tales of a walk

Tonight, with the walking buddies (W.B.): weirdest walk ever. It wasn't weird because of them. It was as if the loony bin had been upended in our path.

• There was the man on the bicycle-built-for-two (he is tall, and always sits in front), maniacally jing-jingling his little bell, while riding along at a good clip with...a parade of different women behind him. I've seen him three different times with three different women along for the ride. He always looks a little dour, bordering on downright hostile. The women have been a variety of ages, shapes, and sizes—and all seem at least a little happier than him, even though they can't possibly see anything except his angry back or hear anything except that confounded bell.
• There was a man walking a large, fluffy dog desperately in need of a good brushing. The dog, not the man.
• There was the tall, fit young woman walking fairly slowly, who passed us twice, walking the same [compass] direction both times. It was practically a math problem, to figure that one out. What made her worth mentioning, though, was her tiny little head, which looked like it was designed for someone much smaller than her. Like it had been boiled, or dried in the dryer for too long. Reminded me of Kids in the Hall. I squish your head! Squish, squish!
• There was a couple about 50 feet away from us—ahead of us on the path, so we were walking toward them—who were, inexplicably, off the path a few feet, in the trees. We could not tell what they were doing, but there isn't really anything to do there. And if you're thinking that perhaps the male of the pair was availing himself of the outdoor facilities...it would be a very unlikely time and place for such a thing to happen, given the heavy use of the path (and proximity to a bank drive-up window). The three of us could not help but gawk, which seemed ironic only moments later, when....
• There was a robin, minding its own business, pulling a worm out of the ground. All of a sudden, a bigger robin swooped out of nowhere and grabbed the worm away from the first one. That kind of behavior pisses me off, so I snapped and went after the bigger robin, determined to get that worm back—yeah, it made sense at the time—for the littler one. So I was chasing after this fat robin, who was sort of jogging along, looking over its shoulder at me every now and then, juicy worm dangling out of its beak the whole time. I am SO cool.
• There was a man biking by, kindly hollering out that he was on our left (don't know why that still makes me a little nuts, but it still does), whose water bottle contained a fluid that looked enough like beer that...seriously, what else could look that much like beer? I guess it could have been creme soda. Or foamy iced tea, perhaps sun-tea. Or Nestea, mixed by shaking the bejeezus out of it. But it was that sort of coppery/light brown color, and it had a slight head on it. What. The. Fuck? On a bike?!
• There is a part of the path that we call "the long cut" (as opposed to a short cut) because it makes the path longer. Imagine that the path we take is shaped like a small letter "L". The long cut is a pregnant small letter L: there is a little loop appended in the middle. Unless we're in a massive hurry or there is weather approaching, we take the long cut. On our return trip through, I saw something out of the corner of my eye. It was a deer. Male, adolescent. Male W.B. saw 2 more; female W.B. counted 3 more, but realized that she was counting 2 of the same ones again. In all, there were 4: 2 male, 2 female. They were contentedly eating and watching us. One was on the opposite side of the river from us, and the nearest was maybe 75 feet away. At first we were startled, and then we were "awww"-struck, and then...creeped out. That was when the nearest one took a couple of steps toward us, and we lit out down the path. A good reminder that we were in their territory, and not the other way around.
• There was the woman who, as we merged from the long cut to the main path, overheard the end of a funny story and me laughing hard—the W.B.'s were talking and I had my mouth open and was haw-haw-haw-ing pretty loudly. She walked very close to us (didn't take the very opposite of the path or anything) but compressed herself into a tiny little ball of human, and gave us a very pinched, disapproving, bitter, upset look. As if our mere presence was bad enough, but having the audacity to have fun and talk and laugh was unconscionable. Very odd.
• There was the tiny dog that male W.B. is totally in love with, because of the way that it walks. I don't understand it (I'm not a dog person) but I guess it's just very smooth and energetic. Or something. He gets all giddy when he sees it, though, which is funny. At least he's not putting his hand in its mouth, which is nice.
• There was the woman walking in front of us with her dog—a terrier of some sort?—who, with almost no notice, suddenly disappeared. All she'd really done is to take a small path through the woods to get to her own back yard, but it was as if she and the dog had just vanished.

All of this on a 3.5-ish mile walk. I'm sure you can see why I prize these evenings so highly; one never knows what's in store!