The air in Seattle has changed. Every night we smell the heaviness of impending rain mixed with the scent of passing flowers. We continue to walk around the neighborhood, always meeting the same fat orange cat. The other evening Josh gave him the “Rapid Fire” pet: a series of quick strokes from head to tail in rapid succession. The big cat arched his back and dug his front claws into the grass and hung on. His chin grazing the ground he executed a beautiful arch to the ground and rolled onto his back, postering his fat orange tummy in the air. As we moved on, the cat escorted us to the end of the block before trotting back to his house.

We approached a large group of kids on the corner, various ages, from ten to teen–one had a baby on her hip. I instinctively felt uneasy, especially because they were staring at us intently when we approached. “Whatever,” I told myself, trying to look confident.

“Was that a dog?” A short boy inquired when we walked up; he was referring to our rendevouz with the enormous orange cat.

“No, that was a huge cat,” I explained the reaction the cat had to Rapid Fire petting. The kid pulled out a piece of paper and asked if I had seen this dog. It was a classic Missing Dog poster and I caught sight of a cute looking mutt at the top of the page. “Awww, you lost your dog.”

“Nah,” The kid tucked the paper back in his pocket. “I’m just looking for it…for the reward, you know, I need some money.”

“That is a really good idea,” I admitted. Meanwhile, Josh was trapped with one of the girls of the group who kept pointing at him and saying, “Hey, you look like That Guy on That One Show.” She never pinpointed WHICH show it was, although I would have been eager to find out because it seemed to give Josh major points with this young local crowd. We were obviously very out of their demographic, what with being a good fifteen to twenty years older and, let’s face it, white. The fact that they spoke to us at all really cheered me up. The kids told me that if I found the dog I should bring him to the house on the corner, the one we were all standing in front of.  I wished them luck and we moved on.

As we walked away I spotted a trio of young people up ahead, a group of twenty-somethings out and about.  They purposely crossed the street to avoid us. I guess you can’t win them all in one night on one walk…