Someone decided that today is sad.
Someone is decisively wrong.
The wrongness goes like this: the third Monday of January in the Northern Hemisphere is the most depressing day of the year. Some convoluted calculation involving weather and post-holiday bills and rotting resolutions “explains” the claim.
And if you believe it, it’ll be tragically true for you.
But people claim a lot of things, you know:
“The third Monday of January is sad.”
“Jonathan is from this planet, and so is Jonathan.”
“Leggings are pants.”
“Yardley is sad.”
This last one is at least understandable. Yardley, brown tabby lady aged eight, is the newest resident of the Tabby’s Place Lounge. For all intents, purposes, and intensive purposes, she does look a bit sad.
Until you look past her look, that is.
Since landing in the Lounge, Yardley has sequestered herself in a large, open crate, tucked away in a corner. While Shifty mugs for meat offerings and Reese relishes the sunshine, Yardley…simply…sits.
In the crate.
In the corner.
Many a visitor sees said sight, assumes Yardley is sad, and moves on to more interested-looking cats (see: Shifty). But this is a mistake. Assume Yardley is sad, and all you’ll see is Sad Yardley.
Assume Yardley yields secrets, and lose your heart to heavy-duty happiness.
No sooner do you approach our dainty diabetic’s crate than sad is shed like a thousand scales. Yardley is pleased — no, delighted — that you’re here. She has a lot to say, through ladylike chirps and full-color frenzies of head-bonking and rubbing and relishing your affections.
Sad? Whyever would you think such a thing?
Diabetes doesn’t make Yardley sad. She’s got it, yep, a sugar belle all the way, but we live in the era of insulin and low-carb cat food, so what’s a little glucose between friends? Besides, Yardley’s at Tabby’s Place, where the insulin is flowing and so is the love, which is why…
…Tabby’s Place doesn’t make Yardley sad. She’s well on her way to having us all fully trained in her likes (being adored, wet food, dry food, constitutional monarchy) and dislikes (being ignored, people assuming she doesn’t want attention, leggings as pants, the ending to A Star is Born). Her achievable goal: at all times, have at least one human gently crouched beside her crate/castle, loving on her in her own chosen nook.
Yardley’s crate doesn’t make Yardley sad. She digs the tiny house movement, and Virginia Woolf convinced her long ago that a woman needs a room of her own, so where’s the problem? Besides, Yardley wandered the mid-December streets before being found and ferried to Tabby’s Place, so a warm open crate is indoor heaven, thankyouverymuch.
Candace…well, Candace makes Yardley a little sad. Under the false assumption that Yardley is sad, Candace has taken it upon herself to slap some sense into her, emphasis on “slap.” This doesn’t make Yardley sad so much as stationary; why leave her room/crate/castle if it means catching Candace’s Humphrey Bogart impression?
(In all seriousness, we’re working with Candace on the whole “being neighborly” thing. Less Bogart, more Mr. Rogers. Such things take time.)
But Candace and her claws aside, Yardley is quite content, many yards closer to “glad” than to “sad.” She just needs to be loved — actively — to be believed. Trust her on this one; as soon as you kneel beside her, she’ll be the first to remind you that this “saddest” day of the year also happens to be Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, and Hug Day, and a day on which both you and she are alive, alive, alive. You can choose where you focus.
Sad, no.
Inching ever further into love and life, oh yes.
Choose wisely what you will believe, and the door will spring open to you. Especially if it opens to a room/crate/castle.
Yardley! A tabby furred lady that lives at Tabby’s Place. Very appropriate. And Yardley has her own little space in the warm Lounge. Indoor heaven. Yardley is not hiding her light and her love. She has it all laid out there, waiting for the appropriate adopter angel to see her across the crowded room and come to sweep her up into a forever home. Until then, Tabbys Place, so warm and safe, is indoor heaven. Thank you Angela, you know we love the tabby ladies.
I love tabbies and I’m naturally drawn to needy kitties. If they look a little sad, lonely, or scared I think they need me. I saved my Mario because he was right next to the slamming door at the shelter and he wouldn’t come down from his perch. He looked so sad and scared with huge eyes saying “get me out of here.” I blinked at him a couple of times and he blinked back – it was true love. It’s so hard just to take one kitty. We have a very small house and we only have room for one kitty. After we had Mario about a month we found out he had heart problems and CKD. I’m so glad he came home with me.
Looking at the kitties remind me of Mario, I always send my kisses cause I wish I could adopt them all.