Happy summer, dear Royal Family!*

What’s that? You scarcely noticed the solstice? Well, I can’t blame you. In the company of Queen Prescott, every morning seems like the start of summer.

Her stripes and speckles sparkle like the light on the water. The sun stretches its orbit to get just a little closer. The longest day of the year wishes it were longer, so it could play with Prescott for a few extra hours. The French novelist Albert Camus prophesied Prescott when he wrote the words, “In the midst of winter, I found that there was, within me, an invincible summer.”

And you and I are the ones who get to love her, season after season. Life is sweeter than an entire peach orchard, dear sponsors.

Yet it has come to my attention that certain rapscallions and unsavory characters are using words other than “sweet” to describe our Prescott. You’re not going to believe this, but disloyal subjects are describing our queen as “feisty,” “relentless,” and even — you may wish to close your ears — “aggressive.”

Now before you storm Tabby’s Place like the Bastille, we can’t be too hard on these folks. They love Prescott. They also love Smokey (pictured at right). They just don’t understand Prescott’s particular “love language” with Smokey.

She, um … clobbers him.

Repeatedly.

By “clobbers him,” of course, I mean “regales him with her grace and beauty at point blank range.” She instructs him in the arts of hand-to-hand combat. She believes in him. She expects he will medal in Boxing, Fencing, and the Ten Yard Dash at the Paris Olympics.

OK, she clobbers him. But I am confident she has her reasons, and that they are entirely loving and good.

Alas, delicate Smokey finds Prescott’s reasons unreasonable. Smokey is a silver beanpole made entirely of heart, the Tin Man in our Oz. Smokey is elderly, affectionate, and currently doing his own wintry battle with serious gastrointestinal issues.

Smokey does not want to play. Smokey does not want to go to Paris. Smokey wants to stay in Ringoes and train for the only sport that matters to him, Hugging. Smokey’s only dream of greatness is the Guinness World Record for Paws Placed On The Highest Number Of Human Shoulders.

Prescott wants more for Smokey. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

Prescott wants Smokey to know what it feels like to become pure air, running so fast the light itself can’t keep up. Prescott wants Smokey to feel summertime’s fingers giggling down his back, as though the sun itself is trying to pet him. Prescott wants Smokey to remember that you are never too old or too downcast to turn young again, if only for a moment.

Prescott wants Smokey — and you, and me — to know that July is a second January, if you’re brave enough.

Now, Queen Prescott the Great and Good has never needed a single resolution. Such is the prerogative of the perfect. But she has a sweet tooth for new beginnings, so she greets the middle of the year like its second start. If 2024 were a sandwich, July would be the provolone. If 2024 were a novel, July would be the turning point. If 2024 were the alphabet, July would be kinda close to P, which is the loveliest letter of all.

But 2024 is a year, so July is high time to be fully alive. Prescott is only trying to make sure Smokey knows this.

After all, Prescott knows a thing or two about winter, too.

We shall not speak of what winter tried to do to Prescott not too long ago. But she comes by her “invincible summer” honestly. She does not take her ecstatic health or her second year of life for granted. She sits in the skylight’s path and closes her eyes as though giving thanks that she gets another day on earth.

She is thriving, gaining weight, gaining ground against all the impossibles.

She is not “aggressive,” just exuberant. It is hard to contain yourself when summer is on the loose.

So don’t worry about Smokey. Don’t worry about anything. Meet the moment with the power of Prescott, forgiveness and freedom on four legs.

And never forget: you are the power behind Prescott’s throne, the selfless love that makes her strong.

Thank you for your generosity and devotion, dear sponsors. It is the height of happiness to serve our Prescott with you.

Love, your correspondent,
Angela