Walk, Meander, Stroll

Walks are a part of our daily regimen.

The Overlord and I will go on a walk to get to know the neighborhood, as I let her take the lead. We will go as far up a street until The Overlord's confidence wanes. Then we will head back down and take a different route. We walk around the hospital block numerous times, as she sits on each bench to watch the cars go by (there has to be about 10 benches surrounding the hospital).

Walk... meander... stroll... strut... we do it all. We will make funny types of walks like we are in a marching band, high-stepping our legs and smacking shoes against the pavement. Then we will switch over to tiny tipsy toe steps, like a Tom and Jerry cartoon where Tom is trying to sneak up on Jerry but has forgotten that he had already switched on the trap as the bowling bowl rolling along the ramp is about to dent in his head.

We sometimes see very interesting things along our walks. One house has a paved front yard, as a large Buddha statue sits out on the cement. A reflecting pool is in front of the statue and a reflective roof as the sunlight hits the water and creates colors of light to stream across the statue.

On another walk, we will come up to the "birdhouse" house. Small birdhouses hang on the door front as the large tree at the sidewalk has an assortment of different types of birdhouses in the branches. There are spaceship-shaped birdhouses, pagoda-shaped birdhouses, birdhouse-shaped birdhouses... you probably get my point. There has to be well over 20 birdhouses sitting in just this one tree, and none of them are actually occupied by a bird. I believe they are just there for decoration, the holes too small for a bird to nest inside.

Recently, one of our walks happened to be during the annual "Little Italy Fair" held along the street. Lots of vendors set up tents as you could buy stuffed peppers next to Chinese chicken on a stick next to Indian clothes next to motorcycles. How all these things relate to Italy, besides the cigar table with the betting games and every table selling some form of cannoli, is beyond me. We purchased a bit of fried dough --one day old-- as we tore through it despite it being a little tough.

Much like a meandering walk that doesn't have a bit of rhyme or reason to it, so too has this post began to meander about. So I will end it with one more thing. Our favorite time to go for a walk is right after a good rain, as The Overlord will jump into every puddle she could find. One day, she was shaking the wet leaves on the bushes. Then the bushes began to shake on their own as a large type of bug, half the size of my fist, came out making loud clicking noises as it flew away. I have no idea what it was, but the bug didn't stop The Overlord from continuing her walk as she thoroughly soaked her shoes.

We continued to stroll... meander... walk along...