The next big thing in party decorations
‘It’s possible she may just launch herself at you,’’ Nate Ball cautions. His tone is hardly ominous, though. Upbeat, bordering on humour, so this is less a warning than an encouragement to be aware of the environment we’re about to encounter.
It has a new feature. She’s tiny, arrived just a few hours ago, and she’s called Bea.
Nate, who with partner Alyssa O’Connor has been running the Catnap Cafe in Christchurch’s Colombo St for just over a year, is ensuring we know exactly what we might encounter beyond the two doors into the furry heart of the establishment. You have to make sure the first is shut behind you before opening the second, to ensure the residents don’t escape.
I’ve heard a couple of Nate’s briefings before. They put me a little in mind of those I heard during my brief scuba diving phase. But those were deadly serious. Sharks, underwater obstacles, poor visibility, having your regulator knocked out of your mouth ... it was thinking of all the things that might go wrong that caused me to give it away ...
Whereas we’re about to enter a roomful of cats, hand-picked from Cat Rescue Christchurch – they’ve had one from South Canterbury Cat Rescue in Timaru – for their ability to coexist peacefully with a group of other felines and the regular intrusions of parties of humans. If anything, the safety rules – feel free to stroke the cats but please don’t pick them up, for example – are designed to protect
them from us! With the exception of the entreaty about Bea’s launch capabilities.
The cafe’s newest arrival, Nate explains, has Cerebellar hypoplasia, or ‘‘wobbly cat syndrome’’, a neurological condition in which the cerebellum is smaller than usual or not completely developed, and consequently she has problems with balance. It turns out, though, that it’s the visitors to her new domain who are kept off balance by her antics.
Any pet owner who has tried yoga at home knows there’s a good chance of eyeballing a cat during a downward dog, or a dog licking your nose as you come up through a cat stretch. So doing yoga in a room of cats seems counterintuitive.
Nevertheless Chilean instructor Kotte Aguilar is clear this 45-minute session will be a serious one for the dozen or so of us rolling out mats, with furniture shifted to one end of the room.
Serious, that is, until you’re stretching out a leg and need to put it down. Then it’s wise to check your mat hasn’t acquired an extra resident.
Serious until you’re sitting, legs stretched out, walking your hands forward on the mat, and it turns out a local has parked just in front of you to run the rule over your efforts.
The point is clearly to have interaction between customers and cats, almost like a mixing of two kinds of therapy. It’s certainly therapeutic for me after a rough week. Instead of breaking the concentration and focus needed for yoga, it’s as though the cats’ playfulness helps distract the brain, making some of the more challenging movements, especially for those like me with limited yoga experience, easier to execute.
At one point, Kotte leaves the front of the class to raise the room’s lighting levels, explaining she wants the cats to interact with us, and the hitherto low lighting may have been putting them to sleep.
If it has, Bea clearly hasn’t got the memo, wandering shakily about the room as the class goes on, her cuteness captivating everyone in her path, instructor included. The low lighting may have set back her launch schedule, but she spends most of the class on the move. Every so often she tires, and settles on a rug just out of reach of my mat. My daughter, who is here for the second time and has dragged me along, is smitten, but she’s not alone.
If Bea is put up for adoption – as of Friday, there have been 36
adoptions through the cafe – there’s no doubt she’ll have a queue of suitors. However Nate confirms to me on Thursday she’s being trialled to join the cafe’s six permanent residents.That seems like a good idea. It’s clear she’ll get a lot of love here, and more of her new adoring public will get to see her.
The yoga session is challenging enough for me, and I suspect even for those more experienced and skilled than I am. It’s an intensely individual practice anyway, not exactly an exercise class, though the regular reminder of the need to pull the belly button towards the spine means it certainly has a lasting physical impact.
Then we’re done, and it’s time for hot drinks, and time with the cats.
First, though, the furniture needs to be put back into position. That’s the warmdown. One of the low couches beloved of the residents has two fast asleep felines fully reclined on it. By the time we leave, there are five or six settled in on that one.
We depart, relaxed and determined to return for the next class, but on Wednesday this week we learn the class is fully booked, when I’d been able to sign up at the last minute a week earlier.
It seems my fellow columnist, and Christchurch’s favourite cat lady, Beck Eleven, might have had something to do with that, with a story airing this week on the kids’ TV show she works on, Fanimals.
It’s ok, Beck, we’ll let this one slide. But we have taken the precaution of already booking for next Thursday. They might need a second weekly class.
Hi everyone it’s me! Paula Bennett in my new role as makeover queen and presenter of ‘‘Paula Tarts It Up’’, where I take something tired and run-down and spruce it up to sell.
Let’s find out what my next big project is.
Hi my name’s Simon.
I am a tidy well-looked-after unit with striking views on the right side of town and I am looking to sell in 2020.
Hi Simon! Well straight away I can tell I will have my work cut out. Simon may have good foundations but with limited street appeal he is definitely not a drive-by.
Hello? Excuse me? I’m right here…
Simon, let’s talk expectations.
If you sell successfully in 2020 where realistically would you like to end up?
Look, ideally something standalone on a big 60-vote block, or even bigger. Room to let a herd of dairy cows run free. And with a big fourlane driveway.
I am not a miracle-worker, sweetie.
But I would settle for a tidy semidetached coalition with neighbours who won’t cause any trouble. You know, hard-working everyday New Zealanders.
That is the dream but first let’s see what we have to work with. Simon, show me what you have got.
Here we go! They are absolutely solid, all facing in the same direction and there are no leaks or cracks at all!
What is the strange-looking lean-to arrangement on the righthand side?
That is David Seymour.
You might want to downplay that. Maybe hide him behind a Minister-outside-Cabinet appointment. Or just some trellis. Let’s accentuate the positive. What are your best assets?
Look at this front bench! Solid as!
It doesn’t really reach and out grab you.
I think you will find we don’t put up with that sort of behaviour.
You really need something exciting to draw in the punters.
What, like a slushie-maker?
Have you thought of putting in a Judith?
I already have a Judith. Right there where I can see her.
Have you thought of showcasing her more?
No! And look! Look at that monstrosity the crowd across the road have built. They took a state house and cobbled it together with a hippy yurt on one side and a pensioner’s camper-van on the other. And everyone loves it! Winston Peters stands on the roof giving everyone a spray and they get to call it a water feature. It is not fair! I don’t even know how it hasn’t fallen down yet.
No-one does, no-one does.
Is there nothing else? Something that will stop people in their tracks and make them take a second look?
Well, have you heard of a Luxon? It is the next big thing. The new butler’s pantry. It will fit in very well.
A Luxon. Hmm. Is it low maintenance?
I think you will soon find you have very little to do. At all.
Then let’s do it! Ha, listen to me, sounding like Jacinda. But yes, let’s get a Luxon!
And that is all we have got time for in this episode of ‘‘Paula Tarts It Up’’. I’ll be back next year to see how this radical new makeover has gone down with the voting public.
And I’ll be back too, right? I’ll see you then?
Probably. Possibly…
The cafe’s newest arrival, Nate explains, has Cerebellar hypoplasia