The luck of the draw

Earlier today I decided to leave my fellow cat ladies alone for a while - we were at yet another adoption event - and stop by one of my favorite weird stores, Dolly Python. 

I was considering a Gig print of one of the infamous pity kitties made infamous by Margaret Keane and often copied. Nobody has ever been able to figure who Gig was, but he or she painted quote a few abandoned strays with oversized eyes. But then I noticed that a tarot reader had set up shop, and it didn't take me long to go for a reading. It was only $25 and was probably no worse spent than on the Gig print.

The reader was an older woman with purple-rimmed glasses and white hair. She had an odd aura of legitimacy about her. 

After I cut the deck she did the first reading and it was surprisingly accurate. It said that I had recently been released from an obligation (the card actually showed a prisoner), and that some major changes I'd been planning would kick in earlier than I had planned. She even identified a blonde who was not to be trusted; and I had seen this person (she works with me) at the pet store not an hour earlier. 

I explained what had happened recently, especially my mother's death and my decision to leave Texas. She suggested I write things down to see them more clearly. 

Of course, I then asked if she could tell me about the relationship with Cincinnati*. Did it have any chance of a revival?  She dealt more cards and I couldn't help but laugh. I am unfamiliar with tarot but I knew what an upside-down Lovers card meant. Other cards suggested that our relationship had crashed and burned because  Cincinnati was immature and we had both approached our relationship in an immature, unrealistic fashion. Which I can't argue. We didn't have a relationship really; but I had wanted so badly to kick it into second gear last November as I couldn't forget our single dinner and kiss in late 2013.

She then asked if I'd like to see if we could determine a future relationship with more realism. By this time, I needed no encouragement.

She promptly shocked me by turning up James* - or in her words, someone "involved in education". But we had no chance of a relationship until the fall. Considering his wife's worsening health, and her declaration that he was currently going through a nightmarish phase, I couldn't help but wonder - especially since I'd had a dreadful nightmare about him only two nights earlier.

* See Key to Characters at right.