Saturday, March 15, 2008

Another Reason to Hate Cars

This was almost a sad story, but had a happy ending, but then--meh.

We've been a one-cat family for a few years, since our senior cat, a siamese, passed on. We think our formerly junior cat, a calico, is probably lonely for cat-friendship.

Lately, a black cat from the neighborhood has been sneaking into our house for food. Our cat hasn't exactly made friends, but usually observed without interfering--even though she'll fight off other intruders. So maybe they have an understanding, at least.

Then on Thursday, my wife saw a run-over black cat on Selby Lane, a street bordering Redwood City and Atherton. Selby is a quasi-official speedway; sure it's residential street, but traffic engineers have planned nearby intersections to route traffic to it; it's clearly the way you're supposed to cut through this neighborhood (say, to get from the 280 to the 101 south), and people go through fast.

And for a day or two we didn't see "our" black cat, and were pretty convinced we weren't going to any more. Then it just showed up, and started munching our cat's food (with tacit approval, I guess), like usual. Whew!

We hadn't mentioned any of this worry to our daughter, but I decided to tell her why I was so relieve to see the black cat that time.

She pointed out we should still be sad because some other cat died.

On the other hand, she told me there are pawprints all over our car that are definitely not our cat's, so she must be having cat parties when we're not around.

Oh well. Moving on from cats: along Selby Lane you can find Selby Lane Elementary School. Geographically, it should be pulling students from parts of RWC and some the poshest parts of adjoining Atherton. I guess in hopes that this environment would boost their education, the RWC School District sends kids from the poorest parts of town. A lot of them arrive by bus in the morning, and walk home in the afternoon--along Selby Lane, a miniature expressway with no sidewalks!

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