The Winter Olympics are over.

The Summer Olympics are distant.

The Marathon is consistent.

I speak of the Misery Marathon, that heralded sport originated in Ringoes, NJ by the elite athlete Juliana P. Rosenberg, “P” for “Persnickety,” “Peeved” and “Potentially Possessed.”

What’s that, you say? Juliana was adopted?

True.
Would that it were so true that all adopters were amenable to cats who are…well, potentially possessed.

It would be easy to say that Juliana was returned for that classic cause, No Fault Of Her Own (NoFOHO, most common cause of feline FOMO). But spend a few mornings in the Tabby’s Place Community Room, and you may reconsider this no-fault business.

Juliana’s adopter told us that Juliana simply would not let her sleep. The yelling, the frenzy, the Misery Marathon…it was all just too much.

“Bollocks,” scoffed we.
“Bollocks on your bollocks,” howled Juliana.

As you may recall, when Jules had her first joust at Tabby’s Place, she made an art of jive talking, by which I mean bellowing, by which I mean through the burning bellows of the world below. Running at top speed, ’round and ’round and ’round the Community Room table, Juliana would howl and holler and moan her mad manic misery every time she spotted another cat.

Of whom there were approximately twelve.
And so, of the making of misery there was no end.

A season away from Tabby’s Place and its insufferable fellow felines has not calmed Juliana’s kookery. If anything, she’s more insulted than ever to room with such wretched creatures as cats. In her time away, we had the gall to introduce heinous beasts like Pixie and Sammy and June, and Juliana is not jumping for joy.

She is, however, jumping into every lap that sits. Bend your knees for so much as a moment, and Jules will appear. Her spry, skinny senior-catizen legs will launch her onto your person faster than you can say “frenzy.” Just as soon as she lands, she’ll look at you lovingly…

…and then scream.

You will not know, gentle reader, why Jules is squawking at you. You will never learn why she doesn’t sit down, settle in, rest in the righteous comfort of your lap. You’ll only register a flash as Jules lands, laments, and then leaps on to her next seated human, howling all the way.

The Misery Marathon marches on.
Or does it?

Far, far be it from me to doubt Jonathan “His Eminence” Rosenberg, great coiner of the term Misery Marathon and signer of my paychecks. But could it be there’s something more than misery motoring Juliana’s jumpy jamboree?

Might it maybe be…mirth?

When Jules is jabbering, all eyes and ears are trained on her petite person. When she’s running, all attention is racing right after her. Miserable though she sounds, I’d venture she’s grinning within, soaking in all the shock and sympathy she so screamingly attracts.

Never underestimate the power of an old cat to find her happiness, even if it takes a miserable soundtrack to make it happen.

Fear not, Jules; the adopter with adoring ears awaits you and all the sounds you have to share. It’s just a mirthful, maddening matter of time.

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