Some cats exist with a perpetual exclamation point at the end of their names.

So it is fitting that an especially bodacious girl should be named for a movie musical with an exclamation point right in the title: Sarafina!

Recently, Sarafina finally put the exclamation point on her Tabby’s Place sojourn.

To really understand this little diva, you must know that she’s gone through many costume changes during her Tabby’s time. She entered the stage over four years ago, clad in a size-small “Super Shy” suit. And by “Super Shy,” I don’t mean “extremely shy.” I mean both “shy” and “super.” Super as in, Super Mario Brothers-level super. Tiny Sarafina was a ball of anxiety, wrapped in a coating of “adorable,” then sprinkled with a hearty share of “awesome” for texture.

But that Super Shy suit wouldn’t fit forever. And so Sarafina grew out of her old attire…in, ah, more ways than one.

I think it was Danielle who finally said something about it. “You know…Sarafina doesn’t look like she looks on the website any more.”

I think the rest of us feigned ignorance moronhood. Why, whatever could you mean? Better a moron than an offender against Sarafina.

But Danielle wasn’t buying it. If we all lived a few hundred miles south, she might have looked at the rest of us and said, “Well bless your soul,” which my Southern friends tell me is a gentle way of saying, “oh, you poor, pancake-brained simpleton.” But, this is Jersey, so Danielle just told it to us straight: “C’mon. She is now thirty-five times the size she was when that photo was taken.”

Oh. Yes. That.

And so it was that Sarafina’s glamour shots were re-shot to reflect her newly enormous colossal full-figured neverendingly-awesome self. Seamlessly, she slipped into her newest suit…XL Extremist.

No, no, she wasn’t on anyone’s no-fly list – she wasn’t that kind of extremist. Not exactly. But let’s just say you wouldn’t want to cross big, beautiful Sarafina in a bad mood. In fact, if you really wanted to play it safe, you’d steer clear of Sarafina while she was indoors.

But that was just one of Sarafina’s extremes. Wait until she wandered out into the solarium, and you’d be sure to meet the other pole of Planet Sarafina. Suddenly, she was all sunshine and belly-mooshes, letting you pet her and kiss her and do just about everything short of dressing her up like Strawberry Shortcake. (And if you think you could get away with that, whether in the solarium or the sanitarium or anywhere else, well…bless your soul.)

But even that wasn’t enough to get what she wanted most: her own home empire. So it was time for one last costume change.

This time, she wasn’t taking any chances. As her move into the Weight Management Suite signaled the start of Act II, Sarafina was sparkling in her final Tabby’s Place togs: the garment of a City-Sized Snugglesmoosh.

Oh yes. I said Snugglesmoosh. Suddenly, at her most bodacious, Sarafina was a love bug of the first degree. And there was no way she was moving on from this suite and this costume without the object of her affection.

This almost-spring, that object finally came, in the form of a big, beautiful exclamation point. Sarafina (!!!) is now wrapped in her own forever home.

I dare say her AwesomeAdopter (let’s call her Signora Sarafina) won’t have many dull moments in the near future. You just know this superstar of a cat has many songs and costume changes yet ahead…and she won’t be content to let any day end without a triumphant exclamation point.

What more is there to say? Sarafina!

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