If Jonathan announces over the PA, “Attention: I am about to play with kittens in the lobby,” five adult humans will come bounding out like punch-drunk puppies.

But this week, our excitement soared to new levels with the visit of the Cat Daddy himself, My Cat From Hell’s Jackson Galaxy.

Jackson Galaxy with Team Tabby's Place, as taken by Jackson's delightful publicist Breanna. And, yes, that is the extraordinary Gwen Cooper at far left. Whenever there's this much awesomeness in a room, Gwen manifests.

Jackson had us at hello Cat Mojo. But having now met the man, I can report that he is all that and five hundred bags of chips. Matter of fact, his name itself is all too humble for Jackson’s scope of stellarness. Let me explain. 

I’m no astronomer, but even I can tell a galaxy is a large and impressive thing.

A universe is even larger/impressiver.

These days, Really Smart Folks With Tweed Elbow Patches are positing that there may even be a multiverse.

And this, my friends and fiends, is the scope of Jackson Galaxy’s awesomeness.

Case in point: when Jackson came to Tabby’s Place, to whom was he drawn?

Sweet, terrified Ali, as captured by Denise

Was it the irresistible humans? (OK, you can stop laughing. No, really.)
Was it the cute-as-40-buttons kittens?
Was it the big-eyed, well-behaved “adoptables?”

It was Ali.

Ali…who has been described as “being afraid of molecules.”
Ali…who ventures out from under the couch rarely when the sun rises in the west and the seas turn to dry land.
Ali…who has spent 4+ years at Tabby’s Place just doing her best to stay undetected.

Ali, who needs him.

The petrified white cat with the moon-face reached out from her hidey hole and grabbed hold of Jackson’s big heart.

In just one of the facets of his being a Utterly Outstanding Human Bean, Jackson is a feline behaviorist with intergalactic insights. If anyone can help Ali, it’s him. We’ll be looking forward to hearing his loving wisdom in the days to come.

From his early days at the Humane Society of Boulder (CO), Jackson’s passion has been to keep cats from being euthanized - and to help their humans learn how to love them the way they need to be loved. It seems to me that each cat is a new and precious world to Jackson, as he takes the time and tenderness to understand. It’s hard to picture what it means to truly “speak cat” until you see it in action. That feline love-language is boldly on display in the Cat Daddy. The fact is, this attention-grabbing dude has his attention and affection fixed on the cats who need him most. His heart is even bigger than his presence -  or the multiverse.

And we at Tabby’s Place couldn’t be more grateful - or giddy - that he made the time to visit us.

Pick up a copy of Cat Daddy, tune in to My Cat From Hell on Animal Planet, and please join us in thanking the big man with the blazing heart for cats. We love you, Jackson Galaxy.

That goes double for a certain white cat who’s been seen doodling “Mrs. Ali Galaxy” and “A + J = TLF” in her notebook.

booyah

Cats, in general, bring the booyah.* They bring it so well, in fact, that it’s almost unfair to single out a particular feline as being a bringer of the booyah.

But then you see something like this, and you realize that not all booyah is created equal:

Sakes alive!

Sluggo brings a bigger booyah than any rivals (and he does it while decisively proving that no domestic cat is too large for our solarium tubes - not that Sluggo is exactly a “domestic cat,” but that’s another story).

Adam, bringer of the booyah

But even aside from our largest lug, however, Tabby’s Place is currently rich in cats who know how to bring the booyah. Mass quantities of the booyah.

Adam assuredly brings the booyah. A tidbit of a tabby with an unruly intestine, Adam started life as a bottle baby. Somehow separated from his mama as a tiny kitten, Adam was hand-raised by good folks. That’s a lovely, excellent, stuff-of-children’s-books thing.

However. Bottle babies who are raised as “only children” tend to have certain distinct traits into adulthood.

Brashness. 
Brassiness.
Inability to imagine a world where everything is not about them.

Call it Veruca Salt syndrome: Adam wants the party, he wants the golden egg, he wants the wet food, he wants your attention. NOW.

