Briefly noted (on cats, friends and bookstores.)

July 18, Cortland.

In Cobleskill there was a miraculous used-books bookstore housed in an old brick town building and I thought of my friend Greg, and not only because it was called Catnap Books, but also because the man behind the wooden desk in the morning and the man there in the afternoon looked almost identical, graced with the same ample girth and gentle air, the same twinkle in their eyes, and because behind them was a series of cat posters of the sort most often favored by book lovers who also happen to be cat lovers, although a love of books and a love of cats uncannily seem to go together, and not just because the previous sentence best describes my friend Greg (but doesn't by any means wrap him up.)
Among the delicious books I found (You're only Old Once!, by Dr. Seuss) was Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, by T.S. Eliot, who also just happens to be Greg's most beloved author's most famous book on cats ("Great book," said the second of the bookstore's emblematic anchor.)