Sometimes hearing from an old friend can remind you just how hard your universe rocks.

A simple “how have you been?” can make you realize that the answer is “Blessed…big time.”

We got one of those “how ya been?”‘s yesterday at Tabby’s Place, from a very cool human bean we hadn’t heard from in six months. As I began regaling her, I was bowled over by the parade of special adoptions we’ve seen recently. I was also perplexed as to how to handle it all here.

I would never say that we’ve had too many stellar adoptions (that would be like too much marshmallow Fluff – an impossibility)…but we’ve definitely had too many stellar adoptions for one blog post. And I’m just talking about this week.

Still, I’m going to try. Just call us the Joey “Jaws” Chestnut of competitive catblogging. So what if he can stuff 62 hot dogs down his maws in 10 minutes? Pshaw. We can stuff at least three AwesomeAdopters and their cats into one blog post.

Hopefully this won’t require any Pepto Bismol.

First, the fibrous one. We don’t just have any old muffins here at Tabby’s Place. We major in the mega maxi-Muffins enriched with extra sprinkles of fiber (and by “fiber” I mean “awesome”). It was going to take a genuine HeroAdopter to have the little love who’d once belonged to Lt. Muffin…but HeroAdopters have a way of finding Tabby’s Place. So it happened that Muffin, fiber and all, was the first in our recent fiesta of forever homes.

I’ve never believed in “jinxing” things (for instance, causing it to rain by saying “it’s so beautiful out today!”, or causing a cat to get a dread disease by naming him Lucky, or causing Wal-Mart to run out of marshmallow Fluff by saying “I love that Wal-Mart never runs out of marshmallow Fluff!”). I do, on the other hand, believe that cats have the power to anti-jinx things.

Case in point: under an hour before Muffin’s HeroAdopter entered our doors, Muf was the topic of lunch conversation at Tabby’s Place.

“You know,” Ginny remarked, “I can’t understand why Muffin is still here. It just doesn’t make sense. She’s sweet, she’s friendly, she’s young, she’s healthy, she’s beautiful, and she’s even declawed, for people who are funny about that.” The rest of us agreed so loudly that you could hear it all the way to Zanzibar. (I don’t know if they have muffins in Zanzibar. Or marshmallow Fluff, which is kind of sad. But I digress.)

As if on cue, the front doors sprang open, the HeroAdopter blazed in, trumpets blared and sparkly stars flew in all directions, spelling out MUFFIN’S DAY HAS COME.
Or something like that.

But the anti-jinxing wasn’t over. Muffin’s adoption was stellar, yes. And overdue, and long-awaited, and 57 varieties of phenomenal. But that all meant that the stakes were raised, and some cat had to outdo her.

The cats all got together and nominated none other than…Sprite.

It’s nothing short of scandalous that a pumpkernickel-colored, blind-as-a-bat, Fluff-sweet phenomenon who walks like this should linger on, unadopted, for eons months. Yet, it happened. I’d venture that Sprite’s non-adoption was more even more shocking than Muffin’s.

Was. Past tense.

You guessed it: Spritey McSprite has been scooped up into her own land o’ love, breaking our hearts and making our day all at the same time. Our blind wonder-baby is now the joy of a new volunteer’s heart and home. The fact that Sprite’s new mom is a volunteer is some consolation to us as we miss our little elf. Some.

We were still mourning/celebrating Sprite’s adoption when adoptee #3 found his human bean. This time we had some advance warning. As soon as we saw Mom-to-Mary pull into the parking lot, we started to happy dance in advance. This, after all, was that glorious human bean who’d determined to love one of the shyest cats…and to love her for exactly who she was, just the way she was.  Mary had still been semi-feral when her mom adopted her, but Mom-to-Mary saw a spark in her that was thisclose to flaring up into lasting love. Mom-to-Mary’s love called Mary’s own courage into being, and today Mary is a love-bug – always on her own terms, just the way her mom respects. So after Mary and her mom lost Mary’s furry “sister” Sasha, they agreed that they would open their hearts to another timid treasure of a cat.

How about a thistle who’s all flower, no thorn? Maybe even one from a group of biennial thistles in the genus Arctium, family Asteraceae?
You guessed it: Mary’s new brother is the boy we can’t possibly Blaine…Burdock.

So there you have it: a season of triumph for high-fiber phenoms, elves and thistles. We did it – we jam-packed a post with awesome adoptions. Eat your heart out, Joey Chestnut (wait, not really…just eat a few dozen franks).
And that’s just this week. What could the rest of the summer bring? Your guess is as good as mine, good people, but I’m telling everykitty today: bring it on.

*Quick housekeeping note: I will be out of town (but not in the Fluff-free zone of Zanzibar) through next Thursday, which means this blog may be on the quiet side for a bit. I have left Webster with special instructions to urge certain humans to blog in my absence. Aforementioned humans shall remain unnamed, but their names may or may not rhyme with Ronathan and Rarina. Please feel free to e-mail them every ten minutes demanding that they write blog posts. No, not really. Please, I do like my job. 😉 I’ll miss you all and ‘see’ you soon.

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