NOW. NOW. NOT FIVE MINUTES FROM NOW. NOW.

You could imagine that, in the hands of a lesser beast, this might be a tiresome trait.

Adam, however, also brings the booyah.

Try as I might, I could not get a photo of our Virginia ham doing anything other than this.

With an angel face, a plaintive meow, and a comrade in fellow screamer/sweetheart Hawkeye, Adam is irresistible (not so much in the chocolate-covered-marshmallow sense as in the “resistance is futile” sense). Adam has so much love for you - yes, you, you who are reading these lines right now, even if he hasn’t met you yet - that you will succumb to his demands. And all he’s really demanding is love. (Demanding it, yes. People call him Maurice, since he sings of the pompatus of love. And by “sings” I mean “screams in an extremely pathetic and heartbreaking meow.”)

Adam’s not alone. Next door in Suite Sumo C, Sluggo has acquired a rival for the title of booyah bringer. If she gains some weight, Virginia will also rival Sluggo for the title of hugest cat - but, at only 18 pounds, she’s still about 6 metric tons away from that.

But size and booyah have no direct correlation. In Virginia’s case, she brings enough tortoiseshell attitude and skritch-my-chin sweetness to supply a lifetime of booyah. (And this would be using the upper estimate of your daily recommended dose of booyah, too.) Part of our recent Georgia group, Virginia is 95% peach and 5% spitfire. (Which, in combination, would be a perfectly-grilled toasty peach. Of which Virginia appears to have eaten many, with extra whipped cream. But I digress.) If she were human, Virginia might be Suzanne Sugarbaker from the 80s hit Designing Women. She suffers no fools. She knows her gorgeousness. She carries her weight with class. She has more style in one of her orange swirls than all the models in Milan.

Then again, being human would be a considerable step down for Virginia.

Georgia must have had a glut of the booyah this year, because they were kind enough to send us a second booyah-bearer: Daisy.

Got a girl named Daisy.

Along with Violet, Pansy, Petunia and Gerber, Daisy is part of our current army of torbies. Not quite tabby, not quite tortie, these swirly-brown-and-orange girls are the watercolors of the feline world. But though their hues may be dainty, these are booyah-bringing broads like no others.

I select Daisy from this garden simply because she brings the boldest booyah of all. The rest of the torbie army is her flesh-and-blood kin (as the story goes, Gerber is mom to the whole lot), and Daisy generally gets on with them just fine. Unless.

Unless she is expected to share a dorm room (that is, quarantine crate). Excuse me? Share a small space, with another cat (or rat, or three-toed sloth)? Moi, le Daisy? Y’all must be kidding, or using controlled substances, or just plain dopey as a dab of dippity do.

When we attempted to put Daisy in a (large) crate with lookalike sister Violet during their quarantine period, we learned that Adam’s not the only one worthy of the nickname Veruca. Suddenly Daisy went all spitty and slappy towards her sister. (Full disclosure: Violet gave it back to her 100%. Booyah-bringing runs in families, you know.)

Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do. I'm half-crazy, all for the love of you.

Now that she’s got her own space in a suite, Daisy’s back on the sweet side, which is its own kind of bringing-of-the-booyah. Essentially, Daisy fails to bring the booyah about as often as Christopher Walken fails to bring the scary.

The booyah. Tabby’s Place is rich in it, thanks to a senate’s worth of stellar felines. Be it known, potential adopters: taking one of our cats will bring a world of booyah into your home.

*While there may be an occasion under which it is appropriate to say simply “booyah” rather than “the booyah,” I cannot imagine what it might be. And I don’t want to offend the bringers of the booyah, so I’m not going to take any chances.

Photo credits: Daisy, Flangela; Sluggo, anonymous Tabby’s Place staffer whose name may or may not rhyme with Twane; Adam, volunteer Jessica; Virginia & Daisy, Flangela.

In 2004, after Tabby’s Place had been open for less than a year, we were fortunate to be featured on New Jersey Network’s (NJN) Homeless Tails.  The show’s host, Sandy Levine, also made a wonderful video of Tabby’s Place.  While NJN is no more, Sandy is alive and thriving.

