One morning about a week ago I started feeling a sense of something bad around the corner. I didn’t know what it was. I thought maybe my mother had suffered another stroke and taken a turn for the worse. (We’ve all heard stories about parents and wives sensing it when a son or husband has died or been hurt in a war zone.) Then I thought it might be girlfriend trouble, but I decided against that possibility. (Things are always in flux on that front.) Then I thought that my obese Siamese cat Mouse had been hit by a car — nope. All I knew was that something was causing this queasy-gut feeling. And then the day passed and the sun came up the next morning and the feeling went away. So much for premonitions, but for a while there I was sure something was up.