the rix mix

The County contracts vendors to run refreshment stands in the larger county parks. No food trucks are allowed to operate inside any county park. Hot dog trucks occupy coveted spaces just outside the entrances of some of the parks. The unwritten code of Jersey Hot Dog Truck Territory applies to them, & competitors test the code at their own risk. Sometimes a hot dog truck will let an Italian Ice truck park nearby. Probably cousins.

The small county park up the street is mostly playground, very popular, & has no refreshment stand, & there's a one hour parking limit on the street. One enterprising ice cream truck operator slowly drives into the parking lot with "Popeye the Sailor" playing loudly. He parks the truck, turns off the music, locks up , & uses the park men's room. He stays in there for about ten minutes. By the time he gets back to his ice cream truck he's collected a large crowd of kids. He announces that he's going to the street where he'll open for business. He then drives slowly a few yards out of the park to the street like a Pied Piper playing "Popeye," sugar-fixated children (& some adults) walking behind the truck.
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I like dogs. I'm wary of them when not properly introduced. I might stop & try to befriend any loose cat; if it comes over to say hello it won't bite me. I do not pet strange dogs even if they appear friendly, at least not until I've chatted with its owner & the dog has had time to sniff me. Most dogs exhibit no more than brief curiosity. Their top two interests are: 1. The odor of dead things; when a dog finds a dead thing it either eats it or rolls around in it. This is natural. 2. The odor of other dogs' pee. At night, with their poor vision, some dogs tend to get excited at shadowy humans, if not hostile. I expect people walking their dogs to restrain them when I pass by on the sidewalk. Tonight, a lady failed to do so & I could feel the yappy little thing snapping at the legs of my baggy jeans before she pulled it away, muttering in Spanish. At that moment I was reminded that I was capable of kicking her dog clear over the telephone wires if the leash extended that far. To be sure, I'd feel sorry afterward. For not kicking the woman instead. The dog was straining & barking yards before it got to me, & my vibe doesn't do that to dogs,* which means it's an ill-tempered little beast that goes nuts around every stranger. Odds are that it wasn't born to be nasty. A few weeks ago I got past a large, loose dog with a big red nose at 1 am without incident, although it approached me quickly out of darkness, I could hear the clicking of its toenails before I saw it, & I was plenty freaked by the encounter.

*There are humans with zilch empathy toward animals. Some of then even have pets, although it oughta be again the law, because they are deliberately cruel or, without realizing it, cruelly indifferent. I knew a guy capable of making a cat's hair stand on end just by looking at it. In the Middle Ages he would have been burned at the stake or lauded as a great witch hunter.

Labels: cats, Elizabeth NJ, nature