Sandy the Cat Lady

I ran into my friend the Blackstone cat lady Sandy in the supermarket. She had nothing in her big metal gray shopping cart. She's the woman who told me the story of being born on a 1940's enamel kitchen table in the Mid-west. Her husband died recently and he was the extrovert, she told me. 54 years of marriage! She has two daughters nearby but she lives alone with a dozen cats. It's always a treat to see her. We love telling stories to each other. She's an extreme introvert and a bit isolated lately so I wanted to make sure we could visit. We talked about our old turn of the century houses and frozen water pipes. We laughed about rescuing neighborhood children and stray cats. We both have Yankee habits like reusing old clothes as cat and dog beds. She was wearing a light purple jacket and it looked perfect with her red hennaed hair. She's a woman who is ageless. She had a career working with preschool age children and she has an air of mischief and fun about her. I can picture her laughing at her cats hijinx and adoring the preschoolers. I think she raised and adopted a child from a sibling who was unable to raise her. "In this weather we'd be in the preschool trailer and it would be soooo cold  the water would freeze!" "Ooooh like being in a tin can!" I said. I shudder thinking about how cold metal walls are in below-zero weather. I gave her a gentle hug and told her I loved seeing her.