I need to stop being amazed

when I see how stupid people really are.  The busy street is being repaved, yes, even in the rain, it seems.  It's a good time to do it, since traffic is somewhat less now than it normally is, because of the Covid-19 mess.  So yesterday sometime, orange barrels appeared along the side of the street, in sets of two, waiting to be deployed.

This morning, the barrels were out in the street, two by two, at about half-block intervals, indicating (to me, anyway) that one lane of the two lane street is closed to traffic.  At the starting point of the closure, on the end we walk by on our first walk of the day, there's a barricade with a large sign that says "Road Closed."  Ahead of that, at the side of the street, is a "Detour" sign.

Ok, so I get that, the road is closed, and I, if I'm driving a vehicle, need to turn off and go another way.  Seems pretty self-evident and obvious.

Not to some people. 

While we were walking, a car drove around the barrier, and played dodge-em with the pairs of orange barrels, diving in behind them when something was coming in the opposite direction, on the side of the road that is still open.  By the time we made it home, a few more vehicles were doing the same thing.  I saw several service vehicles - lawn care, plumbers, that sort of thing - coming down the street on the closed side, bopping in and out to get around the barrels and duck when opposing traffic appeared.

Someone misjudged, and booted one of the barrels to the sidewalk.  Hope they made a good dent in their car.

How fucking stupid are people?  Or do they just think they are SO important, no rules apply to them?  Probably both, I know. 

I'd love to have a franchise from the local po-lice dept to hand out tickets to stupid people.  I'll keep 10% of the fines as my commission, thank you. 

They should just close the whole street completely, in both directions.  It would be easier and faster.  But no, can't do that.

And god forbid they should put signs up after the first detour signs, to tell people where to go next. You never get told when it's ok to go back to where you thought you should be going.  But no, that seems to cost too much, or they don't own enough signs, or pick your poor excuse of the day.  The people doing the paving are idiots, too.  But we knew that.  

Down the rabbit hole

There is a gravel road, across the busy street from here, that only runs about 3 houses deep, and ends with a "Dead End" sign.  If you're in a car, the sign is for you.  If you're walking, or on a bike, not so much.

This path takes you thru to another world, it seems.  The houses are nice, maybe on bigger lots than on this side (except for the ones on the gravel road, which are HUGE), and because of the way the streets only connect to busy streets at a couple of points, there's very little traffic.  And what traffic there is, is usually going much slower than it does out here in the regular world. 

And trees!  Huge, old trees.  Lots of them.

We walk this way most mornings, and often on our last walk of the day, because there are fewer people out, down the rabbit hole, than there are on this side.  It's peaceful, it's mostly quiet, and the people you do encounter are generally rather friendly, as opposed to a lot of the ones on this side. 

And then there are the creatures.  Usually we see some deer, sometimes a whole herd of them.  But the last few days, we've been seeing a fox.  It's reddish, and has a big, bushy tail, but is actually somewhat smaller than Bandit.  I keep telling him we don't really want to meet the fox, up close and personal.  I suspect he'd lose any battle that ensued.

Of course, regardless of what I say, he gets very excited at spotting this creature, and wants to check it out.  So I have to act like Mom the Anchor, and hang on so he doesn't get away to chase the fox.  (This is a pretty good upper body workout, btw.  I highly recommend it.)

Sometimes, the fox comes over to our side of the busy street.  We can hear it, it makes noises almost like a cat but maybe more like a smallish dog.  And Bandit will sense it, at night, outside our fence, he knows there's a creature out there, but I can't see it, and frankly, it kind of scares me a little to know there's something out there, just beyond my fence, that I can't see, but the dog is very interested in handling for me.

This morning we also got a whiff of skunk out there, on the other side.  So far we've not come face to face with one, and I hope our luck holds.  And the other day, there was a racoon sitting on the porch of the house across the street from mine.  This is not a rural area, btw.  And it's always been like this, chock full of creatures.  It's not only since the Corona virus has taken hold.  Tho it is nice to have less traffic, due to the virus, so we can cross over to the other side more quickly, and more safely.

The sun also rises

Deep breath.  Listen to the birds. 

Change is in the air

Or, nothing is normal anymore.  Which is maybe not a bad thing.  Normal wasn't going very well, anyway.

So maybe change is going to be, in the long term, a good thing.  I hope.