Sandy has become a good friend over the years.  She called me yesterday to say that she had just watched the video again, as she was including it in her online portfolio to promote her video production company.  She remarked that she still found the story to be so poignant, even after all the years.

It is truly a great video (I say without prejudice and I figured that many of you had not seen it.  Here it is.  Enjoy.

Here is a link to Sandy’s production company.

Vladimir had both of those in spades. Little did he know he was about to get a family whose love burns with the heat of ten billion stars.

Where we last left Vladimir, Survivor Of The North Brooklyn, he was toeless but triumphant, recovering from hypothermia, starvation and toe-freeze disease. Our orinch boy was well on his way to health…but the bigger best was still yet to come.

Don’t take it from me, though. This is where I hand the tale-telling off to Vlad’s dad:

“Shackleton just turned 14.

“Pounds, that is.

“It has been one year since our family adopted the orange tabby formerly known as Vladimir. He’s back from his first wellness visit to our vet, and other than being a ham (the grandstanding, showoff kind), he passed with flying colors. At 14 pounds, he’s also starting to be a bit a ham (the porky kind), but considering his history of near-starvation, we can’t bring ourselves to put him on a diet.

“If you remember Vladimir, he was rescued from a frozen January Brooklyn street by a very, very Good Samaritan (really a Great Samaritan). He was then saved by Tabby’s Place, which lavished tremendous resources, constant care, and love on this starved, badly frostbitten orange foundling. We first saw his story on the Tabby’s Place blog, and couldn’t help but be drawn to this cat who had gone through such terrible times.

“When we first met him, Vladimir still had a feeding tube, bandages on his hind feet, was woozy from painkillers, and his fur was stiff and brittle. This was after weeks of intensive veterinary care and personal nursing by Denise. (When Denise was in the room, Vladimir’s eyes would follow her as she walked. It was very touching.) When he went home with us last April (2011) he weighed 8 pounds and was still limping badly on his back feet.

“Fast forward one year.

“Fragile no more, he’s actually a bit of a bruiser. He still shows a tiny bit of that old limp, but it doesn’t stop him from rocketing around the house and up and down stairs. When he goes around a corner fast or starts to run on a slick surface, he does look a bit like a cartoon cat as he skids; he has no traction control in the back, since he is missing all those toes. But he doesn’t seem to find that a problem.

“His name is now Shackleton, after the great explorer of the South Pole, Ernest Shacketon, who also suffered from frostbite. Our Shackleton now shares a house with two people (us) and one other indoor cat, our incumbent Digger. As fate would have it, we now have the two best cats in the world, and, of course, they don’t like each other. Oh well.

“So: Thank You, Great Samaritan and Thank You, Tabby’s Place. Who else would go to the lengths you went to for a frozen, stray catsicle? And Thank You also, all you blog-readers and cat-lovers, for supporting Tabby’s Place. We thank you, and a (just slightly) fat and happy orange tabby cat thanks you.”

If that isn’t enough to melt the frost on your heart (or toes), heaven help ye. But I have a feeling there are no hoary hearts from Ringoes to Brooklyn and beyond today.

Thank you, Vlad’s Dad & Mom, for bringing the toeless tabby’s story to its glorious fulfillment. From the very beginning, he was meant to be yours, and he’s loving every minute. You are the kind of human beans who keep the fire in our hearts at Tabby’s Place.

We loathe our adopters.

Let me explain.

Nobody really loathes an adopter. How could we? They bring our cats happiness, and absolute happiness delights absolutely.

All we loathe is the inevitable ache, the selfish sadness, of missing a cat we’ve come to love having with us at Tabby’s Place. Never was this ache achier than for the Community Room’s kookiest calico, Chickadee.

But, even as our Chickadee withdrawal continues, the following e-mail from her new adopter - let’s call her ChickieMomma - is healing our wounds.

