New Adventures in Suburban Running
This morning I was moving along while listening to this podcast when I saw a coyote standing in the road about 200 feet from me. I slowed, expecting the feral creature to continue on his or her way. It didn’t. I slowed even more and debated what to do. Then a car slowly came up from behind me, stopped as the coyote passed, waited until I was beyond both the car and the coyote and drove off with a wave. A nice neighbor, to be sure.
I was able to pay it forward just minutes later when a woman and her golden retriever, whom I’ve seen on my daily walks and runs since this spring, was coming up the road. I warned her about the coyote hiding out in hillside brush. Just a couple of weeks prior, another runner did the same for me while I was walking my dog. Both me then and this woman now were grateful to avoid a chase that would end badly for someone.
One thing I don’t see on runs: strays. A cat or dog that breaks out of its domestic barrier is doomed, thanks to packs of coyote and maybe lone mountain lions and bobcats that co-exist here. I try to explain the danger the wildlife around us poses to Pip, but she’s hard of hearing and therefore won’t listen to my lectures. Last week she ate a dead (likely poisonous) rat and I still gag remembering how I tried to pull on the tail to get it out of her tightly clamped jaws, then had to watch and listen as she broke bones and guts squished out the sides of her mouth. Two teaspoons of hydrogen peroxide and 15 minutes later, she vomited it up on carpeting I had just steam cleaned.
Another thing you can't help but notice at this hour: not many motorists. Later in the day, the roads fill with cars and trucks as people figure out how to make the best of a really bad situation. Maybe they are finally seeing a doctor or delivering meals. Maybe they are summoning the courage to go into Walmart or Costco.
My husband was supposed to start back at the office this month, but that isn’t happening now. And I’m grateful for the delay, if not the outbreaks behind it. Every morning just as the earth’s edges start to brighten, I can venture outside as I have since mid-March because someone’s home in case the boy we’re raising wakes early. I see the same four or five walkers or runners in the same spots. There’s the middle-aged woman in the wide-brimmed straw hat that waves from the other side of the road. The gray-haired man in Day-Glo orange who always looks like he’s embarking on a safari. The guy who runs like he’s former military. The woman with the dog previously mentioned, who’s come far with the puppy training since we first met under less desirable circumstances. And this woman runner who has long ignored my friendly waves when I pass in the opposite direction, even after the pandemic hit and we were all in this together. Now, if I can’t avoid her, I just pull on my face cover and glare at her, though she likely doesn’t notice since she always avoids eye contact. I bet I know what she’s thinking because I’m thinking it too: What’s her problem?
We still have a fairly good turnout for what I fondly refer to as the neighborhood evening laps that began when we were all in lockdown and couldn’t leave our immediate surroundings. Each fresh air loop around our buildings is between .25 and .33 miles, depending on a chosen side of the street. There are young parents with children in strollers or on small bikes; older couples no longer wearing worry lines; a few seniors moving with canes or walkers; several out-of-work Uber and Lyft drivers; and this one ginger-haired guy who walks at least twice a day at a rapid pace, smiling whether he is wearing headphones or not. Sometimes he nods at people as he passes but mostly he remains in his own world. His T-shirts suggest he was once a runner who enjoyed big road races. He was the first resident to use a Ring doorbell.
The guy who lives on the other side of us isn’t as friendly as he used to be. It could be us, or it could be he’s among those pressed to pay bills and pissed at paying high HOA fees for the privilege of NOT using any amenities because of Covid-19. Hank got a new beagle pup after Pickles passed away, and Michael and Martina are turning out to be wonderful new neighbors. Isaias’s parents must be tickled that there’s a hurricane/tropical storm named after their son. I am starting to think the family in Unit 82 lost someone to the coronavirus.
Martin never wears a mask, but I don’t seem to mind. He seems to know everything going on around here. And he is so good to Pip, especially after he had to put down his pup, Brownie. He has a good heart, as do many of the people I run into these days. We both watch and watch out for each other. In a pandemic, there is no safer place to be.
