In the kitchen at Tabby’s Place, there is a stack of very important, meticulously cleaned and stored items that are designed for the sole purpose of service to the cats’ (just like everything at the sanctuary).
These particular items are the blue trays. The blue trays are used to deliver all-important meals to very, very, oh so very, very extraordinarily very hungry kitties throughout the building. Paper boats, filled with savory mush (Ideally fish, but not for kittens. Later, kittens, when you too are cats.) and often labeled with individual cats’ names, are toted off to offices, suites, and shared spaces promptly at mealtimes.
Promptness is very important. Cats’ bellies are more accurate than atomic clocks. Cats are more insistent and persistent than klaxons sounding every alarm ever and all at once, especially as pertains to provisions. Yet, more important than the actual trays are the plentitude of people who carry those marvelous things filled with delectable delights. These individuals are collectively known to a very few of us (okay, me and maybe one other volunteer) as The People with the Trays, which may be the name of the Tabby’s Place house band.
The band also could go by the name The Blue Tray Group.
BTG totally rocks!
Digressions aside, the people with the trays are the feeders, staff and volunteers, who are careful to distribute dishes as dietary demands dictate, complete with any necessary supplements. Sometimes, these meals are basically bribes to coax the finicky and/or the medically challenged to eat something…anything. These shining people with the trays can also be known as They Who Cannot be Named in Front of Grecca. She knows each and every tray-carrying individual, although she tries to convince everyone else to feed her too…LOUDLY… FREQUENTLY…ALL…OF…THE…TIME. (We admire and adore Grecca for her operatic acoustic output. We appreciate it when she naps – just so quiet and cute curled up that way in that bed on the desk, ignoring the stuffed snake [not pictured] that always seems to be nearby.)
Kind of like Florence Nightingale, but bringing warmth and light in the form of fish mush instead of a soothing lamp in the dark, the people with the trays do somehow manage to coax the fussiest felines into gobbling up the goods.
The feeders learn particular preferences and tricks (H/T to Jess H for the advice about baby food with ham!). Some will go so far as to hold a dish in just the right way to ensure that every cat will be certain to get the nourishment needed to thrive. (Confession: Even this non-feeder recently scooped wet food onto a finger to allow Sketch to lick it up more easily and to keep it away from Alex. Oy. Alex. Love you, buddy.)
The most marvelous thing about the people with the trays, as with all of the staff and volunteers, is their commitment. With greater reliability than the pony express, whose motto, “Neither rain, or snow, nor death of night, can keep us from our duty,” feeders show up, dish out, and deliver the literal nourishment that underscores the metaphorical nourishment that our community provides through challenging times and easy times, through thick and thin.
The rest of us recognize that the cats’ favorites are the people with the trays. We don’t take it personally…not really. At any time, one of us might be called up to join the band.