For a depressive person like me, hope is an odd thing.  Yet I always - or usually - have hope of one sort or another.

Trying very hard to not get this virus thing.  It's all around, and the people around here are on the rich side of things, so they apparently think the virus doesn't apply to them.  They ignore the social distancing recommendations.  Earlier today, when we were taking our second walk, the entire police dept and the EMTs were assembled in front of the local morning to lunchtime restaurant, which is offering curbside pickup of whatever it is they make (I've never eaten there, so I don't know).  Not sure why, I wasn't about to approach the gendarme and ask what was going on.  Can't be anything good, tho.  Maybe someone tried to pick up their lunch without a mask on.  We took a detour through a bank parking lot, and a strip mall parking lot, then resumed our regular route without getting involved.  I did notice, tho, the cops were not wearing masks.  I guess it doesn't apply to them.

We have various routes, in varying lengths, whereby we rarely run into other people, and manage to get our distance done.  We've been walking between 7 and 8 miles a day, the last several weeks.  This has gotten bigger and bigger, but I think it has to stop growing, there's only so much I can do.  And don't worry, we do it in four walks, not all at once.

Yesterday it was almost summer.  Today it's trying to be winter, even to the extent that it has been trying to snow (not that I would recognize snow anymore, we only had one tiny snow all season).  Cold and WINDY.  Makes it hard to walk, and I'm always worrying one of the old trees is going to drop something on my head.  Hard to remember, we've had so much of the high winds thing this year, most of the self-pruning is already done for the year.  I hope.  And the tree on the corner that is literally falling apart just dropped a big chunk a week or so ago, it's still laying all over the sidewalk and into the street.  The homeowner doesn't care and his lawn company won't touch it if they don't get paid extra for it.  C'est la vie.

In fact, it's hard to remember much of anything from BEFORE.  

Going back to trying to file a stimulus return for a friend....hang in there.  The light at the end of the tunnel might not be an oncoming train.  

Spring has sprung, I suppose

Because these guys don't come around in the winter.  At least they haven't in past years.  Then again, we haven't really had winter here this year.

I was looking at him thru my front window.  He was looking back at me.  Not sure if he saw movement, or if he actually might have heard the camera making camera noises.  The window is one of those that have fixed panes, so there's no way to open it, and also no screen to muddy the shot.  Which is why I suspect he might have heard the camera.  This house is far from soundproof in either direction.

His lady friend stopped by for a moment, but flew off before I could get a shot of her.  I would've like to catch both of them together, but I'm not that good, or that lucky.

Crocus run amok

At least, I think they're crocus.  Crocuses?  The yellow ones, and there are yellow ones in there, don't show up too great against the weird yellowish grass.  This is on the front lawn of a house on the next block.  In random places around the neighborhood, these tiny flowers crop up in the middle of people's lawns.  I have some, in the back yard, but just the one under my electric meter is blooming so far. 

Folks, it's February, in NJ.  This is not normal. 

Welcome to New California. 

Some observations

1.  Morning walk with Bandit is rather difficult on trash days.  On our usual first walk route, we straddle two towns.  One has trash day Mondays and Thursdays, the other on Tuesdays and Fridays.  Both have recycling on alternate Wednesdays.  While it's nice to have a lot of easy access to places to drop off our poop bags (but never on recycling days!), Bandit is rather intensely nose-orientated, so it's a slow walk, from trash bin to trash bin. 

2.  After breakfast, I heard a very loud bird in the yard.  It's the one who seems to say "we need you, we need you."  He was right.  The feeders were both empty.  I filled them.  He's quiet, now.  And everyone is munching away.

3.  Yesterday it was warmish, and we went to the beach, since it's afternoon low tide this week.  Sometimes, odd things wash up on the beach. 

Yes, it's a red pepper.  And a bunch of sea grass, I suppose as garnish.  Don't ask.

Yucky, soggy, rainy day

After two kind of nice days, we're being pelted with heavy rain.  I know, it's better than snow.  But still.

Nothing to do.  Don't want to go out, second walk is a washout (but we did get in a nice first walk), and I'm feeling my PTSD acting up as I listen to the rain banging on my windows, and the wind driving it hard.

