It Resembled a Cat

We’re leasing a car and once we reached five thousand miles we got an unavoidably annoying lit, command our dashboard gaze demanding we have our car looked at for a check-up.  I made an appointment for this morning and drove up mid-morning to Kingston, about forty-minutes north of here.

The guy at the desk told me to talk to the lady in the garage.  She knew of me.  “Drive the car in and leave it here.  Should take about forty-minutes . . . Yeah, there’s a place to sit down in the other room and we’ve got a shuttle into town if you want it.”  I settled in with about eight other people waiting near the vending machines.  The coffee machine was loud and off-putting.   Someone started talking to their spouse on the phone and I mercifully found my earbuds charged and ready to block things out. 

She called me in and told me they found an irregularity in the alignment.  It was free.  It would take another thirty minutes.  I know nothing of Kingston and thought I’d go grab a lunch down by the Roundout waterfront.   Ole Savanna was well reviewed and right on the water and they seemed to be open for lunch.  

I got talked into a fried chicken dish that was good but not great.  The IPA was better, and the waitress was kind, but the music was god awful and I tried to tune out the two regulars who were chatting away nearby and concentrate on the waterfront.  I was looking forward to taking in the Maritime Museum, located right next door, but as I finished up and went to have a look, I discovered it wasn’t open on a Tuesday.

Later, biking down on the trail behind my home I was startled to see an unidentifiable animal about thirty yards up the trail from me, walking slowly.  It resembled a cat, but it was too large.  Its tail was too bushy, its movements a bit more course.  Instinctively I made the sort of kissing-calling sound one does with a cat and as soon as it heard me it darted off into the woods.  I looked and ruled out a bobcat.  I think what I saw was a fisher, which is possible according to the web and rather cool.  When I rode up to where it had darted into the woods, just below our property, I was unable, of course, to see or hear anything more.

Tuesday, 01/07/20