Tuesdays with Moon: Café du Rat Mort

While walking through a parking lot by a local Mexican restaurant I noticed a dead rat. He was a fat, ugly, brown rat and didn't look as if he were hit by a car but dead none the less. Let me add, I don't like this restaurant and if I were to create a scenario it would be: the rat ate there, was ignored by the wait-staff, and dragged his body outside where he expired. Since I saw none of this we'll just have to suppose.

On to the next death. On the same day, while walking in my neighborhood, at the foot of a small retaining wall I saw a dead mouse. I did examine this closer, because Disney has done such a good job; mice are much easier to look at, and he looked as if he'd fallen and died of a broken neck because his head was at such an unnatural angle with a little pool of blood coming out his ear. Other than his death he looked rather healthy.

These were two observations. I can't say the last time I've seen a dead rodent in town but to find two on the same day was creepy, to say the least.

Editor's note: Café du Rat Mort was a real café in Montmarte frequented by artists in the mid-to-late-18oos.

Hey sailor

To help me keep track of my walking miles I got a pedometer on Sunday. I read all the instructions, measured my stride and thought I had it dialed in. It seems like it's about 20% off.

Now if it were on the fat side I wouldn't even bother but it seems to not be counting enough. Huph! Can't have that so I wore in on our dog walk this morning and it said I went 11 steps. Wait a darn minute. It's damn close to a mile that trek we take so I examined the counter thingy again. Seems I've been wearing it too close to the middle of my body and the pendulum doesn't swing far enough. I've moved it closer to one hip and now it counts ten steps if I take ten steps.

I'm also swinging my hips a bit more, every little motion helps. So, if you see me walking down the street I'm really not trying to pickup anyone, just trying to count the miles.

Editor's note: This is unrelated by about a month ago my spell check on Blogger quit working. I apologize for an serious misspellings.

Walking towards a healthier me

For Lent, my sister is not giving up but adding. She has vowed to walk three miles a day until Easter. Now since I like to walk but sometimes need a challenge to motivate me I've decided to accompany her virtually until they get here next week.

Does this mean I've returned to the church? Nope it would take a whole lot of change in Rome before I did but it's more of doing something good for me. My darling companion is riding his bicycle more and I've been cooking lighter. Lent is only for forty days so we'll see how we do. At least it's forty days or exercise.

How to get noticed in California

My birthday is coming up and I know what I want, an air-horn. I've been doing a lot of walking. Trying to get healthy and keeping green, I walk about six miles a week. I'm hoping to increase it to ten but not unless I get an air-horn.

Why would I need one? To honk at all you bastards trying to run me over in the crosswalk. In California the crosswalk is sacred, a safety zone for the foot traveler. That is the intent but there seems to be a lack of communication to drivers, especially phone-to-ear drivers. For the love of god, I'm a fat lady in the crosswalk, you couldn't see me? I've taken to wearing brightly colored clothes but I refuse to carry a flag, what I need is something to blast them back to reality. The reality being, "You're driving a f#$%ing car, get off the phone!