Lake was excited to share his dream from the night before this day with me. “Madeline already knows,” he said. “I was coming back from Africa on a cruise and a cheetah was so fast it snuck on board in Africa and came back with me all the way to Seattle.”

Dumbfounded, I said after a pause, “Was it a boy or a girl cheetah?“

Lake hastened to inform me, “That’s not the important part. The amazing part is that there was a cheetah with me on the cruise at all.”