17; Outfit post, and a really horrifying end to yesterday.

Kimono: ShockBotique courtesy of Jean Greige | Top: Maurices | Shorts: thrifted | Shoes: Maurices | Belt: Etsy | Necklaces: California mall (Om) and Texas botique (mother of pearl pendant) | Purse: antique store

[Lookbook]
[Chictopia]

I took Kathryn out for dinner yesterday evening and we ate at our favourite café. She took the latter shot there while fiddling with my camera. She was going to do the outfit pictures there but a rush of people showed up, and even I was a bit self-conscious about the idea of having my picture taken around that many people in the same room. So we left, got coffee elsewhere, and Kathryn dragged me into a hidden breezeway-alley-thing that I never knew about and suggested we do the pictures there. I actually want to do my pictures there, because it's typically that empty all the time, Kathryn says. I love how it looks; it looks like a little hidden piece of Boston.

And here's where I bring the whole mood crashing down.

Minutes after we left this alley-thing, we were taking our usual route home and saw a cat across the street that looked suspiciously like our outdoor cat Gypsy. Kathryn pointed it out and said, "I've never seen that cat before," noting the fact that we've only ever seen three outdoor cats in our town before -- two black ones, and one orange and white one. This dark stripped cat began running across a yard and onto the sidewalk, and Kathryn and I heard a car driving up the lane. The cat seemed to think it could outrun the car, and it bolted into the lane, but it wasn't fast enough (neither were Kathryn and I to stop the car), and the cat was struck.

It was the single most horrifying thing I've ever witnessed. It laid there in the lane, and died there while we were there, and I just screamed and cried. We crossed the street, and Kathryn stood in the lane to keep other cars from running it over, and she called her father when we thought it was our cat Gypsy. At one point, a man drove by and asked if the cat had a collar, because it looked like his cat and it had run away recently, but when we said we thought it was our cat, he drove off.

Fortunately and unfortunately, Kathryn's dad showed up and said he saw Gypsy on the porch when he left the house, so it wasn't our cat. Still, it's someone's cat, possibly that man's who drove by. A woman who lived in a nearby house gave us something to lay it on to get it out of the road, and we told her that it wasn't our cat and that it may have been that man's, and we left it with her.

We were so broken up about the whole thing. Kathryn's reactions were delayed, which was good because I was able to console her once I'd calmed down. Once we got home, we spent time with all three of our cats, even though Gypsy is the one outdoor cat. Luckily, she's very smart and runs out of the street as soon as she hears a car start. Still, we're really worried about keeping her outside, but it's not even our decision, but her parents' decisions.

I'm still not sure what I feel about it all. I have a really rocky idea about life and death, so I don't know how to handle death or the death of a small little creature like that. I just remind myself of what my ideas are, and that I believe that cat is elsewhere now, somewhere where pain and physical experiences don't exist, and it's at peace.