A stroll around the neighbourhood

Lately I've amassed plenty of evidence that, if you don't type it in when it's fresh, you'll never get around to it, good intentions and New Year's resolutions notwithstanding. It may be all the same to y'all whether or not you get to read about my mildly amusing run-ins on el and street corner or whatever, but one of these days, when I'm forgetful and decrepit, I'll want some idea what the hell I was doing with all my weekends back during what will increasing come to resemble the best years of my misspent youth.

Today I was afflicted with tremendous sunny-day guilt and the effects of insomnia--not a winning combination. I don't know how much time I spent lying on the bed with my eyes closed, half dressed and thinking I really should get out. It's so bright and lovely; tomorrow it could be snowing. I should ramble along the lake shore. Fortunately, I'll almost always travel to food, so promising monshu dinner at jinju was just the ticket. I talked him into leaving early so we could wind through Lakewood-Balmoral in search of signs of spring.

Did we find any? A few: Daffodils and tulips were just edging the tips of their leaves out of the mushy earth. I was surprised not to see more crocuses and snowdrops were out in force only in one west-facing flowerbed. On Wayne, monshu spotted what he thought was an early forsythia, though the blossoms looked too thin to me. That's because it was a witch hazel, as a friendly neighbour pointed out to us; she said it'd already been blooming for several weeks and I made a mental note to traipse past the bush a bit earlier next year.

We did pass the site of the Lefkow murders. No mistaking it: Shrines bearing photographs of the judge's husband and mother out front, one police cruiser parked next to them and another in the alley. And a couple blocks away, an ever more curious lawn shrine. It was like a ramshackle creche that had been left out year after year, except in place of the manger was a photograph of a young man. The rest of the sheltered space was packed with santeria candles (the kind they sell in supermarkets nowadays) and there were weathered remains of flowers, both real and fake. It was all too easy to imagine some La Llorona-esque woman praying in front of it with superstitious devotion.