Dear kitten friends,

With final kitten Harrison adopted (together with “Uncle Sidewinder”) this month, we’re currently officially kittenless…but we know it’s the calm before the storm.

One of my not-so-guilty YouTube indulgences is watching the live streams of kitten rooms at rescues around the country. Last night, one featured a litter of five adorable new kittens, eyes squinched closed, sleeping in one furry heap. So cute…and our turn is coming soon!

We did witness the return this month of one “old kitten,” Saeed, who had been adopted as a wee one in 2011. “Once a Tabby’s Place cat, always a Tabby’s Place cat,” so Saeed was welcomed back into our embrace with no hesitation. Happily, Saeed was readopted almost immediately.

What we think of as the “kitten room” at Tabby’s Place is still occupied by Tagalog, Tensor, and Torus (pictured here), who are making some slow, incremental progress in learning to trust us. Incremental as in, Tensor no longer tries to slay me with the power of his glare through the glass of the window. And Torus didn’t hiss at all when I said hello (of course, I only had a view of Torus’ backside, but I’m gonna take what I can get from these kitties!)

We all know that cats, whether kittens or adults, can take a long time to learn to believe that they are safe and loved. The T’s have been on a long journey — if they’d embarked on that journey when they were still little, they might have been able to trust us more quickly, but at least they’ve landed here now. And soon enough, we’ll be swimming in a sea of new little kittens, and we’ll offer them the same love and acceptance that we do to Tagalog, Tensor, and Torus.

Thank you, as always, dear sponsors, for your support of all the scared little kittens that come our way — the teeny tiny as well as the overgrown ones!