“I just wanted to update you a little more on my sweet girl, and I attached photos of a few of her favorite things to do.

“Chickadee is a very big mama’s girl. She loves to cuddle at every opporitunity she gets. So much so, that in the middle of the night, she climbs up on my pillow and sleeps on my head! Some may find this annoying, but I think it is about the cutest thing ever.

“She is a dreamer. As soon as she falls into a deep sleep, Chickadee will often kick, twitch, or cover her eyes with her paws in her sleep. I often wonder what she is dreaming about, maybe about being chased by her Tabby’s Place friends?

“Chickadee also likes to sun bathe in front of the sliding glass door, or to ‘people watch’ out the window from her kitty condo. She likes my Pier 1 frilly pillows, and to sit on the back of the couch and hang out.

“I really think Chickadee is enjoying her new place. Sometimes we play with the red laser light, but I don’t want her to get too dizzy with her CH.

“Chickadee is a great girl with much happiness to offer, too much not to share.”

And with that, we know our happy Chickie is right where she belongs - right down to the awesomely feminine pillows, fit for our calico girly-girl. There’s nothing to loathe - and everything to love - here. Thank you for giving our girl the life of her wildest dreams, ChickieMomma.

This fact is not lost on our lobby cats.

Halie making Puss In Boots eyes during her suite days, begging for a lobby slot. Is she grateful? Does Mr. Clean have a shaggy head of hair?

Traditionally, the Tabby’s Place lobby is a bastion of Cats Who Don’t Love Cats (And The Cats Who Don’t Love Them Back). In fact, one of the best ways to get yourself a plum lobby position is by itching and agitating in a suite.

Jenny, Toya, Elmo, Peachy and Halie all followed this route. (Pop quiz: has living in the lobby sweetened Halie and brought her peace and joy? Yes, it has. In other news, I am, indeed, the Queen of Spain. Also, Wolf Blitzer is going to enter and win the 2012 presidential race on the campaign promise of giving everyone chocolate eclairs. And Ronathan is doing Zumba in your front yard right now.)

Crafty cats, these; they somehow knew that, if they just sulked and sighed and dropped weight enough in the company of other cats, they’d get an express ticket to the place in the sanctuary with the lowest (feline) population density. If being around other cats puts you in a permanent state of Fixin’ To Die, we will place you in the lobby and love on you all day. True fact.

Peachy (as captured by volunteer Jess) does her best not to think about other cats...

Then there are the lobby brawlers. In a quirky concidence, these bad rad boys tend to be drawn from that other kind of lobby cats: The Ones We Felt Bad For. (True confession to my fellow wordynerds: it took all my strength and gumption not to make that “The Ones For Whom We Felt Badly.” But, for once - and it’s probably just this one time, ever, so enjoy it - non-awkwardness won. We now return to your regularly scheduled awkward geekery. Carry on.)

Boots got his lobby throne for having heinously horrible heart disease at a young age. Gunther got his sinecure for having horrific kidneys. Gingko got the glory for his sad, leaky heinie. (Guarantee: this is not a sentence you will read on any other blog, anywhere.) Their maladies - and our marshmallowy sympathy - may have gotten these guys into the lobby…but their Hulk Hogan-esque beatdowns have made their fame.

So this all makes it rather perplexing that the lobby cats - the lobby cats - should be open to the lusty side of May.

We already know about Toya and Elmo’s unspoken affair. But if that weren’t enough to make you start humming secret loooo-vers, that’s what we are, I present you with incriminating evidence on two of our all-time favorites:

...with one very auspicious exception.

Yes, that would be Peachy. And Gingko. Call Page Six, call Extra!, call the Army, Navy and Marines (and also the Merchant Marine, whatever it is they do): the lusty month of May has arrived in the unlikeliest of places.

Next thing we know, Dot will be playing with Gunther.

Peachevere and Sir Ginksalot

Wait a minute…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTtOEOfVIeM

Completely shameless PS: Did you know you can love on the cats with double the lustiness this month? Click on over to the Linda Fund, and your donation will be matched by Really Generous Folks between now and May 30th. The Linda Fund is all about the uber-needy cats like Dot, Gunther and company, so it is simply the best way to celebrate May day. True fact.

