Cats are gleefully non-self-explanatory.

So it’s only right that their names are often shrouded in mystery.

We once had a Red who was a brown tabby.

We’ve had black cats by the names of Silver and Goldie.

Nuttin‘ would have been better described as “everythin’.”

Burt Reynolds has a glaring lack of a handlebar mustache.

And then there’s Farrah, with no golden wings in sight.

But I should remember my audience. Tell me what you think when I say “Farrah,” and I’ll tell you whether or not you were born before c. 2000.

If your mind conjures up Charlie’s Angels‘s Farrah Fawcett and the 70s’ most spectacularly supersizedhaircut, you’re a millennial-or-older like Bucca and Jennifur and me. If, instead, you picture Teen Mom Farrah Abraham, you’re younger than a good 20% of the Tabby’s Place cats. And also me. But then, if you picture a generously-sized black cat, you’re ageless. And awesome.

Meet Farrah Rosenberg, maharani of the Lounge, naturally sweetened diabetic darling, the Farrah to end all Farrahs and set all wings a-flapping.

When Farrah purrs, the entire Lounge rumbles with the peace of the ancients. When Farrah bunts against your leg, you know you’ve been touched by an angel. And when Farrah flaunts her way into your lap, cancel your afternoon plans, ’cause you have been chosen, human.

All of this Farrah fabulosity makes it all the more mysterious that Farrah flunked out of a former home. We know little of Farrah’s life prior to Tabby’s Place stardom, but there’s no doubt she came to the right place. She is, after all, diabetic; we do, after all, specialize in pancreas-impaired felines in our Lounge.

If I’d planned better, I could have toasted our diabetic lads and ladies on November 14th, World Diabetes Day. Along with numberless humans (among whom I am numbered), each of our diabetic cats owes his or her life to one Dr. Frederick Banting (born on November 14th), the first person to successfully extract insulin and administer it to patients with diabetes.

So here’s a belated toast — raise high your Cherry Zero — to Farrah, Shifty, Reese, Cisco and Missy. While we can’t know what diabetes feels like to a feline, we know it surely makes their roads a little steeper. And yet, four out of five of them face it with a smile. (Cisco does not do smiling. Cisco would not even smile at Dr. Banting or Santa Claus or Jimmy Fallon. It’s a Cisco thing.)

But maybe even Cisco would squeak a smile for our Farrah.

Diabetes and all, Farrah is one of our favorite phenomena in feline history. Although she’s suspiciously lacking in blonde wings and has had no known feuds, this little superstar is making every day fabulous.

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