When is a kitten not just a kitten?

When he’s (a) a fur boa, (b) an interlitter peacemaker and (c) all that and five bags of chips. Phillie is no ordinary kitten.

Not, of course, that there’s anything shabby about “ordinary” kittens. “Ordinary” kittens make our world go ’round at Tabby’s Place. They make everyone in a 20-yard radius slaphappy with glee, and they can bring out the loving side of the baddest man in the whole darn town. “Ordinary” kittens are extraordinary.

But Phillie has kicked that ordinary specialness up several notches. This teensy tuxedo is a minicat of many talents.

Now, as you might suspect, we human beans at Tabby’s Place aren’t much for wearing fur. But we are willing to make certain exceptions:

We’re in that funny time of year in Ringoes when a little bit of air conditioning is too little, and a little more is too much. Sometimes it can get a bit frosty in the Community Room, and Phillie has been quite concerned about the A/C blowing down on our necks.

Or, more to the point, on Ginny’s neck. That’s his Ginny. The very same Ginny who took Phillie and his siblings home each night in their early days, syringe-feeding them and braving exposure to the fleas partying in their fur. This is the superGinny who would fight tigers for any cat (including the ones who would fight her like tigers). For his Ginny, Phillie would gladly become a fur stole. Who needs ermine when you have a real, live, purring tuxedo baby?

Far from confining his gifts and talents to neck-warming, Phillie has also shown himself to be the Nelson Mandela/Gandhi/Desmond Tutu/all of the above in the kitten world. Most kittens are remarkably accepting of strangers (“Hi! Since you are my species and within 500 pounds of my size, we must be soulmates. Let’s cuddle”). But most kittens don’t have the opportunity – and challenge – of merging three litters of little ones.

First there were Phillie, Teka and Dora, born in center city Philadelphia.
Then there were NJ sewer survivors Minnow, Guppie and Flounder. (More on them in the very near future.)
And, finally, there was the rural Jersey answer to the A-Team: Ajax, Achilles, Apollo, Atlas, and…um, Minerva.

That’s eleven kittens. Yes, we were going to need a skilled mediator.

Leave it to Phillie to be the link between litters. When his own sisters were adopted, he didn’t even bat one of his long eyelashes; it was insta-love for adoptive siblings Minnow, Guppie and Flounder. Never mind that the “fish kittens” had a few weeks and quite a few ounces on him: Phillie was completely comfortable with this new sibs…and Phillie’s comfort is wonderfully contagious.

Our Philadelphia phenomenon is equally at home with the A-Team, a quintet of jumping beans who could easily overwhelm a more timid teensycat. But not Phillie: he’s small of stature, but there’s nothing teensy about his courage.

Or his heart.

I don’t know why Phillie is the last of his “real” siblings to be adopted, but mark my words: the family who adopts him will be getting a mighty wonder in an itty-bitty package. Phillie Fam, we can’t wait to meet you.

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