Sunny Day in the Park

Remember the trees of green gold from a week ago shown in this post ? Well now that some real weather has passed through, they are starting to look a bit bare as you can see in the picture to the right and below.  Time to get ready to endure another gray and drear season before the explosion of green returns.

The temperatures the last few days have been getting down as low as 14 degrees at night, but today signaled the return to more temperate weather and it was 76 degrees this afternoon as Molly and I took our walk. You could tell that the cold streak had reminded everyone to enjoy every minute of this unseasonably warm weather - the park was full of people of all ages and types as Molly and I walked around. There were all the standard suspects that I normally see when walking in the park, but there were others I cannot recall ever seeing in the park.

 Having a friendly hairy beast like Molly with you in the park pretty much guarantees everyone is friendly and open when you see them. It seems like every pet we have had is a "oh we have to stop and pet this adorable creature" magnet. It allows a curmudgeon like me to appear to have social skills.

An elderly couple stopped to pet and talk to Molly. I was impressed with them as we began to talk and I could study them closer. They were in their nineties and had been married for better than 65 years. They said they tried to come to the park to walk each day if the weather wasn't too cold or icy. In the course of our conversation, it became clear the gentleman had gone blind in the last few years and that the lady could no longer get around on her own without a cane or support. It struck a deep chord in me to see how they had adapted so that they could still walk together. The gentleman supplied his arm to support the lady and the lady supplied guidance and an ongoing travelogue of sights to the gentleman. Together they continued on their way through life. Having been married for 30+ years, I can only hope that my wife and I will be so fortunate in another 30 years.

At the other end of the spectrum, Molly and I ran into a young family. They had a young daughter (I'd guess somewhere between 18 months and 2 years from the unsteady perambulation) who was fascinated with the og (as close as she could come to pronouncing dog). Molly wasn't quite sure what to make of this strange little person who kept screaming og at the top of her lungs, but was willing to get petted. Mommy and daddy were being kept pretty busy as the daughter teetered and tottered all around, interspersed with demands to pet the og and that daddy pick her up and give her a gee (piggy) back ride. Seeing young families like that makes me smile. I just haven't decided whether it is a smile of satisfaction because I have already survived that stage and don't have to face it anymore or if it is a smile of reminiscent envy.

Onwards - I need to get an openID server setup here to test some software, it shouldn't be hard but it may be interesting. Besides, you noticed the lack of t e e t h in this post? Wonder if Google will?