#bodega cat

[fire-plug]

Fees

Working Cats

[tiktoks-repost]

Ice Spice

[dynamoe]

Il Gatto Infuriato (1967) by Walter Molino, Italian illustrator and comics artist.

[xols-ex-girlfriend]

Met a little bodega cat the other day!

Screamed for my attention and then demanded many pets

[nekosd43]

A Seven Eleven Not Far from Heaven

I sort of fell in love with an image from Bodegacatsofinstagram and decided to do a paint over. I hand-lettered all the korean in this image, though I admit it's all google translate so if I got something wrong that's why - I do not speak or read korean!

Original under the cut!

[sugarpallos]

Bodega cat

[theinkedknight]

Rose Quartz

Based off this post by @cryptotheism that I saw on FB

I sat behind the counter, looking up at the twin sets of flat screens perched over the high shelves carrying boxes of cereal and multipacks of toilet paper. On the left screen, a multiple panel view of the various security cameras set up all around the bodega, the right screen a rerun of Judge Judy. I was mostly paying attention to the right one.

At the table set along the window to the outside sat an older Puerto Rican man, his straw triby on the table next to him, brushing something I couldn't see off the tank top he wore under his unbuttoned bowling shirt.

“Listen, I'm telling you. New yor-wiccan.” He said, drawing out the word.

“Shut up Danny.” Called out the older woman behind the deli counter as she worked the grill.

“What? It's good! I can see it on the shirts.” He retorted.

“You're not even wiccan.” I said, shaking my head.

“So what? You think everyone selling gold crosses is a Christian?”

The door alarm dinged as a pair of young people entered. I could smell the tourist on them. Spend enough time behind a counter in Manhattan and you'd be able to as well. It's the wide eyed gaze and almost deer-like quiver.

They start to roam what amounts to aisles in the cramped store. Next to the cup soups, various small packages of laundry soap, and ice salt stood Catholic candles of various colors and saints, icons from a dozen various idols from the faiths of the people who lived or worked in the neighborhood, and bins of assorted crystals. Through the windows and on the cameras I could see the piles of garlic, oranges, apples, and bundled dried herbs for sale under the shop’s awning.

“He has a point, Flora.” I say, eyes returning to the court show.

“You're so full of shit, Danny,” she replied with a tone that sounded like this was a basic fact of reality.

The two tourists came up to the front counter, either sisters or very, very close friends. Their auras looked as though they were the same, or else rhyming so closely it was hard to tell the difference.

“Do you…um…do you sell rose quartz?” The slightly taller one asked.I continued watching Judy for a beat, as it was about to go to commercial anyway, before looked down at the two.

“Flora, we got rose quartz?” I called over to the grill. A black cat walked around from the corner and wove herself around their legs before jumping up to the table next to Danny’s hat. Flora walked around the counter with an aluminum tray filled to the brim with boiled yucca, pickled red onions, grilled sausage, and fried eggs. She put the tray next to Danny, his hat, and the cat, pulling a fork and small bottle of hot sauce from her apron and all but dropping both on the table with them.

“Yeah, no. Fresh out, remember that little bracelet brujita always buys me out. The one with the green hair. Plant name.”

“Aspen.” I supplied.

“Yes, her.” She looked the two women up and down. “What you need if for? You looking for someone?” Their cheeks reddening was all the older witch needed to hear.

She walked behind one aisle, muttering to herself in Spanish. When she returned, she held a pair of pink candles in an unmarked glass cylinder and two cans of soup.

“Damien, get them two vials of rose water.” She told me. She continued speaking to the girls as I turned my back to search the wall of incense, oils, single dose packs of Advil, condoms, and “nail polish remover” behind the counter. “What you wanna do is anoint yourself and the candle and burn it next to your bed at night.”

The taller one nodded as if taking mental notes. “And the soup?”

“Cook it for him. Men love soup.” Flora said as if speaking to an idiot.

As her friend/sister was turning redder still, the shorter one was looking at Danny eating his breakfast.

“Isn't it, like, unhygienic to have a cat in a place serving food like that?” She asked, genuine concern in her voice.

“I'm cleaner than you are, Princess Midwest.” The cat replied, looking up at her with emerald green eyes. “This one needs some Florida water too, Damien. Her aura is a little…much.”

I tried to keep the smirk from my face as she jumped.

“Hannah, I told you if you're going to talk to customers, you need to be a person.” Flora admonished. The cat sighed, jumping from the table to the other chair. Between one blink and the other, the cat was gone and a pale skinned woman in a black dress replaced her. For a moment she still had feline eyes, before blinking and her human form completing.

“Anyway, spritz it on yourself after you shower. If you're good, you'll clear that…” Hannah made a general hand gesture to encompass what must be the woman's aura. “...in about a week.”

They both stepped up to the counter, wide eyed and more than a touch shaken. “So, would that be all together or separate?” I asked, trying to calm them with a gentle smile.

They indicted together and made to pay, pulling out a crystal bedazzled iPhone to tap on the terminal. I wrapped the candles in yesterday's Daily News and put everything into an ‘I HEART NY’ bag. As quickly as they could without running, they were out of the store again.

“I would buy that shirt.” Hannah said, reaching over and stealing a slice of meat from Danny's plate, who moved to slap her hand but was too slow.

“See! And she is wiccan. I am smart.” Danny proclaimed.

“Full of shit.” Flora replied, shaking her head and returning to the deli counter.

[yorhah]

♡

[oliloucan]

Bodega cat ❤️

original photo by Julia Reinstein, on twitter

drawing by me

Bristol board paper with posca markers and uniball pen. 😊

[fire-plug]

Victory

Working Cats

[strwbrrypawz]

[tiktoks-repost]

Simcoe

[blackcatsinart]

The New Yorker Magazine bodega cat cover by R. Kikuo Johnson.

[kamylee]

[futurebird]

Can’t believe the local head shop is using Child Labor!!

She just wants some customers.

Please come in and pet her.

[oca-rinn-a]

2/$1