2020

On March 1, while I was driving home from a church meeting, a black cat crossed my path. I wouldn't call myself superstituous, but I noticed the cat. I noted the color. And I wondered if, on some plane, it could be a bad omen. An hour later my dog got run over by a car. While driving to the veterinary hospital I told Randy: "I'm not saying it means anything, but a black cat ran in front of me while I was driving home earlier." Later I told a woman about the cat. "It's only bad luck if he is running from the right to the left." "He was," I said. "Oh," she replied, suddenly serious. We made more trips to the hospital -- both to the veterinary hospital and the human hospital -- in March of 2019 than we have in the entirety of our 5 years together. Cinnamon spent a week in the hospital, undergoing hernia surgery because her insides had more or less been torn in two. The week after she was released we were back at the h...