How I spend my Thursday nights (a reprise blog post)

OBLIGATORY DISCLAIMER:

This is a “rescued” post from a now retired, theological theme subject matter blog, Hagios Blogging. It was worth reposting as a prelude to the exciting happenings rapidly evolving this April in association with my feline friends at NipClub and the site re-launch.  This post has been ever so slightly edited for content and craptastic(R) grammar.

“How I Spend My Thursday Nights”

Originally dated 4/12/2012 in the “Almost Crazy Cat-Lady-land” category

Several A couple of years ago, I stumbled upon a group of people on Twitter who called themselves “Ani-pals.” I discovered they tweeted on behalf of their pets and made friends with other like-minded individuals.  Hence, they had become animal pals, which became shortened to Anipals because when you’re limited to 140 characters or less to express a thought, you abbreviate . . . a lot.  (and yet another reason the English language and grammar are doomed, but that’s another rant for another time.)

I bring this up for a reason: through the process of gaining followers on Twitter and reciprocal follow backs, I have swapped tweets with many wonderful people, many of whom, like my husband, had gotten into animal rescue “accidentally,” having been seduced by the precious face of one of God’s purring or barking creatures.  It started innocently enough for us by watching the elderly lady next door and her porch full of semi-feral cats that she would feed.  Not being a cat person, I was amazed to watch the cats gather as if by an announcement by their own Feline News Network that a snack would be available and the various routes they would take to get to her front door.  At the time, it seemed like they had transporter technology because the porch was utterly empty one moment, and the next, they were there.  As time progressed, it became apparent that these cats were not getting enough to eat, so we started putting food out every couple of days, too.

As this was during the time that the both of us were working from home, I was afforded the time to observe these furry creatures just being themselves from our kitchen window while doing dishes. I was able to connect the dots, so to speak and make correlations between cats and how they treat us and how we treat our Lord and Master.  A paper, Curious about Kurios and Cats, came out, where I discussed my observations of how we became cat people.

Now to the subject of Thursday nights:

… Having been introduced to this group of people and reading their tweets, I discovered that they were not only animal lovers but also supported animal rescue charities and held fundraiser events on Twitter.  They called them “Paw Pawties” and used the hashtag #pawpawty in their tweets so other people could sort and follow what was happening.  I “attended” my first one in April.  It had a Science Fiction theme and was a birthday pawty for Boris Kitty’s human dad.  It was a little intimidating as most of the group had been pawpawtying for over a year, and they had their own lingo and talked about things like Niptinis and Bacon! Beer, but with a photo-shopped picture of our Obi-Wan Katnobi as his namesake for my avatar, I watched and learned.  An actual PawPawty itself is best described as a virtual reality gathering of like-minded individuals either tweeting on behalf of their pets or as themselves (the majority are pets) and carrying on as if they were at an actual party.  (Think LARPing but online, with cats, dogs, bunnies, and the occasional hamster.)

The following month, someone had a brilliant idea to create a weekly ‘pawty’ gathering where people could hang with their friends in a more casual manner, relax and have a good time like the 1980′s TV series Cheers …and #nipclub was born.  Since then, as my work schedule permits, I have popped onto Twitter, chatted, and shared a virtual cocktail, and have had the privilege of meeting some of the most excellent “folk” around.

You can read a fantastic article in the Anipal Times about Nipclub’s origins here, and you can visit NipClub’s own page and read their history from the cats’ own mouths.

Nipclub is getting ready to celebrate its 6th birthday on the second weekend of May 2016, and I’m glad to be a part of it.