OK, guys.
We need to talk about Henrietta.
As you know if you troll the Tabby’s Place website, we’ve recently added approximately one galumphing horde of cats to the sponsorable slate.
We added Bubbles; Bubbles got sponsors.
We added Olive; Olive got sponsors.
We added Wilhelmina; Wilhelmina got sponsors.
We added Henrietta…and Bubbles got more sponsors.
It seems that our droll little troll, the wild-haired weird woman of Adoption Room #3, has somehow eluded sponsoring sorts.
So consider this a public service announcement: only you can help prevent Henrietta from feeling like the Jeb Bush of the Tabby’s Place cats. (C’mon, now. If we bring her to the point of pleading, “Please clap,” even Olive will cry, and Olive generally likes to see other cats fail.)
Henrietta, of course, is a cat. Being a cat, Henrietta has no shame, no existential angst, no soul-searching dark nights of wondering when her prince/sponsor will come.
So it’s up to us to feel all of that for her.
Seriously. Isn’t it enough that Hen holds court in such a strange scene as Adoption Room #3? The cats in her kingdom may all be old, but that’s about as far as the similarities go.
Serious-minded Orion wants to talk about campaign finance reform; wacky-willed Luna wants to see what happens if you put 200 Pop Rocks in a gallon of seltzer.
Fear-fried Ali wants to watch a Law and Order marathon in her footie pajamas; eerie-eyed Impy wants to prank call the entire Tabby’s Place staff.
It’s enough to make a certain silver-grey stateswoman start flipping dry food dishes over. (If it were up to Orion, he’d suspend the writ of habeas corpus.)
But Henrietta takes the chaos calmly. With the minor exception of medication time, she’s a serene soul, content to chill with all kinds of characters, human and otherwise. Are you classically-gorgeous but a bit crisp around the edges? You’re alright, Ali. Would some folks find you funny-looking? Henrietta thinks you’re aces, Impy. Have you been hurled up the Eastern seaboard like a hot potato because of your “challenging” personality? It’s no challenge to love you, Luna.
And are you a bumbling, fumbling, imperfect pile of psychology known as a “person?” You’re welcome here, too.
Henrietta has a heart huge enough to hold it all. She has made it through medical tempests and months of ringworm and mysterious, magical color-changing fur. (Seriously: you’re not seeing things, she has shifted from solid-black to silver-tipped, for no apparent reason. Our research office is pretty sure Henrietta is part fiber-optic Christmas tree, but this is still a matter of scientific debate.)
None of it has messed with her mojo one iota.
Which is why she’s neither itching nor agitating over her sponsorless state.
But I say we turn this thing around on our girl’s behalf. Henrietta, all finger-in-the-socket hair and freaky-liver and permanently-food-crusted-nose, is every inch a Tabby’s Place Cat(TM). To the tragically naked eye and hasty heart, she’s homely, a bag of feathers and bones and funky features.
But you and I know better. Henrietta is the kind of beautiful that counts, Special Needs and Flock of Seagulls fur and all.
So let’s prove it. Let’s show the world that we see and sponsor the soul. Let’s get our droll little troll a full flotilla of sponsors. Gauntlet hereby thrown down, humankind. Your Hen awaits.
What a charming post about Henrietta! I wondered when I first saw her new furs – maybe a trick of lighting? But no – a real color change! And thank you for the mention of Impy – long time Tabby’s Place resident.
Loving her!! I make sure I visit her every time I come to NJ. I’m so glad I’m sponsoring her!