Del. Teresa Saavedra Woorman is on the tail-end — pun intended — of a whirlwind.
A one-in-a-million shot from a Democratic National Convention camera made Woorman, a Montgomery County Democrat, Maryland’s resident “childless cat lady.”
She was sworn in to the Maryland General Assembly as a delegate on Aug. 12, and was whisked off to Chicago one week later.
“Oh, my God, it was electric,” said Woorman. “I used to go to Disney World a lot, and this was better than Disney World.”
What she didn’t realize in all of the hustle and bustle on the floor of the DNC was that she would become famous, even if just for a moment.
Oprah Winfrey, former talk show host and famous friend of Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat, was delivering a speech when Woorman began to receive text messages.
“When a house is on fire, we don’t ask about the homeowner’s race, or religion. We don’t wonder who their partner is or how they voted. No. We just try to do the best we can to save them. And if the place happens to belong to a childless cat lady, well, we try to get the cat out, too,” Winfrey said as the camera panned to Woorman.
She said that, toward the end of Winfrey’s speech, a fellow delegate tapped her on the shoulder to tell her she’d gone viral. At her hotel, someone recognized her and asked her for a selfie. People at Democratic events in Maryland come up to her to let her know they saw her on TV.
“I was like, ‘Holy crap. What do I do?’ Like, what?” Woorman said.
With the short stint of fame came gifts from Winfrey herself. Last Friday, Woorman received a huge bouquet of roses — “over 300 of them,” Woorman said — and a basket filled with cat toys and treats for her cats Oscar and Snow White, a little litter vacuum and a note from Winfrey that read: “Thank you for rising to this moment with grace and humor.”
“I think she saw that I took it as a joke, I just took it in stride and I went with it,” Woorman said. “I try to see everything with good humor.”
Woorman is in good company. Perhaps the world’s most famous childless cat lady, Taylor Swift, endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president Tuesday night after her debate against former President Donald Trump.
Woorman, a self-described “Swiftie,” got to break the news to over 500 other childless cat ladies.
“When she did her endorsement, I was on the ‘Cat ladies for Kamala’ call, just processing the debate … I got to break it to them, and it was just awesome because she signed it ‘childless cat lady,’” Woorman said. “It’s an amazing community, maybe because we’re all kindred spirits and we felt unseen for a while, and all of a sudden, cat ladies are in.”