Funny how words can have elastic meanings.

Friend can mean “close, cherished, intimate acquaintance,” or “guy I accidentally bumped into on the way to study hall 47 years ago who just found me on Facebook.”

Bad once meant “bad” (as in, “you’re a bad chef, because your chicken stew tastes like vomit”), then it meant “awesome” (”I wanna be like them baaaad dudes”), then it meant “bad” again, and now it’s having a renaissance as “awesome.”

But perhaps the most elusive word in our lexicon is adoptable.

I’ve heard this term stretched wider than a pair of Wal-Mart sweatpants.  When applied to cats, sometimes adoptable means “no chronic diseases.” Sometimes it means “under 5 years of age.” Sometimes it means “conventionally attractive with absolutely no glaring ‘flaws.’”

Sometimes it means all of the above, plus “extremely docile, extremely sociable and never, ever, ever feisty.”

At Tabby’s Place, adoptable means…alive. And feline. Those are the only boundaries. Speaking personally, I think anyone who limits adoptable beyond that deserves an old, cold, molded mustard sandwich.

By our definition, then, a chubby 14-year-old cat with a crumpled ear, a wild tangle of hair and a history of living under a couch is eminently adoptable. Eloise, come on down, because your day has arrived.

We should have known when the WeezyWoman came to Tabby’s Place that she shared our broader definition of adoptable. Before becoming WeezyWoman, this SuperAdopter had been momma to Gracie (nee Puff-Puff), a marmalade sweetie with a timid streak and a lot of years under her belt.

Clearly WeezyWoman knows the huge adoptability of awesome, shy senior sweethearts.

When Gracie passed this spring, our hearts grieved with the WeezyWoman’s. When you choose to adopt a senior cat, you know the odds are that your years together will be relatively few. It takes a heart the size of Mongolia to face the inevitable and love with gusto anyway.

WeezyWoman’s heart dwarfs Mongolia - and the rest of the continent, for that matter. Having loved Gracie for life, the WeezyWoman found herself with a bigger heart than ever…and room for another stellar senior.

And so she became the  meant-to-be mama of The Weez herself. Today Eloise - Eloise! - goes forever home.

While she’s technically classified as “geriatric,” I don’t know that it’s fair to call Eloise “old.” (In fact, she might be eager to slap an old, cold, molded mustard sandwich of her own at anyone calling her that.) She’s only 14 - and in people years, that translates to only 72. If The Weez were a 72-year-old human, she’d be the type to have mad gray hair long enough to sit on, wearing fringe in a tumble of colors and wild brooches shaped like moon faces, dancing her way to Pilates class and gallery openings and church and protests against bombs and animal cruelty.

But El is a calico feline, and she’s got something even better than all that: life well-loved in a home of her own.

That’s totally “baaaad” - and not at all bad.

Tags: Eloise

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