Three-legged dogs and other anomalies

If anyone remembers Labour Day weekend, it was dreary and depressing. Everyone came away disappointed that Mother Nature had spoiled the last good weekend of the summer.

Well, she redeemed herself this Thanksgiving weekend when she doled out three generously warm fall days.

I soaked it in with a long, lovely walk from the Annex to the lake, where I sat and stared and thought for over an hour. In the span of that excursion, I saw the following:

1. A man walking his three-legged dog.
His back right leg was amputated. He bunnyhopped.

2. A tight-jeaned Asian lady in clunky heels clip-clip-clip-clipping down the sidewalks at a frantic pace. Tiptoe running at a walking pace.

Behind her, a wiry man in too-big, clown-sized black dress shoes slowly kerlump.... kerlump.... kerlumps. A slow thundering step. His step swallows its own sound.

3. A middle-aged yuppie couple weave their matching boardwalk bicycles down the lakeside sidewalk. The woman leads the way, a radio mounted on her wide handlebars blasting the Beatles' 'Come Together.' In an earlier life, they were undoubtedly slouch-socked teens with ghettoblasters perched on their shoulders.