So what's on the radio?  A used La Boheme, which I recall was nothing notable at the time it was fresh, back a few months.  I'd much prefer the actual matinee performance today, which happens to be Damnation of Faust, but for some unknowable reason, the big house is replaying a not so stellar performance from the recent past.

I notice, looking out the kitchen window, that the big construction project that went on all week is not having any positive effect.  For reasons also unknowable, the town decided to install a large storm drain type receptacle in the street a couple of blocks from here, which is at the bottom of a hill.  Runoff from the hill causes a large amount of water to flood the very busy street at the foot of the hill.  So I can see why someone thought a drain might alleviate the problem.

Guess what?  It's not working.  The very busy street is still flooded.  And due to the disruption of the street and area around the new drain, the flood is mostly mud.  Charming.  My tax dollars at work.

In the course of the construction project, I had opportunity to notice that most of the gendarme around here are late middle aged and very overweight.  And how much do they get paid to stand around, or sit on their butts, all day while people are digging up the street?  And why is it necessary to have a rather large SUV parked ON the sidewalk, with the motor running, spewing exhaust fumes, all day? 

One morning the attendant gendarme insisted on "helping" us cross the street on our way home from our first walk.  Ok, so big whooppee, he stopped a couple of cars that would have stopped anyway.  Then we had to creep past his SUV, parked on the sidewalk, with its motor running, spewing exhaust fumes, by climbing up the neighbor's 45-degree sloped front lawn.  This is not helpful.  Besides, we're pretty good at getting across all by ourselves.  After all, I lived on a state highway for 18 years.  This very busy street is a piece of cake, compared to that.

I need sunshine.  I need less wind.  And I need a second walk.  And a third, and a fourth.

Failing that, here's a shot of a couple of shore birds taking a walk the other day.  Apparently you don't have to be birds of a feather to walk together. 

Ok, so, Patterns

No, I didn't find the list.  What I did was go through a whole lot of pictures, and found some that sort of fit the subject matter.  These are all from a visit to Plum Island back in November.

This is not the Plum Island made notorious by some novelist (Nelson DeMille, in fact) a few years back.  It's not in Suffolk County, NY, for starters.  There's nothing at all sinister or mysterious about it.  And it's not really an island at all, tho it might once have been, presumably, which got it that name.  I never realized it even had a name, until a couple of weeks ago, when I was watching a video about Sandy Hook's history. 

This is the usual place we go, where you cross the road to get to the bay side of the Hook.  At high tide, there's not much there, it's mostly under water.  So the first thing is to check the tide charts before making the drive out there. 

Then, you can never quite count on it being the way it was the last time you saw it.  Depending on the weather and the tides, the configuration is different every time.  Some days there are interesting patterns, other days, not.

These are some of the ones I liked.

I imagine someone could explain how the water does that, shapes the sand differently in different places or at different times.  I'm not that person, however.  All I can do it look at it, and marvel at what nature can do when it's in a reasonably good mood.

Thank goodness that's over and done with

I really don't care much for the holidays.  Too much of the same people, over and over and over.  I need a new cast of characters.  Or to move Thanksgiving to August, to make more space between it and Christmas.

Before the holiday thing took over my life, I was working on a set of photos of patterns.  I'm kind of a pattern person, my brain sees patterns everywhere.  And the broken patterns, like those screens full of O's, with one Q stuck in the (not literally) middle.  I can pick out the wrong letter in a snap, without even looking.  Also, for that matter, the one missed note in a symphony.  It's not just my eyes, my ears do it, too.

It's going to take some time to backtrack, and find the pictures I was intending to post, so I'm not doing that now.  The list is on one of these post it notes that are laying all over my desk, I just have to find the right list.  Not now.

What I will put here is a photo I finally got a chance to take, tho I've been walking over and past it for months now.  I think it happened in the fall, when the leaves were first coming down.  And I always meant to stop and shoot it, but I'm usually attached to the dog at this point, who is dragging me down the street because something out there requires his attention.  Besides, it really doesn't look like much in the sun.  Or in the non-sun.  It's invisible at night, too. 

The perfect lighting is when it's raining in daylight, and the light is muted and soft, and there's enough wet to let it show up well.  We had a day like that, very recently, so after I brought the dog back home, I grabbed my camera and went out to get the shot.

I never really noticed, until I was looking at the picture, how interesting the texture of the sidewalk is, too.  You'd think concrete is just concrete colored, wouldn't you?