There are cats, there are Community Cats, and then there are solarium cats.

Recently, the solarium cats enjoyed the adventure of nine lifetimes.

It’s quite the motley crew that scorns Suite B for the solarium. While their neighbors might step out for some fresh air now and then before retreating back to the cushy beds and room temperature of the suite, stalwart outdoorscats Videl, Spike, Geri, Natalie and Georgie aren’t wasting a speck of daylight inside.

And that’s about all they have in common.

There’s a universe of difference from Geri, intense and devoted to felines, to the wacky, loving-yet-biting six pound bundle of dynamite we call Natalie, or vibrant cuddle-bug Videl. Then there’s terrified Georgie, rarely seen and never touched by any but the most patient human beans; and Spike, who likes people more than ever, but has been burned by a non-forever home.

A motley crew indeed.

It’s somehow fitting that such a rag-tag clowder of cats, whose Tabby’s Place journeys were each preceded by more pain than any cat should face, should be the ones to have the Most Exciting Day Ever.

Leave it to us daft human beans to almost miss the excitement. (It’s a good thing the cats are so patient with us.) It took a volunteer to let us staff folk in on the thrills. “Um,” volunteer N. reported, “I don’t know who I should tell this to…but there’s a bird in the Suite B solarium.”

It took a moment for this to register. “A real bird?”

“Yeah. And the cats are going crazy.”

Aside from the fact that Natalie was already crazy, this would be a very accurate assessment. In a matter of moments, the solarium had become the awesomest place in the whole wide world galaxy universe.

We’ll never know exactly how – let alone why – this rather large avian opted to fly into a cat sanctuary (!). But I am certain it’s a mountaintop experience that five cats will remember for a lifetime. As different as they may be, Videl, Geri, Natalie, Spike and Georgie wasted no time in teaming up to surround the intruder.

Now, I love birds too, and I certainly don’t wish any small creature the anxiety of being the center of a five-cat huddle. But…there was something wonderful about seeing the oh-so-serious, still-mourning Geri having this much fun.

Audobon members and birdwatchers of the world, take heart: the feathered one got away from the Quintet of Terror, with a little help from some laughing human beans. Better yet, Videl, Spike and Natalie seem to have forgiven us for cutting their chase short. Geri and Georgie never really trusted us in the first place anyway.

I can only begin to imagine what the solarium cats told their more indoorsy mates when they finally slipped back through the tube to Suite B. (Correction: Videl, Spike, Geri and Georgie slipped through the tube. Natalie, being Natalie, darted out the solarium door into the hallway, screaming for us to let her back in through the suite door. She is quick to remind us that she is above typical feline modes of travel. Only the human-traveled routes are worthy of our mad marmalade peanut.) If this adventure isn’t enough to convince all the cats that the solarium is, in fact, the awesomest place in the whole wide world, I don’t know what is.

But, just as with us folks, so with cats, there are indoor types and outdoor types. Besides: while the solarium quintet was out chasing fowl, there were cuddles and dry food to be had in the suite.

Now, I’m no cat, but that sounds like a win-win to me. Even for one very lucky bird. 🙂

PS: Alas, the whole bird incident was over before there was time to get a picture – not that any of the cats, or especially the bird, had time for a photo op. But, I have created these “artist’s renderings” of what transpired. They are 100% accurate except for the parts I made up.

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