denise.

But if they had time for such things, Tinkerbell would be singing and swinging and making merry to the tuneful stylings of Jiminy Cricket right about now. When you wish upon a star, makes no difference who you are…and all that jazz.

Tink casa forever. Photo courtesy of her new mama.

But don’t just take that jazz from me. Far better that you take it from our twinkliest, Tink-liest adopters. (Somebody out there hit me in the face for that one. With a marshmallow. But still, I deserved it.) Thus saith Tinkerbell’s AwesomeAdopter:

“Tinkerbell is wonderful. At this moment, she is sitting on E’s (daughter #1’s) lap, keeping a close eye on her hamster, Chibi. Tinker’s tail is swinging.

“She spent the weekend primarily in A’s (daughter #2’s) room. A returned home Thursday evening from school. She and Tinkerbell slept head to head.

“She is settled into our home. When we look for her, she is on a perch in the basement, on the kitchen table curled up next to the plant, on a rocker, under the chest on the top floor or in/under a bed.

“Tinkerbell had a grooming. All of her fur has been brushed and trimmed. Yes, she is sporting a Mohawk, lion cut. She was very cooperative during the grooming, which I did. She was purring by the end of her beauty treatment.

Tink shows off her new 'do, as lovingly done by her AwesomeAdopter.

“She is soft and beautiful.

“Tinkerbell is very well adjusted and the girls love her, as does my husband. She approaches him and he touches her and talks to her.

“She is a diamond.”

And her family has only begun to see all of Tink’s facets.

Pardon me for taking liberties with Mr. Cricket’s original lyrics, but I believe the true situation here is that it makes no difference which magnificently long-haired female cat “of a certain age” you are. (You’re gonna have to scat that one to make it work, Jiminy. Or rap it. Yes, a rapping Jiminy Cricket. That’s exactly what we need. And if you now have When You Wish Upon a Star in your head, I am sorry.)

Thus saith you right about now: what on God’s green earth are you talking about?

I’m talking about Purple, people. That would be the long-haired lady cat “of a certain age” who replaced Tink in Adoption Room #3.

Purple in all her majesty, as taken by Mighty Mark.

Part of the Patrick Delegation from North Jersey, Purple is every bit as irresistible as her wilder comrade. As befits her Prince-approved name, she’s a sultry snuggler who oozes glamour and reels in men/women/children/great mole rats with a single glowing gaze. (If you now have Purple Rain in your head, I am sorry. Truly.)

Purple is also the newest not-ready-for-the-rocking-chair rocker in our little old ladies’ suite, and the girls are getting along famously. Purple is just That Kind of Girl. Even if her new friends are…

• weird (and they are)
• the kind of “weird” that might blurt out things like “Hi! Let’s be friends! If you say the word ‘Belgium’ over and over and over it sounds funny! I like lint!” (and Posey is)
• older than dinosaurs (and all the girls in Purple’s pad are)…

she loves them. As they are.

Adoption Room 3 has but one rule for admission: only diamonds need apply. And, like their former roomie Tinkerbell, they most assuredly are.

Cats don’t.

Patrick most assuredly doesn’t.

Patrick in a rare moment of stillness, by Mark the Stellar

You may have seen the recent ad campaign brightly proclaiming that cats are morning people. This is all well and good for selling cat food, but c’mon now: are they kidding?

Cats? Morning people?

Leaving aside altogether the embarrassing comparison of cats to people (I can hear Cecille already: “Quelle horreur!”), does anyone really think that cats are morning people?

Cats are no more “morning people” than they are “afternoon people” or “evening people” or “stroke of midnight people.” Cats are this-very-moment people. And that’s the secret to their great, giddy, glorious joy.

"OH MY STARS I LOVE THIS CAGE DOOR!!!!"

Just ask Patrick.

Patrick has his Ph.D. in Living In The Moment. Even if you threw him in a cold, dank cave with moldy mustard smeared all over the walls, he’d find something to celebrate: “OH MY STARS MUSTARD IS YELLOW AND I LOVE YELLOW! YES I AM YELLING!”

In the Universe of Patrick, every iota of reality orbits around his joy. His current constellations are the same comrades who accompanied him from a crowded North Jersey shelter. Giddy Patrick needs no telescope to see the beauty of Purple, Mario, Luigi and Hank.** Patrick sees splendor with his naked eyes.

