A face-down playing card on the sidewalk, and other observations on a walk…

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~Saturday~ After a Tomato-Onion-Avocado-and-Swiss Omelet this morning, I took a walk around my neighborhood.

Here’s a snaphot of the experience:

How long I walked: 1 hour, 10 minutes; Approximately 4 miles

Where I walked: Exited my townhouse area. Right onto Kaplan. Left onto Athens Drive. Left on Avent Ferry. Left on Crest. Left on Conifer. Left on Gorman. Right on Kaplan. Right on Burgess. Left on Kayla. Left on Halliwell. Graphically, that looks like this:

Google maps with the route plotted on it

Things that I observed, thought about, or that occurred to me while I was walking:

  • I passed a cluster of “gumballs” on the ground from an American Sweetgum tree overhanging the sidewalk, and I thought of Robert and the gumball extravaganza that is his yard.

    A bunch of gumballs
  • I thought about my friend Suzanne’s social media question that she called me about yesterday and how there might be an easier way to do what I suggested she do. However, since it’s a one-time task, I probably won’t follow-up on it.
  • I passed a realtor sign in a yard and the name of the company was “Right Choice Realty.” It didn’t appeal to me, because my first thought about the word “right,” was the Religious Right, and perhaps that influenced my next thought about choice as in about abortion. “For all those reasons,” I thought, “I think I would have gone with Best Choice Realty.”
  • Turning on to Athens Drive and noticing that there was only a sidewalk on one side of the street, I wondered what criteria is used by the city to make such decisions.
  • The irony of the number of signs trying to keep people out of a church parking lot wasn’t lost on me: “Church Activities Only,” “Unauthorized Vehicles Will Be Towed,” “No Loitering,” “Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted.” Whatever happened to, “And forgive us our trespassers [sic] as we forgive those who trespass against us?”
  • A guy came up from behind me jogging and passed me, and as I watched him continue in front of me, I thought about “tradeoffs.” Well at first I thought, “Nice legs” and “nice ass,” but I digress… For just a little ways in front of me, he jogged on the sidewalk, but then he moved to the right off the pavement and onto the strip of grass between the sidewalk and the road. I thought, “The tradeoff for being kinder to your knees is the risk of twisting an ankle on uneven ground hidden by the grass.”
  • While walking on Avent Ferry Road, in the parking lot of the apartments at the Trailwood intersection, there were two cop cars. In the next, maybe eighth-of-a-mile on Avent Ferry, four other cop cars passed me heading that way. I saw one of them turn in to where those first two were, and the other two may have, but I was too far past that area to see if they did. I saw two more cop cars on Kaplan, near the end of my walk. None of the blue lights were flashing on on any of these cop cars. It looked like they were just heading to the cop car convention.
  • While still on Avent Ferry, I passed a lone playing card, face down, on the sidewalk. As I kept walking, I couldn’t stop thinking these two things:
    • I wonder when someone is going to play with that deck and how long it will take them to notice a card is missing.
    • I wonder what card it is. Maybe it’s a joker and it won’t matter if it’s missing. Unless, of course, they’re playing a game that uses the jokers.

    For some reason, I couldn’t stop thinking about it, so after I was well past it, I turned around and walked back to where it was and picked it up. Click on the card if you, too, can’t stand not knowing which one it was.

    The back of a blue Bicycle brand card

    And doing what humans do—assign meaning to things—I looked up what this particular card means when doing a card reading, and it said: “Represents a fair-haired woman [or gay man], or a woman [or gay man] with Earth predominating her [or his] chart. A gossip.” Things that make you go, “Hmmmm.” At least it didn’t say, “Yenta!”
  • Coming toward me an older man riding his bike made me think about getting out my bike and maybe doing some riding, but then I remembered that video that said walking was actually better for you than riding, and so I just stopped thinking about it for now. I know I could do both walk and ride, but let’s not get crazy.
  • A pick-up truck came up from behind me and I thought, “You know your vehicle is making too much noise when someone who is listening to Reba blasting through headphones can still hear it.”

How I physically felt while walking: Pretty much only my left knee hurt today, which is the one I had surgery on in December 2008. My back hurt a little bit, but only at the beginning of the walk.

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