The great white rhinoceros has left the building.
That means it’s up to you to be our Valentine.
Wait, wait, don’t click away. We are not about to join the tinny chorus of cliches about February 14th. You get enough of that from the world. We are not the world. We are Tabby’s Place, the world within a world, where love is large.
When it comes to Valentine’s Day, Tabby’s Place is a haven for the infatuated and the ambivalent, the romantic and the revolted.
There is room for lap cats and loners, bonded pairs and solo swans, the fond and the feral, people who wear heart antennae and people who are hiding behind the nearest cat until February 15th when all the chocolate will be 75% off.
In other words, however you feel about this holiday, we’ve got you.
More importantly, the cats have got you, which is why they would like to get you here on Saturday, February 7th from 1-4pm for “Your Feline Valentine.”
Now in its second year, this Open House is only appropriate for you if you:
- Love cats
- Love people, and/or love people but don’t always like people, and/or love people so much it scares you, and/or try to love people, really you try, but then people keep peopling, and … see #1.
- Can reasonably make the trip to Ringoes, New Jersey (which provides an excuse to no one, since flights from Antarctica are only eighteen hours, twenty-seven minutes)
Regina will be your Valentine - Love lying on the floor with tabby-striped poets and calico romantics who will whisker-tickle your cheek and curl up in your armpit and gaze at you as though you are the sunrise, or at least the world’s largest string cheese, which is a higher compliment than anyone on Match.com will ever muster
- Love free cookies, of which there shall be many
- Love rebelling against a world that gives its roses to the sleek and the shiny, when really all the magical creatures have crooked tails and crinkled ears and rumpled hoodies and hearts so big they have to hide them under ordinary faces
- Love being surprised by love, which keeps burgling your heart no matter how many locks you install, no matter how many alligators you put in your moat, no matter the height of the gate … kind of like how Hips kept getting inside Jonathan’s office in defiance of all laws of physics.
In other words, we need you here.
Consider Your Feline Valentine a family holiday. No one will ask if you’re “seeing anyone these days.” No one will try to set you up with their nephew.
Someone may ask how you’re doing and listen long enough to hear the answer. Someone may flop in your lap as though their entire life has led to this moment. Someone may roll you their favorite jingle ball and dare you to frolic. Someone may poop on your shoes, but there are more than five love languages.
Everyone will be glad you came … even the one who can’t make it this year.
If you were hoping to canoodle a certain individual with no tail, no couth, and enough enthusiasm to electrify the Northern Hemisphere, you are a little late. The inimitable Hips, the bovine feline whose purr caused seismic activity in three counties, has been adopted.
He is now galumphing, triumphing, and purring with infinite plumpness in a home he shares with fellow alum Carrot.
We are giddy. We are grateful. We are galumphing around in his honor.
Don’t mind these tears on our cheeks.
But now you understand why we need you here on February 7th.
Although no one can fill Hips’ clown shoes, your presence is the Valentine’s present we need at such a happy, weepy time as this. And, in true Hipsian fashion, our snuggliest space cadet left us all a promise and a challenge.
The promise: An incontinent, incandescent, effervescent, overconfident, under-dignified, perfect, imperfect, ecstatic, angelic white hippopotamus of a cat can get adopted. Love is never late, never early, always right on time. You are not too hippy or happy-go-lucky.
Do not shrink your strangeness for anyone’s jelly mold. Persevere until you find your people, who may be cats, and who are definitely at Tabby’s Place.
Hips don’t lie, you know.
The challenge: If you loved Hips, you now must love Mystery Cat.
Who?
Well, you’re going to have to join us on February 7th to find out. Our newest sponsorable cat will be making their debut, and you will make Hips proud if you love them even before they show their face.
Hips has personally approved this cat for your loving, although in fairness, Hips can’t help but love cats, people, senators, sea monkeys, muskrats, and cool rocks.
So let’s see if we can make ourselves as big as the alum who loved largest of all.
The only way to do it is to love.
Also: there will be free cookies. Hips don’t lie.
Oh! Did you want photos of the King of the Lobby’s glorious home-going celebration? Of course you did. Behold the splendors of Hips’ sendoff, complete with one last laundry-cart enthronement and rotisserie chicken for all. I wonder how many of the friends in that last photo may be adopted before the next Valentine’s Day? Come meet them while you can…
