Snooks was careful about a lot of things: there were the cracks on the sidewalks, strawberry jam on rye bread too close to the elbow, lower than 500 threadcount against an unmoisturized cheek. These were all daily itemized life lists that she had to pay close attention to or else on any given day, one of them was bound to hit her like a steaming, chugging train.
Black cats in her path never scared her. She would reach out her hand and call loudly, “Cat.” and no matter how yellow and narrow his eyes might have been, or puffed his tail was, he would stalk up to her and sniff her hand before remembering that he was supposed to be angry to be referred to as simply “Cat.” The scars across her fingers proved that.
She smoked cigars like a Cuban revolutionary. Puffing furiously, she never seemed to have that Frank Sinatra swagger - her cheeks would grow redder and larger with each puff - everyone who saw her was worried that if she puffed any more, she would just float off into the horizon, the trail of Cuban cigar smoke her only sign that she had ever existed.