Every morning, I walk the dog in the Catholic cemetery across the road, overlooking the sea. In winter, it's kind of bleak. But I have come to know the grave visitors, and a lot tell me their life stories. They are lonely old people who have lost their partners. Today, a woman in her nineties rolled down her car window, and I froze through a long story about the priests whose graves she visited every Sunday, and her vision of the afterlife. I learned about interconnected families in the parish life of what's a sort of new city to me.
Then she moved on, and the dog found deer tracks in the snow, followed by what I think were the tracks of a pack of coyotes. I'm no hunter, and the smell world of a dog is a mystery. She was fascinated and alarmed.
I was more interested in a visual thing -a coast guard ship pulling away from a loaded container ship out in the bay. I wonder what that was about? The bay is always full of anchored ships, but that one had their attention. If I were of the criminal persuasion, container ships would be something I'd study.
You take a walk in a bleak graveyard, and there's a lot going on. If you drove by, you'd see my garage on the other side of the road and not know it was secretly a fish palace.
I had a friend named Phil who lived in a suburban development, with 40 tanks in his basement. His kids brought friends over one day, and one of the new friends from right across the street saw the fishroom and said her Dad had a bigger one than that. He went over and knocked on the door, and discovered that for a few years, he'd lived across the street from a 50 tank Tanganyikan Cichlid breeding set up. Go figure.
There's always mysterious stuff going on out there...
Then she moved on, and the dog found deer tracks in the snow, followed by what I think were the tracks of a pack of coyotes. I'm no hunter, and the smell world of a dog is a mystery. She was fascinated and alarmed.
I was more interested in a visual thing -a coast guard ship pulling away from a loaded container ship out in the bay. I wonder what that was about? The bay is always full of anchored ships, but that one had their attention. If I were of the criminal persuasion, container ships would be something I'd study.
You take a walk in a bleak graveyard, and there's a lot going on. If you drove by, you'd see my garage on the other side of the road and not know it was secretly a fish palace.
I had a friend named Phil who lived in a suburban development, with 40 tanks in his basement. His kids brought friends over one day, and one of the new friends from right across the street saw the fishroom and said her Dad had a bigger one than that. He went over and knocked on the door, and discovered that for a few years, he'd lived across the street from a 50 tank Tanganyikan Cichlid breeding set up. Go figure.
There's always mysterious stuff going on out there...
