an auspicious omen

Shimokitazawa is a young, cheap neighborhood west of Shibuya, famous for second-hand stores and opportunities for chilling. It's too far from Saitama for me to make it a regular spot, but I ended up there a few weeks ago, on the first warm day of a wet and dismal Spring. Someone heard somewhere that it was cool, and that was reason enough for an expedition, though as it turns out, the only exploring we did was in a junk store and in the wilds of a jungle-themed bar. Mehron bought a pirate hat. Joelle had ice cream and needs a blog so I can link to it. I talked girly cartoons and 70s Jpop with a rad grandpa.

We were sitting on the steps of what turned out to be an animal hospital, tired for no good reason and discussing Sailor Moon and terrible people and other things that barely matter—

and then a woman strolled by with a cat on a leash.

That's a picture of the cat on her t-shirt, too. It's okay, I didn't notice it at first either, though in my defense I was tripping over myself to blurt out something like

YOUR CAT SO BEAUTIFUL I TAKE PICTURE????

She paused, looked us up and down, and nodded. While we fumbled with our cameras, she started giving the cat instructions on how to pose, none of which he followed, because he's a cat. "sit. sit. now look over here! look!"

After a minute or so, she decided she was done. With another nod, she rousted her reluctant feline from his lounging spot on the sidewalk and left, tugging the little bastard along behind her and leaving us with a sense of wonder that has yet to fade.

The future is looking good.