Normally, if you bake a cookie for a really long time, it gets really hard, and unchewable…then charred and flaming and finally a pile of crumbly ashes. Not quite the stuff of Betty Crocker.

But sometimes, a long baking period can be good for a cookie - or, rather, a Cookie.

Cookie first came to Tabby’s Place c. the year 386 BC 2003. Smart cookies will note that this was the very same year Tabby’s Place opened…which means Cookie has been here a Very Long Time. As in, before there was dirt. Or dinosaurs. Or cupcakes.

But 6+ years at Tabby’s Place didn’t make Cookie stale. To the contrary, this Cookie has gotten sweeter - softer, even - with the passage of time. The only things crumbling on this white-and-black confection are the 80-foot walls of wariness that once stood around her heart.

For sweeping eons years, Cookie lived in one of our big suites. Anxious and untrusting, Cookie was sweet to look at, but cringed in horror at the very idea of human touch. The top of the ramp was this Cookie’s choice.

Then certain, um, circumstances led to Cookie’s joining the Weight Management Suite. She made BFFs left and right, but they just kept graduating. Cookie, on the other hand…well, couldn’t keep her paw out of the cookie jar kibble container. All kidding aside, I have my own philosophy: just like people, so with cats, there are different body types - none better or worse than the others. Back in Botticelli’s time, Cookie would have been painted on frescoes all over Europe, her form envied by the leaner cats. But I digress.

We never give up on even the toughest cookies at Tabby’s Place, so we just kept on loving our sweet-down-there-somewhere girl through the eons. Earlier this year, we realized that just about all the Weight Management cats were even (a) no longer putting-their-hearts-in-danger large or (b) just not losing an ounce. This left one murky in-between category: the successful but slooooow losers. And so this crew - Cookie, Sarafina and Oreo - shacked up with diabetic doofus and love-bug Hooper in the smaller Special Needs Suite. (Side note: I use the word “doofus” with great affection and reverence. It takes one to know one. Hooper takes goofus-doofusness - or is that doofosity? - to awesome extremes.)

Well, someone had better call Betty Crocker after all, because it turns out the Special Needs Suite is a secret ingredient of awesome power. Just a few weeks into her new digs, and Cookie was…touchable.

Sweet. Soft. Loving cats, and people…and, for the first time, in a way we could see, loving life itself.

At 16 years of age, our Cookie is just about ready. And when that kitchen timer goes “ding,” it’s my prayer that a perfect family will heed the call for Cookie. Their sweet Cookie.

Casa Cookie, are you out there? Your sweetest surprise awaits you.

Tags: cookie, hooper, oreo, sarafina

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