It's a beautiful morning, ah huh......

Dappled shade is back.

I walked this morning, and as usual for this time of year, it was incredibly beautiful. As the sun rose it brought with it the long awaited dappled shade which promptly spread itself over grassy lawns still heavily laden with dew. The birds were singing, the flowers were blooming, and the enduring rain of the weekend was a distant memory. It was wonderful to be out and about on such a day.

Screeeech!

I only encountered one itty, bitty, little problem on my walk, well maybe two........OK, three, but they were very tiny......well, one was maybe a little bit bigger than tiny, or it could have been.

First of all, I grabbed the first pair of shoes out of the closet that I saw. They were extremely white, white......screaming out that they were brand new shoes. Most of you know I'm blind as a bat, and there is no way I could see the name on the shoe, but even I could tell they were brand spankin' new, and had to be my super, dooper *love your feet like my grandmother* shoes that Bek picked out for me a few months ago, and have only been worn in the gym on an elliptical on which you never even pick up your feet. (sounds like I'm selling a used car here) So I put the shoes on and headed out the door to one very fine morning.

About a quarter of a mile into the walk my smallest right toe started hurting, and shortly after that my left one started. By the time I was a mile into the walk I could feel the blisters on each toe rubbing, rubbing, rubbing with each step I took. Obviously, I had picked up the wrong shoes. I couldn't believe it. When I got home I realized that I had grabbed a pair of shoes I had bought a couple years ago, but had only worn a couple of times because......well, I don't really have to explain why, do I? I had bought them at an outlet store and got a great buy. I didn't have to take out a home equity loan to buy them like the pair Bek picked out for me. Of course, when I wear the pair she chose for me, if you listen closely you can hear my feet whispering, "Thank you, thank you, thank you." Trust me when I say that my feet were not whispering this morning. They were screaming at me, and they were not saying thank you.

In spite of this it was still impossible not to enjoy such a wonderful morning.

I continued my walk, and when I was about half way through it, a huge truck came flying 'round the corner and almost hit me. You have never seen a chubby old woman jump as fast as I did. I didn't know I could do that. He was in the wrong lane and never saw me until, thank god, the last second. He never paused, slowed down or even looked back, but his teenaged son did. When I turned to look at the truck that had almost mowed me down, the poor kid was looking back at me with the same look of horror on his face as I had on mine. Unbelievable! I hope they got where they were going in one piece.

Now, the third little event of my walk. There is a man that lives in our neighborhood that walks on a regular basis. You can hear him coming from blocks away. Our neighborhood is so quite and the slightest sound travels. This poor guy sounds like he's hocking his lungs up all the way through his walk. The first time I heard him I thought he was seriously ill. Surely, he had to be sick, but that would be a, 'NO'. After seeing him and hearing him for the past four years, I can say that he simply coughs every few seconds, kind of a *haaag, huuu, cgggg, cuggg* from the back of his throat like he's going to hock up something 'big and bad', and then he gets some action going through he nose too, but I simply can't describe it. I think it's just a habit, but it's the most disgusting sound you've ever heard. Every time you walk you know there's a chance that the 'cougher' will come out of a side road and take up the pace behind you, and then you're doomed to walk the rest of the way listening to that sound. No more birds chirping, no more little kids laughing in their back yards, no more lonesome train whistle off in the distance.........just the repetitive sound of........... 'the cougher'......... and you know that it's just you and............. 'the cougher'........ the rest of the way............. haaag, huuu, cgggg, cuggg.