Up early this morning to get some park time in with the dogs before the woman needed that car for the day. Put on my fleet new running shoes (they're shiny enough that I can see their glow stretching out from under my gut), took them out past the airport to Cherokee Marsh. A bit of hail on the way out, and some menacing clouds -- typical midwestern spring stuff.
The three of us were running along the shoreline of a lake whose name I don't know when they hit, borne in on a northwesterly wind: fat, wet snow flakes, drifting in sideways, all sudden-like. Out there in my thin shoes and shorts and tee-shirt I had to grin wide. We kept playing for a while, then ran into the only other person in the park at the gate to the parking lot. He gave our pale legs with the snowflakes tangled in the hairs an amused glance. "Nice day, huh?"
Now there's about a quarter inch of the white stuff on our second floor deck, but it's turning wet and will turn to mundane spring rain soon. Ah, well -- it was good while it lasted.
This makes me smile, too, listening to Tom Waits' "Swordfishtrombones": "she had a little chihuahua named Carlos that had some kind of skin disease and was totally blind." Always smile at the grim stuff.
Quote:Frank settled down in the Valley
and he hung his wild years on a nail that he drove through his wife's forehead
He sold used office furniture out there on San Fernando Road
and assumed a 30,000 dollar loan at fifteen and a quarter percent
put a down payment on a little two bedroom place
His wife was a spent piece of used jet trash
Made good Bloody Mary's
Kept her mouth shut most of the time
Had a little Chihuahua named Carlos
that had some kind of skin disease
and was totally blind
They had a thoroughly modern kitchen
Self-cleaning oven, the whole bit
Frank drove a little sedan
They were so happy
One night Frank was on his way home from work
He stopped at the liquor store
Picked up a couple of Mickey's Big Mouths
Drank 'em in the car on the way to the Shell station
he got a gallon of gas in a can
Drove home, doused everything in the house
Torched it
Parked across the street laughing
Watching it burn
All Halloween orange and chimney red
Then Frank put on a top forty station
Got on the Hollywood Freeway
and headed North
Never could stand that dog
