Saturday 
What a difference a week makes. Last Saturday I was so optimistic. My expectations for this week are somewhat more diminished. Must stay in faith! Yesterday, a black cat ran across my path, about three feet in front of me. Just as I pulled into my parking space, I saw the cat run from my front lawn. It stopped by the base of the mailbox. I could see it crouching there. I got out of my car and just as I began my approach towards the mailbox, the cat darted out in front of me and crossed the street.
Black cats have been running across my path since I was 26 years old. That’s when the phenomenon began. I was 26 and I was pregnant. A neighbor owned a black cat she called Pepe Le Pew. This night, I was driving home. My house was the middle house on a cul de sac of six homes. Just as I hit the driveway, the cat leapt from a nearby tree and across my windshield before scampering away into my backyard and into the darkness.
Several months later, the cat disappeared. The owner posted fliers. She went to all our homes asking about her cat. I always had the feeling she thought one of us took him. The neighbors all felt the same way.
Once I was in Seattle walking on the side walk with an acquaintance. Black cat walked out of his yard crossed our path and sauntered on across the street. Same thing happened when I visited with someone I used to know in San Diego, and the capper— a merchant left a ladder outstretched on the sidewalk and we had to walk under it or risk being run over in the street. I could not make this &%#! up.
This was not the first time this cat has crossed my path. There are a few feral cats in my neighborhood. This is only one of them. This is the season they begin to congregate and soon their low, long, throaty bellowing will pierce the nighttime silence disturbing many from their slumber. Yesterday’s encounter was especially upsetting because of the “the disappointent.” Is this an omen?
I had to subject myself to a drug screen this week. No biggie. I didn’t anticipate there would be a problem and there wasn’t. I also needed to consent to a background check. I was told the procedure would begin on Monday. Wednesday I had to call to find out what the timeline was. I was hoping I could begin this assignment on Monday. This is how I learned the background check had not even been initiated.
“Well if you’ve lived in different states that makes the process take longer. Do you think you’ve lived in another state other than California?” she asked. This is when I knew to abandon all hope.
“I don’t have to think,” I began. “I went to college in Virginia, so I lived there for six years, then I went back home to New York. I moved to Seattle and I lived there for seven years. Then I went home to New York. Now I live here.” Southern California is the perfect place to die. Even Jed Clampett knew that.
“Let me call you when we get the results of the background check,” she said.
“That sounds good.” I said.
It’s Saturday.
There ought’a be a law.
*Autorretarto con Collre de Espinas y Colibri | Frida Kahlo | 1940