Completely irrelevant PS: If you knew the “tra-la” reference from the get-go, I love you and we should be best friends. Every May for the past 31 years, including today, has started with my Mom flinging open my door, calling, texting or e-mailing me to start the morning by singing the opening words of the Camelot song in her lovely alto: “Tra-la! It’s May!” Yes, awesomeness runs in the family. And, yes, it does make you extremely cool in 7th grade to be singing about how ev-reee maiden prays that her lad will be a cad.

If you thought Hunterdon County politics were wild, step into Suite B. Or C. Or FIV.

Kum-ba-yah...Lester and Toby get aboard the Gus Bus

OK, maybe not FIV. Since the arrival of Gus, King Kum-Ba-Yah himself, those FIV+ cats get along almost ridiculously well. If only we could bottle Gus’ good-timey ways and mist hose down all the cats in Suites B and C with them.

First, the battiness of B. Harvest may seem like an unlikely candidate for the role of The Punisher - no teeth or even roots, sad hush-puppy eyes - but punish he does. Human? He loves you. Feline? He will end you.

It might not seem so bad if not for the bloody aftermath. No, Harvest doesn’t make the other cats bleed…he just hates them enough to make his own sensitive, toothless mouth bleed all over when he “bites” his cohabitants. (In some cases, however, he does make particularly terrified combatants poop themselves. Voluminously. No, I am not making this up. And, no, to spare the pride of the pooper in question, I’m not naming names. I am, however, linking links.) 

Harvest: "Who, me??"

Maybe Harvest is trying to compensate for his toothlessness. It’s hard to be tough when you have the dental structure of a 97-year-old man, but, goshdarnit, Harvest is out to prove he’s a mighty man of valor. More than that, though, he’d just like to prove his love for humans and be done with these other cats. I trust a forever home isn’t far for our single-species mush.

We may understand where Harv is coming from, but LaFawnduh’s not lighting up with delight in his presence. Never a fan of her own kind, our independent mama is more a lover yeller than a fighter. Like the high school kids who gather around a brawl to yell “fight! fight! fight” (which is an excellent and helpful thing to do, by the way), LaFawnduh always adds her commentary to the battles of the day.

Truth be told, though, LaFawnduh is just a Big Giant Dork at heart, tired of the cool cats and looking for a human of her own. LaFawnduh was the girl whose favorite hot hunk was Captain Jean-Luc Picard, and who would buy a perfume called Eau de Used Book Stores if she could. She seems to feel a bit removed, and a lot out of place, with all this “normal cat stuff.” She’d just as well choose to be in her own little world, with her own little humans. (Or big humans, or average humans, or even Notorious M.E.D.I.U.M. humans. She’s not fussy. And, Jean-Luc, if you’re reading this: call me.)

LaFawnduh thoroughly enjoying JJ's company

Over in Suite C, we’ve got a Mouse That Roared situation. Imagine Belgium seriously attempting to dominate the entire known world (”our waffles will end you!”), and you’ve got a good idea of Crystal’s confidence. Maybe she’s inspired by the rise to power of her tiny white predecessor, Tiffany; maybe she’s convinced that good things come in small, white, one-eyed packages; maybe she’s just daft as a brush. Yep, that’s it.

Whatever the reason, Crys is confident she can take ‘em all. And, by George, she may be right.

Trey saith, "Aw shucks, could I be more harmless? Why, yes, yes I could."

If, that is, she can get past Trey. Sneaky one, that 1,800 18-pound mush. He’s taken the long road to dominance, biding his time for 4+ years at Tabby’s Place before deciding to become an Epic Butt Kicker (EBK).

At first, I struggled to believe the reports that he was beating on other cats. Trey? But Trey weighs too much to even turn himself over. Trey loves everyone. Trey wouldn’t hurt a stink bug. Yes, also I am the Queen of Spain. I can only imagine the mighty thud of Trey falling from the perfect-behavior pedestal, but fall he must. Trey is beating on other cats. And at 1,800 18 pounds, Trey heap strong.

