Snowdrops on the sand

So I did make it to the Lake last night, if only after dark. No moon (too early) and there was some light cloud cover obscuring the stars, especially over the water. I took a longer route than usual, heading north to where the drive ends, although I didn't go all the way to Hollywood Beach. From the look of things--individual men sitting on the backs of park benches--the cruising has moved further north. I wouldn't be surprised, since it seems that most of the people I run into along the Wilson-Foster stretch these days are young opposite-sex couples.

The water was surprisingly calm given the stiff breeze, but it came from the north so I suppose the big waves were slamming the Indiana Dunes. I decided to walk along the water's edge, but gave it up at the Foster St. Beach. Say, febrile, did you settle on a word for that crusty old snow-cum-ice? Because there was a berm of it all along the water, disguised with a sprinkling of sand, that made walking there treacherous and forced me out onto the dry sand. Not even a single dog-walker there with me, which was a bit surprising given that it wasn't even 9 p.m.

I saw more activity just south of there, including a motos couple with their darling nipper. Do anyone of you boys into wedding-ring trade know the codes for parked-car cruising? One SUV had its lights on the whole time; another flashed the blinker facing me as I passed it. (I don't need any interpreter to figure out what was on the mind of the man pacing under the street light who looped in my direction as I walked by.)

The stroll did the trick, though (unless it was the all the kalbi and sansachwun from dinner--or reading a bit of Yi Mun-yŏl's novel, or killing a kitten). In any case, I was asleep within half an hour of getting back home--and my dreams were sweet.

Lunchtime Bear Patrol

It's really shame I don't get downtown for lunch more often, given what good bear-spotting territory it seems to be. The Panera is probably the best vantage point, but I like the food better at Chipotle. (Before anyone gets on my case about eating stealth McDonalds, I'll just repeat that if there were a decent Mexican place anywhere in town, I'd eat there; AFAICT, there ain't so I don't.)

Today there was the cutest salt-and-pepper daddybear there, so I turned my back to window and surreptitiously gazed at him. He had a ruddy head, with dark, deep-set eyes, a sparse line of gray hair separating bald spot from receding forehead, a dark mustache, a full white beard, full cheeks, and a shirt open to reveal a salt-and-pepper hairy chest. If he'd revealed some nipple, I'd be in intensive care right now; if he'd smiled at me, I would've fallen for him on the spot.

But he never smiled at all--and seeing more than a bit of his yummy neck and his hairy forearms was out of the question. I wasted ten minutes hoping to scope out the rest of his physique as he got up to put his coat on, but I got impatient and left first. He was sitting across from a gray-haired woman, who, like him, was wearing a stainless gray button-down shirt and deep-indigo jeans. I overheard her say something in a shrill and grating voice; his voice, however, was rumbling and a touch rough. They hardly spoke a word until they were finished eating and it occured to me that they might be Having a Talk.

Perhaps I need to take him into protective custody...