We know you come to Tabby’s Place for unflinching journalistic integrity.
You know the foundation of a free society is a feline press.
You count on us for the hard-hitting questions that no one else is asking.
To that end: “What does Chicken do at night?”
This was an actual, legitimate, important question bandied about by the Tabby’s Place staff this month, concerning one Chicken Nugget and his nocturnal navigation.
Answer: he dreams of dinosaur-shaped poultry. He studies the ancient science of nuggetry. He wonders if his wife Turkey Nugget awaits him somewhere far across the sea, like Penelope awaited Odysseus. He wads himself into the solarium ceiling tube like a lonely manicotti.
Or at least, he did, until we answered his answers with a move to a tubeless suite. Now he shares secret sauce with Cornbread, Audrey, and Sky. Ceiling-proofed, they’re learning to share their secrets with us. And that’s all the nuggetry that’s fit to print.
Meanwhile, ace reporters Baby and Elijah are alerting us to relevant headlines like “American cheese deserves your respect” and “Oreo-stuffed Oreos promise more Oreos.” You shall never find a journalist more truth-fevered than a cat.
But in all seriousness, kittens, it has been a month. You do not need my tearful reminders. We lost friends we thought we couldn’t live without. And we can’t, at least not as the same selves we were.
Our garden was plowed and harrowed, and just when we saw green sprouts, the tractor came back.
February was ferocious.
Love is tenacious.
And in the mysterious midair of death and life, Tabby’s Place loves on. Somehow, mercies are new every month:
Arrived: Xena, Walker, Vinnie, Snowy, Ash, Val, Espresso, Boba, Nola, Rusty, Lornadoone, Luvs, Koala, Wallaby, Quokka, Fiona, Shiloh
Adopted: Merriweather, Martian, Ralph, Doodles, Bentley, Octavia (pictured at right), Wallace
Returned: Ponderosa
Promoted to the Community Room: Walker
Promoted to Quinn’s Corner: Cornbread, Sky, Audrey, Chicken Nugget, Denali (pictured below left), Hoopla
Promoted to Heaven: Allie, Rose (pictured at top), Reese, Possum, Ginger, Malva, Crinkle Bob, LORD HAVE MERCY YES I AM YELLING (and yes that is an acceptable, sometimes the only acceptable, form of prayer)
Stuff We Learned: We are weary, but we aren’t worn out. We are different than we were in January, but not colder. We have holes in our sweaters, but we can still wrap each other up tight.
We will not give up, because we’re not given that option.
We will give in to the call that gives us life.
We will give ourselves to the grace that gave us Rose and Reese and Possum and Allie and Malva and Ginger and Crinkle Bob in the first place.
We will give our all, and find again that to believe in love is to receive and receive and receive.
We will ask questions and live without answers.
We will eat Oreos and laugh like ninnies and live as long as we’re living.
And when spring comes, our garden will be ready.