How do you explain five impossible adoptions?

There’s only one answer.

They fell for the V.

We are not unaware of alphabet soup at Tabby’s Place. It is more of a stew, a barmy gumbo that bubbles and belches like a swamp.

The letters stick to the spoon. FeLV+ cats are supposedly not on the guest list. A caustic bouncer would call them “unadoptable.”

We like to stir things up at Tabby’s Place.

Stir it like you mean it, and raw noodles break down. Put elbow grease into it. Use the big metal spoon that once belonged to your grandmother in Sicily. Stir until the letters yield to Cream of Language, and then serve up a better sentence.

Ladle out a life sentence.

Treat the forsaken to a “you are going to live” sentence.

We like to do this at Tabby’s Place. We live to do this in Quinn’s Corner. We wipe tears from our eyes and soup from our aprons as we taste the recipe for resurrection.

“Hopeless” Trifecta now runs a book club with Checkers. (Their next selection: “Laps and Liverwurst: You Can Have Two Favorite Things.”)

“Hopeless” Puff now makes wishes on her own dandelion hair, and they all come true.

“Hopeless” Oram grows larger than Luxembourg, and satellites spin smitten around his head.

They live. They feast. I have just said the same thing twice.

But not even the stubborn kitchens of Tabby’s Place can conjure five impossible adoptions. Our finest saffron cannot summon five miracles in two months. Our love alone cannot turn four fetid letters into five Olympic rings of victory.

For that, we need master chefs.

We need AwesomeAdopters.

We need human beings who stand tall enough to fall face-first into the stew.

Believe, and you shall receive. They came, they swooned, and they fell for the V.

The V was not the “virus.” AwesomeAdopters do not fall for cheap tricks like that. FeLV is just another vicissitude of life, like broken jingle balls or over-salted vichyssoise. These things happen. These things may change your day or your life span, but not your joy or your wingspan.

The V was Vacation, as in Fortune Cookie. An art project of the angels, Fortune Cookie is composed of sunsets and August peaches. He is New Jersey tomatoes and red gingham tablecloths. He is all the clippings from a Muppet salon, hand-woven into happiness that hugs you back. He is the song around the bonfire, and the fireflies that keep the beat. He is the vacation that lasts your whole life.

The V was Valedictorian, as in Sylvia. Feline brilliance is a given. Our residents restrain their knowledge of quantum mechanics only so we don’t feel stupid. But even among luminaries, Sylvia gleams. She is Emily Dickinson sharing minestrone with Einstein. She is physics, metaphysics, and the jollity at the end of every -ology. She is Provost and Chancellor. She is wise enough to love without calculation. She is the genius of grace, entwined in tabby stripes.

The V was for Vespa, as in Piper. Sylvia’s research confirms that Piper is the sole entity more jaunty than a scooter. All the pastel moto-bikes in Palermo cannot compete with the tortoiseshell who needs no pedals. Piper is wheels and wonderment, the root of all cuteness, a ride that weaves the narrow alleys between waking and dreams. She is everything you were scared to want, come true.

The V was for Velveteen, as in Malawi. She has read the book about the rabbit. She has never seen a spirit that was not kindred. Her green eyes are safe places for everything real. She listens until life softens. She will comfort you by letting you touch her. She will make your rough places smooth. Malawi is mercy in stripes, shadow making friends with light. She knows how to wait. She is soft and strong.

The V was for Valor, as in Pierre. Some called him an oversized Fortune Cookie, but that was not quite right. Some said he was a marmalade macaron, but there was more.

Some said Pierre was the Paris of the clouds, a maned rumor of a world run by love. They were not wrong. Someone blurted that Pierre looked just like Clint Eastwood, and once we stopped giggling like gerbils, we realized he was right.

My grandfather always insisted that Clint had “kind eyes.” Now I saw them, green as life.

They fell for the V, and they made his day.

V is for five, a quintain of adoptions that have Quinn’s Corner aglow.

What comes next?

What AwesomeAdopters will rise to the challenge of falling in love?

Not even Sylvia can tell.

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