I’m not talking about that curve. You’re already doing your best to flatten it like a foul, fetid pancake.
I’m talking about the creature that breaks the curve for all others.
The Community Room cats have no need of being graded on a curve. With all due respect to all Tabby’s Place cats, this just happens to be one of the cutest, sweetest, most astoundingly irresistible crews you could choose. Everyone gets an A+ in Extreme Awesomeness, every day.
We’re talking Beatty. Carley Rose. Dani. Tux. Need I go on?
Oh yes, but I need go on. I need, I must, I leap to introduce you to one Tipsy Rosenberg.
In a realm where everyone has a joy-GPA of 4.0, Tipsy does extra credit.
In a room where every cat is a captain of cool, Tipsy is the Holy Ringoes Emperor.
And in a time when everything is topsy-turvy, shaky-making and brain-bending, Tipsy is just the tumbling sage we need.
Tipsy tottered north from North Carolina earlier this year, and we were snockered on arrival. “Snockered,” of course, is the only appropriate reaction to a wriggling, wobbling tuxedo bundle of wonderment. Small in stature but Sumo-sized in soul, Tipsy would be our first cat with cerebellar hypoplasia (CH) in many moons.
CH cats are invariably adorable. Due to a non-life-threatening neurological condition that never worsens or causes any real problems, they walk and prance and dance with varying levels of what looks like drunkenness. Some simply tremble, a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it twitch; others are unable to really walk at all, yet they always find a way to find their way and get where they’re going. They are born with truncated cerebellums, but great galumphing gobs of grit and glee and the kind of joy that saves the entire world.
But even in a sea of CH cats, Tipsy is Triton. If we were having an Olympics this year, all the gold medals would fly, like magnets to a house-sized fridge, onto his wobbly tuxedo neck. It’s entirely possible that Tipsy Rosenberg will be our next President by write-in ballot.
And yet none of my words are doing him justice.
If ever you wanted to see poetry in motion, you’ll have to look elsewhere. But if you wanted to see irrepressible gratitude on four fumbling feet, Tipsy is your man. (Your tiny, tiny man.) As he rumbles and rambles across the Community Room, knocking over files and knocking over hearts, happy happy Tipsy blazes with delight. The sheer excitement of existence is his motor, and he’s determined, wild-eyed with wonder, to make you feel it, too.
Tipsy’s greatness is in his gratitude. He’s wonderstruck with life. He’s trembling with the tremendousness of just being here. He’s so overcome with awe that he can’t walk straight, and it’s a worthwhile sacrifice.
Yes; Tipsy is just the teacher we need today.
We’re tottering through a season that’s throwing us all off our axes. The curve of the moon and the tilt of the earth seem off, and at our wisest we hang onto each other (in appropriately social-distanced ways) like landlubbers on a heaving ship.
Along comes Tipsy to tell us that life remains good. (“NO ANGELA! SAY ‘RADICALLY GLORIOUS!'” OK, Tips.)
Life remains radically glorious.
You may feel it today, and you may not. You may have to convince yourself that it’s worth putting on pants, and you may not feel like it’s worth the effort. You may cry and you may swear or you may find that this is the morning, the first out of twenty, when you rise up singing after all.
Tipsy is too wise to tell you to “chin up.” Feel it all. But just know, somewhere behind the surging seas of feeling and fear, that life’s goodness is not in the dock.
Wonderment is always appropriate. Even now. Especially now.
Tipsy’s eyes tell the truth. This world is still radically glorious.
So are you.
So totter and tremble and trip the light fantastic, dear kittens. May Tipsy reassure us all, sealegs and all, we will not be hurled overboard.
Tipsy, it doesn’t matter if you wobble and bobble when you walk. You got where you needed to go. Tabby’s Place! With a history of wonderful CH characters (who could forget Ike) and beautiful adopted CH ladycats (Gabriella) you have a fan club primed and waiting. Bialy’s Alma Mater.