Marvin just took the turtles back to school; the art teacher is going to take care of them for us. Our neighbor, Peg, is pet-sitting. Marvin also bought a bag of snacks that I do not enjoy (licorice and goldfish) (ugh), and we are off to Michigan for the funeral. Road trip! Snacks-I-hate road trip!
I just wanted to check in and say I may not be around tomorrow based on what horrific motel Marvin makes us stay in. My father was always very persnickety about nice hotels when I was growing up. I did not marry my father. Which, you know, is probably good because I think that is illegal. But Marvin will be all, "Oh! Look! The Crack and Lice Motel! This looks nice!"
We once stayed at The Wagon Wheel Motel and Bowling Alley. I am not making that up. Someone was arrested while we ate breakfast. This is why I am telling you we may not have Wi-Fi or whatever tomorrow. We may not have wallets tomorrow.
Before I go I wanted to tell you something sort of weird. I don't know. It's weird.
I don't know.
Okay, I'll tell you.
You know I got to go back and see Uncle Jim I think four times this year, and one of the times was on my birthday. He and I ate my birthday dinner next to each other, and he admired my new lawn edger my mother got me, and gave me tips, because Uncle Jim's lawn HAD TO BE PERFECT as did HIS HOUSE, as did HIS CLOTHING and physical appearance. He was a tad tidy. Did you ever meet Howard Hughes?
At any rate, after dinner we were the only two to wander into the living room. I guess we got away with not clearing the table because it was my birthday and because he was sick, although between you and me, in any other scenario neither he nor I were clear-the-table helpers anyway.
Somehow we got on the topic of spirituality. "Do you believe in God and spirits and all that stuff?" he asked me. "I never did growing up," I told him. "But now I kind of do," I said. "Why?"
"I keep seeing a white cat. I dream of a white cat all the time," he told me. He was really intense. "I don't know what it means."
"Well, I think it's Native Americans who believe you have a spirit animal. Maybe that's yours and it's helping guide you or something. Do you believe in that?"
"I don't know," he said, sitting back on the couch. "Sometimes." Then he dismissed it. "It's probably the medications they have me on."
I pretty much forgot that conversation, but after my Aunt Sue called me yesterday to say Jim had died, and after 86 more people I am related to called me in a row to say the same thing in rapid succession, I walked in here to the computer to tell it on my blog. I saw something out the window, really fast.
It looked like a white cat running past the window.
There are no white cats in our neighborhood. I hadn't been thinking of a white cat, or that story, at all. I just thought, "Was that a white cat?" cause you know I am up in cats, even in times of grief. And then half a second later, I gasped, remembering the story. I looked out the side window and saw nothing.
Now, it could have been a squirrel. Or my eyes could have been playing tricks on me.
Or it could have been a white cat. Saying, hey, I got him there!
I don't know.