That’s impressive when you look at our Mr. Blue Skies’ eyes. If Patrick looks a little squinty in these shots, it’s not because he’s shading his gaze from the bright rays of bliss. Patrick, like Ben and Mervyn before him, has entropion, a mean little disease in which a cat’s own eyelashes turn inward and scrape his eyeballs. Highly ouchworthy.

"OH MY STARS I LOVE THIS HUMAN LEG!!!"

Yet not worthy of Patrick’s complaints. Complaining = pausing The Happy. This, he cannot do.

Before we performed surgery to repair Patrick’s peepers, he was over-the-top happy, rubbing his entire being so hard against every surface/person/idea that he kind of scared us. (”OH MY STARS I LOVE YOU DR. C EVEN AS YOU ARE STABBING ME WITH NEEDLES!”)

After we performed surgery, Patrick was over-the-top happy, rubbing his entire being so hard against every surface/person/idea that he kind of scared us. (”OH MY STARS I LOVE ANTIBIOTICS! I LOVE FANCY FEAST! I LOVE PARIS IN THE RAIN! I LOVE READING KIERKEGAARD! I LOVE I LOVE I LOVE!”)

"OH MY STARS THIS SHOE THIS SHOE I LOVE THIS SHOE!"

From now unto the end of the age, Patrick will be rubbing his entire enthusiastic being so hard against every surface that…well, he kind of makes us laugh out loud, even if we’re having a day that began with burnt toast, emergency backup underwear, and MacArthur Park.

You can’t keep a crazy-happy cat down…and around Patrick, there ain’t no way you’ll be able to stay down long, either.

*If you have not experienced the auditory mindwarp that is MacArthur Park, cease and desist your blog reading and go remedy that this instant. Walk on by the Donna Summer version, which can get away with being campy, and go directly to the Richard Harris version. Prepare yourself for full-on melodramatic moanings on how someone left the cake out in the rain, and he doesn’t think that he can take it, cause it took so long to bake it, and he’ll never have that recipe again and (I quote) “oh NOOOOOOO!” Richard clearly does not mean for this to be funny. He’s not kidding around. He sings these words with a gravitas appropriate for, say, a dirge about tuberculosis, or a soundtrack to a movie about genocide. And we haven’t even gotten to the bit about the sweet green icing running down. I am not making this up. Go. Now.

"OH MY STARS I LOVE YOU!"

**More on them soon. Much more. Moohoohoohoohahahahabwahaha.

Photo credits from top: Flangela, Mark, Mark, Flangela, Flangela, Flangela. Note that Mark’s photos are molto excellente and mine are blurry. Note that blurriness does not blur Patrick’s awesomeness.

His prayers turned God’s ear and made it rain. (Biblical scholars dispute whether he was the first man ever to use the phrase, “I’m gonna make it raaaaaaaaain!”) He was known as a hairy man who wore a leather belt about his loins. (Consider him the predecessor of Thrift Shop’s Macklemore.) He thundered the Truth when all the world spoke a lie. And his closing act was riding up to heaven in a flaming chariot driven by flaming horses.

So it’s only right that Elijah in the feline world is one righteous dude.

Elijah with brother Devin

Like that other Elijah, the Tabby’s Place alumnus is worthy of his own oratorio. (Are you listening, Felix Mendelssohn?)

He has adjusted - be it ever so slowly - to two dogs and two cats.

He does the Halloween thing.

He’s a serious athlete, making (feline) brother Chase raise his wrestling game.

And he’s the star of these photos.

Elijah’s mum writes:

“Elijah is doing very well.

“He loves face and chin petting and loves to be brushed with his Furminator.

“Elijah has found a few places around the house that are his favorite spots for sleeping.

“And he likes to wrestle/play with his brother Chase a couple times a day.”

Elijah enjoys Halloween. Using the word "enjoys" rather loosely.

That’s a lot of adventure for a cat who came to Tabby’s Place from the shelter system. Adopted from a shelter, but returned for having become too big for the people’s laps (I wish to heaven I were making this up), the big boy never quite shook his last vestiges of bashfulness. In his brief time with us, Elijah was a bit of a retiring prophet - but nowadays, it’s clear he’s taken on the mantle of Master Of The House. As it should be.

Who needs a leather belt when you’re a hairy man clad in a pumpkin-spangled cape?