Park Tales

 

Almost every day, I walk around the lake. Most days nothing much happens. I pass a few people, a few people pass me. Sometimes, I even get a smile from someone cute. Today, it was a blonde riding a bike who had a tennis racket in her back pack. Earlier this week, as I was walking in front of the Legislature, a couple of girls called to me from their car.

"Hey there!" It was said in an artificially sensual way.

"Hi."

"Can we sing you a song?"

"Sure!"

I didn't recognize the song nor was it sung particularly well, but I enjoyed listening as they drove off anyway.

I also had a close encounter with a breathalyzer for the first time ever. Two police cars had pulled over another car near Reginald the Grasshopper and as I was walking past the driver of the other car was being asked to give a breath sample. I didn't hang around to see the result as that seemed a bit intrusive.

There was a second close encounter with emergency services as well. Yesterday, as I walked past the totem pole, I heard a scream followed by two thunks and a few minutes later many sirens. I had assumed that the accident happened somewhere on Albert Street, but it was actually just in front of the Leg. I detoured from my normal route to walk past the scene and there was one car smoking a bit that had crashed into a couple of parked cars. Police, fire, and ambulance were all there by the time I got there. A young woman I was walking past was talking on her phone and I heard her say that the car was coming towards her and then swerved and crashed into the cars. It was quite the mess, but I don't think anyone was seriously injured.

This all might be as close to fireworks on my birthday as I've had since 2005.