animal magnetism

a hello from the other side.  i was walking in the straight sunlight, it's a very cold day, senses insulated from all the layers.  a shadow of someone walking past startles me, then i feel something on my leg, it's a black and white cat who had apparently run to catch up and bonk my leg.  cats are so often dispassionate and take-it-or-leave-it, must be important!  black and white like an old baby cat i had, corner missing from her ear.  she just wanted to say hello, but i take to mean right place/right time. and clare.

this fresh off one of those good life moments, in an eatery alone on a busy holiday, sit at the bar and stir.  no reading materials, must look must talk.  the gentleman beside me is reading love in the time of cholera and asks me to watch his place while he goes to the loo.  i tell him i'm going to read his whole book while he's gone, and this gives us an opening to have some stranger-talk upon his return.

what was best that he said was "i just got to the point in this book where i know why the person who gave it to me gave it to me"
"why did they give it to you?"
"there's this character florentino that loves a woman for 50 years and then her husband dies"
"the person who gave this to you is a married woman isn't she"
"well not married but--"
"her hand is taken"
"yeah"
"so the implication is you'll wait? how awesome is she? i'd be like 'i've got better things to do!', 'fucking florentino, huh!'"

then he says something about the establishment we're in being so civilized (he's from canada) and i feel uncouth, though i am right.  i can't believe he got the meaning.  how brazen of her to impart it.  but i get it.  hands be tied, still the heart moves.  i get it.  it was a very lovely edition of the book.  it must be thick between them.

so then before that just oolong and oysters, so nice and high.  toast to MLK.