Sunday, July 17, 2005

Walking and People Watching

I'm having ambitious thoughts of walking this morning before the rain comes but as I hear the thunder it becomes less and less of a possibility. The problem is that I told Miranda she could come with me and if I take the kids with me I would hate to get caught in a downpour. I don't mind walking in a light sprinkle or with an umbrella as a back up, just in case. I love walking! It's so good for my head. It helps me think and plan and plot my life. I'll probably still go out without the kids.

As I walk I sometimes pass these interesting characters that live on the corner of my street, facing Irvington. They are an Anglo family. I think the parents or grandparents and original owners of the house are an old couple. I feel sorry for them that they have a son, and what I think is their granddaughter, that they do. But then again who knows what they did to their kids to make them that way.

The father is in his late 40s it seems and he's a big tall man. Sometimes he dresses like a woman, with a pink spaghetti strapped t-shirt, short with a thin girl belt, and platform open toed sandals. He has tattoos all over and he paints his toe nails and finger nails in a hot pink. Sometimes he stands outside the Stop & Go asking for spare change. Then other days I see him in workmen's clothes with steel toed boots. Interesting.

The daughter is a skinny young girl around 18 and she's always with a young guy that looks like her boyfriend. Sometimes she's really nice and talkative, other days she looks spaced out like she's on drugs. She's asked me strange questions, like if Seth and Miranda are twins. Miranda is 4 and Seth is 1. One day as I was walking they passed me on a bike. Her boyfriend was pedaling and she was perched on the handle bars. They were going in the general direction towards the neighborhood closer to Hardy where there are crack houses. I don't want to pass judgment but it wouldn't surprise me.

Sometimes I pass them and they are just sitting on the front steps of the house staring at the cars pass them by. It just amazes me when I see this. How can there be people that have nothing to do in life?

These are just questions I ask myself and observations of people around me.

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