Of course, he’s not quite as strong as Sluggo, the 24-pounder in talks to be the mascot of 25 Burgers. Fortunately, the other cats’ fracas seems to have made Sluggo go into semi-retirement from roughhousing…with emphasis on the semi. We know pro wrestlers don’t go into retirement for any reason other than to come out of retirement with a new wild outfit (Lucha Libre style) and a mighty BLAAAAAAAAAARRRGHHH! Make no mistake: the biggest Slugfest is yet to come…and its name is adoption.

Sluggo Libre

And, yes, this is all in jest. Sure, they fight, and sure, it’s been unusually jungley lately. But when the lights go out in Ringoes, it’s a happy, snoozy, peaceful land. They make it work, these cats. Is it any wonder they have better solutions to our political problems than we do?

If Sluggo and Trey, Harvest and LaFawnduh can find a way not to kill each other, maybe there’s hope even for us human beans.

Maybe.

Photo credits: assorted awesome PWhAM (People Who Aren’t Me): FIV love fest, Harvest and LaFawnduh, volunteer Jessica; Trey, Rob Zurfluh; Sluggo, Danielle.

And I don’t just mean a certain 24-pound powercat.

I could not find a photo of Dick Clark with a cat, but Tiffany approved this option.

First, a much-needed digression. When I mentioned Dick Clark on last Tuesday’s post, I assure you - Girl Scout oath, pinkie-promise, before God and king - that I had no whiff of a hint of his impending passing the very next day. (After reading the blog post, a friend begged me, “please don’t ever mention me on that blog!” I am happy to assure you that all other living beings mentioned in that blog post are still alive and kicking. Well, I haven’t personally heard from Dick Cheney, but I have it on good authority that he’s safe and sound in an undisclosed location.)

Nor, of course, did I intend any malice towards Mr. Clark. Matter of fact, I’m a lifelong fan of the icon, a man who warmly celebrated far-ranging generations of artists with all his heart. Dick Clark wasn’t afraid of change, and embraced each season of the century with all its quirks and melodies. I was mighty saddened by his passing, and will miss the gentle joy he brought to spotlighting celebs great and small. Each year in high school, I held an “elegant” New Year’s Eve party at which the girls would dress up and eat fancy crudites, and the boys in their No Fear T-shirts would throw pretzels and impale pigs-in-a-blanket with toothpick swords. The highlight of the event was the watching of Dick Clark’s Rockin’ Eve. Well, that, and the banging of the pots and pans on the front stoop at midnight. Yes, I ran with a wild crowd in high school.

But enough of that, and on to pressing political news.

Her Excellency Tiffany, as captured by volunteer Jessica (as are all the terrific Tiff photos here)

Whereas: Tabby’s Place is located in the glittering non-metropolis of Ringoes, NJ (population: 14 humans, 100 cats, 47 delis). Everyone knows Ringoes is the jewel of Hunterdon County. It is not, however, the county seat.

Whereas: Ringoes is a mere five minutes from the county seat itself: one Flemington, NJ.

Whereas: the major of Flemington must be a Very Powerful Human.

Whereas: Very Powerful Humans need Very Powerful Cats.

Therefore: Tiffany is has adopted the major of Flemington.

Oh yes. Our smallest, daftest white wonder has shot straight to the top of Hunterdon County politics. Tiff has never been shy about her lust for power, and we all know where this is headed. Many a president has come from Flemington. And by “many,” I mean “zero.” Which is even better, because it means Tiff will be the first.

Flemington's great white hope, Tiffany

It restores my faith in politics to know that Flemington’s mayor has such nonpartisanly perfect taste in felines. It’s a big job to mayor a place like Flemington. Not one, but two new burger joints have sprung up just this month, and Her Mayorness is going to have to make sure a turf war doesn’t break out. (French…fries…everywhere!)

