I love those.
In contrast to my recent weather-related entry, Portland has been enjoying some truly lovely autumn days of late. Yesterday we had about as perfect a fall afternoon as you’re likely to see: seventy-five degrees, cloudless blue sky, golden sun dripping like honey from orange- and yellow-clad trees.
As I walked home, swishing through piles of dead leaves strewn across sidewalks and grinning at fat pumpkins on doorsteps, the sun sank below the rooftops and the air cooled slightly, not unpleasantly. I’d been listening to Cat Power on my mp3 player, but as I turned onto my street the album finished, and I decided to walk the rest of the way just listening to the sounds of the neighborhood. I wrapped up the headphones and stuffed the player into my bag, and while looking down I very nearly walked into a black cat sitting in the middle of the sidewalk. It sat there black as ink amidst the orange and yellow leaves, tail neatly wrapped around its body, regarding me coolly with emerald eyes. Halloween cat!
“Hi, pretty kitty,” I said, which is what I say to all the cats who live on my street. Then I make a kissy noise, and then they come over and demand pets, except for the couple of nervous ones who dart under a bush or car instead. But the Halloween cat did neither, and instead continued to sit there imperturbably.
Just then a large vehicle whooshed past us down the street, dry leaves madly swirling in its wake. It was an old, somewhat decrepit school bus painted varying shades of purple, and as it creaked to a halt at a stop sign I saw, scrawled across the rear in black letters, the words “Cirkus Pandemonium”.
And I totally felt like I was in a movie. A deliciously creepy Halloween movie. For a few moments I stood there goose-pimpled in the October twilight, among the orange- and yellow-clad trees, and the piles of dead leaves and the fat pumpkins, and the spooky black cat which, come to think of it, I’d never seen on my street before, and the creaky old purple school bus with who-knows-what about to tumble from its doors….
Then it was over. The bus continued on its way, the cat decided there was something more interesting across the street, and I resumed my walk home. Later I googled Cirkus Pandemonium and it turns out they’re a bunch of tattooed and dreadlocked New Age types with some serious grammar and spelling issues. Still, I’d like to thank them for that moment.
Tangentially related kitty thing: later that night I was at band practice. Michael, the guitarist, has a seal-point Siamese named Pandora who is…um, let’s say Rubenesque. She doesn’t usually hang out because of the loud noises, but that night she did and I was giving her some lovin’. While I petted and she purred, we had an imaginary conversation in which she told me that she was all excited for some Halloween hurlyburly, and I gently said that she might have difficulty finding a witch to fly with, due to chubbiness. I’m not sure whether this makes me cute or crazy. A little of both, maybe?
Incidentally, the idea of the witches’ hurlyburly comes from…well, Shakespeare, I guess, but also a book by Eleanor Estes that I totally adored as a child and used to read every Halloween.
