Ghost cats

Even though they've been gone for several months, I keep seeing black cats. A pouring rainstorm brings the fleeting thought: I've got to get them inside. A pair of jeans tossed on the white bedspread in a dark room brings irritation: She's sleeping on the bed again. A marauding tom cat in the middle of the night makes me worry about the big tom: Hope he's close to the house. An old coupon for cat food reminds me: Gotta stock up.

Their elusive presence is surprising. But, even in their elderly, sick, last days, they were out of sight as much as front and center. They were not ever-present. In short, they were independent cats. These nano-second reminders are the way it was when they were alive. They would suddenly appear after an absence spent under the bed or across the street. They would pretend that we were the center of their world for those few moments it took them to convince us to feed them. Then they would disappear again.

So even though they don't personally appear any more, our minds are conditioned to have them pop up unexpectedly. That's the cat way.

Barak story

During his sojourn at the University of Chicago, Joe College Grad lived in an apartment in Hyde Park, across the street from Barak Obama's place. How close it was I don't know, but close enough to make this a story.

Anyway, Joe, as college students often do, had a party to which he invited several hundred of his close, personal friends. That part is clear. The next bit gets a tad murky.

Bottom line: some of Joe's friends got a bit excited and began throwing stuff, or in some versions of the tale, shooting a BB gun at Barak's building. Who knows...

Bottom line: Chicago Police department officers or secret service guys--I suspect Joe doesn't know--arrived at the scene of the party, asking to be invited in. And maybe this has nothing to do with guns, rock throwing, or other juvenile attacks on the senator from Illinois. Maybe the neighbors were sick of the noise emanating from Joe's place. However, whatever the cause of their arrival, the cops were denied admission to the student apartment. Joe wouldn't let them in because they didn't have a warrant. Every penny spent at the U of C was worth it....

And Joe is a solid Barak fan. It turns out Barak doesn't live in the neighborhood anymore. Probably those students got to him.