It’s not a job for the catless. It is a job…for Tiffany.

So if you’re out in Flemington and happen to see a cat symbol appear in the sky, you’ll know the powers-that-be are calling upon their greatest resource: the mighty Tiff.

Your Mayorness, you may have our vote - but, even more important, you have your ebullient, effervescent, endlessly excellent Tiffany. A happy forever to our favorite feline politician.

Dot is, course, insanely cute.  But, when I saw Timmy’s photo, I literally gasped.  He is so cute is is criminal.

I have included a few other photos here, so you can see for yourself.

Angela says about Timmy

Black-and-white magic, on the other hand, is alive and well.

JenAnn by Bohn Zoore

At least, that’s the case if by “magic” we mean “fabulosity.” And we do. Oh, we do.

Exhibit A: the inscrutable, impenetrable Jennifer Ann. The growliest of the octet that came during Snowtober, our tough little moll has only slightly softened with age and kidney disease. She’ll sit quietly and accept some affection (and life-saving subcutaneous fluids) from the hand of Ginny when her head is covered just so with a towel. (That’s Jennifer Ann’s head, not Ginny’s.)

But purring was not part of JenAnn’s plate.
Wasn’t. Past tense.

Enter a Certain Volunteer and a certain snip of black-and-white wisdom.

Certain Volunteer is so passionate about teaching our cats how to love that he does extracurricular research on cat socialization. He then employs what he’s learned, combined with an innate kindness, to work regular miracles with our scaredy-cats and angry-cats. Recently, Certain Volunteer was reading up on the mad skillz of the feral cat wranglers at Stanford University. They’ve learned a sneaky, successful trick for petting the unpettables. Apparently, if you take one of those long, fleecy wand toys and start skritching the cat with the fleece part, then sloooooooooowly work your hand up towards the top, you can gradually get in some bona fide neck skritches with your actual fingers (and, as a bonus, keep said fingers). 

Philippa lets her hair hang down

The intrepid Certain Volunteer decided to try this with JenAnn today. Given JenAnn’s hissy, spitty, savage history, this took a certain amount of courage. (Exact amount: one aircraft carrier full of courage.) But, by the time Certain Volunteer’s hand made it to JenAnn’s shoulder, Jennifer Ann was purring.

Purring. That deep, divine vibration of joy. That matchless rumbling that emanates from the Pit Of Happy.

Be it known: Jennifer Ann has a Pit Of Happy. It just took a certain patience and a certain grace to draw it out.

I must note that Certain Volunteer explicitly asked me not to shower him with accolades or praise on this blog. So I won’t mention this humble soul’s name. I will only say that it may or may not rhyme with Bohn Zoore, and his certain outstanding blog may or may not be found here.

Ralph, S'mores and the good life

But that’s not the only black-and-white whimsy leaping from the Tabby’s Place hat this Friday. Down the hall from JenAnn’s Pit of Happy (which should be marked on any future maps of Tabby’s Place), a certain Philippa has decided to let it all hang out.

There was a time in the not-too-distant past when Philippa was as controlled and concerned as a new royal. She minded her Ps and Qs, dotted her Is and crossed her Ts and never, ever let ‘em see her sweat. Or smile. Or stretch. Philippa was noble, nervous and unnaturally anxious.

As you can see, the prim ice queen has become…well, a pin-up girl. Yet even these glamour shots don’t do justice to Pip’s glorious new ease with herself, with her Tabby’s Place (oh yes, this is her place), and with her human servants. You can bet Philippa’s own Pit Of Happy is ready to rumble.

I leave you with a final taste of black-and-white bliss. One warning: this photo smorgasbord is going to leave you wanting s’more. Ralph and S’mores, that is. Special thanks to their forever family for sharing the boys’ goofy, giddy, gloriously well-loved life with us in photos.

And thanks to you, Felis Catus folks, for the prayers and support that make all the miracles possible - be they black-and-white, orange or calico. Have a delicious weekend.

Who's Ralph and who's S'mores? It would take black-and-white magic to know for sure.