A Day for Quiet Gray Brown Things

A third day of rain, the good kind -- gentle, steady, all-day and night.

At the shop, a customer opened the door, and a small gray-brown tabby cat trotted straight up the steps, right down the center aisle.  I scooped it up, plopped it outside, but within five minutes it shot past another customer.  Once again, s/he was deposited on the damp landing.  A compact cat (a cobby, I think), well fed, seeking a little shelter, but surprisingly dry despite the rain.

At home, a small gray-brown moth (a Tulip-tree Beauty), striped like the cat, stretched across a two-postage-stamp-sized spot next to my doorbell.  Its scalloped silhouette and softly muted pattern like an elaborate bit of scalloped flannel or a remnant of a Victorian shawl.  Before dark, it had settled in a dry spot.

The gray-brown cat and the gray-brown moth, welcome and unassuming familiars in muted weather.