PHOENIX: Childhood artifacts - obsidian cat

     This little obsidian cat, never named, was a gift from the Ishikawa ("Stone-river") family in the port of Takamatsu ("High-Pine") the night before we left Japan to circle the world. Dad, soon to be called Skipper, noted it crouching on my desk and picked it up. He said something like, "Oh, this is a nice pet. He wants to come stay in my cabin."
     So he made off with it and although I often thought of it wistfully over the years I didn't have the courage to ask for it back or to assert my right to it. Three decades later when Skipper was living on shore among the redwoods of Santa Cruz county, California, and his wife Akie asked me to come take over his care, I found it on the windowsill in his bathroom and re-appropriated it. I had never thought it particularly attractive but it was mine. 
     Skipper and Mum both had "boundary issues."