Stray Cats and Beers on a Walk Home

Today at 4:30 ish, I went to work for some work-related stuff which granted me a 1$ lunch that was actually good this time.  Bought the Dark Knight in Center City, then got on the El and headed up to Bill's house where we watched the Garfield Christmas Special and drank some beers, D/led Christmas tunes and popular hip-hops songs.  Band practice went well.  We got Oh Holy Night back down pat and got a little surprise mashup for our December 27th show at the VFW in the N'East.  Today's weather was waaaayy milder than I (or anyone else had expected, which ruled).  Took the R7 back downtown after practice.  I'm half-way through the Great Gatsby, which marks the first book I've read for fun since like junior year of high school.  Thought for sure I was gonna get jumped in the men's room of the train station and for the first time actually drew my knife ready to cut a dude, but turned out he was just a drunken bum and he left me alone.  Decided since it was warm as shit out, for possibly the last time all year, to walk home from Suburban Station.  Took about an hour and in the meantime I drank 5 beers that I placed in a paper bag that I got from 7-11.  I felt like a homeless person, but there was something strangely surreal and satisfactory about walking past Le-bec-Fin and the Diesel & Lacosste stores on Walnut St. while drinking a Beast Light, watching well-to-do men and women in suits and dresses go about their nights - all none the wiser.  Down in South Philly at about 6th and Catherine a cat approached me at the corner.  I was nervous at first b/c it's tail was puffed up (which is usually a sign that a cat is scarred and can turn violent).  Instead, it just rubbed up against my leg and purred.   We had a little chat where I explained that I already had a street kitty and I was sorry for the state that it was in, but I could not take it home.  (This conversation was - in fact - carried out aloud).  Eventually a girl who lived around there pulled up in an SUV and told me there was a woman around the corner who fed the cat, but I was sweet for caring.  She also said she wouldn't let the cat rub up against me for too long for fear of fleas.  Those jeans are currently being washed.  Now time for whiskey and the Dark Knight.