Sunday, June 13, 2004
Sunday Walk
I managed to pry Mark out of bed and into the out-of-doors this morning for a walk. Though it is clouding over and threatening rain now, much like most of the preceding week, it was beautiful this morning. The first interesting thing I saw was what looked like a really big mouse lying at the end of the apartment complex entrance. Then I looked closer and realized it didn't really have any ears, but it did have really big claws. Mark says it was a shrew. I'd never seen one before.
We continued walking over to the nature trail across the street, and to my surprise I spotted another little furry body lying on the path. This one turned out to be a baby-ish shrew, with smaller claws and a little tail and a very pointy nose. I'm really not sure why there seemed to be a shrew epidemic, but we didn't see any more after that. It would have been sad if they hadn't been so fascinating and completely whole.
When we got over the little bridge to the shady part of the path that leads to the playground, the path appeared dotted with little jumping black pebbles. Upon closer inspection, they were teeny, tiny, perfectly formed, pavement-colored toads. They were everywhere. I tried not to step on any, but there were so many, I'm not sure I succeeded. We stopped in the playground to swing on the swings briefly before crossing into some of the actual neighborhoods back there that we never really get to see.
I decided we should walk to the cul-de-sac end of the street where the nature trail comes out. When we got to the turn at the end, Mark saw that the sidewalk didn't just go around, but that there was another sidewalk leading off of it between two of the houses. We took it and discovered that it led over to another, slightly older and less obviously well-to-do cul-de-sac. I commented that it was kind of odd, but Mark said that sidewalks like that were all over Grosse Pointe, where the sidewalks led out of the affluent neighborhoods over to the bus stop on the main street. They were called "maid walks." Given the newness of the neighborhood we had been in to start with, I highly doubt that it is called such now, since it would horribly, horribly un-PC.
I would have liked to explore more, but I had to get home to eat lunch, since it had been an hour since I took my typhoid vaccine pill. Maybe I'll be able to convince Mark, the sun hater, to go again sometime. It was a pleasant start to a Sunday.
I managed to pry Mark out of bed and into the out-of-doors this morning for a walk. Though it is clouding over and threatening rain now, much like most of the preceding week, it was beautiful this morning. The first interesting thing I saw was what looked like a really big mouse lying at the end of the apartment complex entrance. Then I looked closer and realized it didn't really have any ears, but it did have really big claws. Mark says it was a shrew. I'd never seen one before.
We continued walking over to the nature trail across the street, and to my surprise I spotted another little furry body lying on the path. This one turned out to be a baby-ish shrew, with smaller claws and a little tail and a very pointy nose. I'm really not sure why there seemed to be a shrew epidemic, but we didn't see any more after that. It would have been sad if they hadn't been so fascinating and completely whole.
When we got over the little bridge to the shady part of the path that leads to the playground, the path appeared dotted with little jumping black pebbles. Upon closer inspection, they were teeny, tiny, perfectly formed, pavement-colored toads. They were everywhere. I tried not to step on any, but there were so many, I'm not sure I succeeded. We stopped in the playground to swing on the swings briefly before crossing into some of the actual neighborhoods back there that we never really get to see.
I decided we should walk to the cul-de-sac end of the street where the nature trail comes out. When we got to the turn at the end, Mark saw that the sidewalk didn't just go around, but that there was another sidewalk leading off of it between two of the houses. We took it and discovered that it led over to another, slightly older and less obviously well-to-do cul-de-sac. I commented that it was kind of odd, but Mark said that sidewalks like that were all over Grosse Pointe, where the sidewalks led out of the affluent neighborhoods over to the bus stop on the main street. They were called "maid walks." Given the newness of the neighborhood we had been in to start with, I highly doubt that it is called such now, since it would horribly, horribly un-PC.
I would have liked to explore more, but I had to get home to eat lunch, since it had been an hour since I took my typhoid vaccine pill. Maybe I'll be able to convince Mark, the sun hater, to go again sometime. It was a pleasant start to a Sunday.
