Serial Killer Park

When my neighbor and I run together we run through the beautiful, large, natural park with camping areas, lakes and great trails that's just across the street from our neighborhood.  It's a well-populated park as there are cars parked in the parking areas all day long from early morning to late in the evening.  There are bikes and strollers and even horses (and yes, horse poo) on the trails.  It's a well-known, much beloved nature spot for people and families from all around.  But serial killers?

Not that have been caught or even theorized.  And statistically speaking, serial killers are few and far between.  It's television that has sensationalized the impact of serial killers in our society.  There are multiple shows, fiction and documentary, just on the lives and behaviors of serial killers. And they all depict them in the woods.

They show footage of beautiful parks where the serial killer waits to acquire new victims or dumps the old victims.  And it looks just like our park.

My neighbor and I know we're being a bit paranoid to think about this, but we do feel more comfortable running together in the mornings.  Truthfully, we have a far greater chance of running into a cross snake or getting bit by a brown recluse spider than having any type of altercation with anyone interested in anything other than exercise, fitness and camaraderie.

We've seen a lady, or is it a man, well, we're still not sure, walking with a dog many times.  No, that's not really accurate.  We've seen this person standing with a complacent dog just looking at an empty trail.  Is this reconnaissance?  This person is older, so we were thinking—and I have to emphasize here that our imagination is running wild and we're having the best time coming up with crazy theories—if he/she has made it this long without being caught, they're clearly good at what they do..

Uncle Jonathan suggested that maybe this older person was bringing in prey, with that complacent white Labrador, to their son.  Hey, another good theory, right?  There is a single house that abuts the park and this person is always within range of that house.  Could that be their lair of horror? 

My neighbor and I have made a point to be friendly to the person, something we do to everyone we pass, because it's morning and we're out there gabbing and we're getting exercise and we're having fun.  The first few times we said hello, we barely got a nod.  Now, we get a wan smile.  We've each looked at different features and I think it's a lady.  She has loose-fitting clothing on, but she has a female's chest under it I believe.  She also has short greying hair, but it's longer than a traditional man's hair style.

We feel terrible about this, you know... this crazy speculation about malicious, evil-doers in our nice park across the street; about our plans to purchase pink Tazers and who goes for the groin and who goes for the eyes.  But sometimes, you have to have something crazy to talk about to distract you from the breath that isn't going to keep coming, the watering hole that's two miles away and the six more miles and four more big hills we have to go before we get home.

Otherwise, everything about, every single experience so far, and we should nickname our park, "Happy People Park" instead.

The Big Boy Update:  Ships and Shapes and Colors, oh my!  We have a collection of tub boats with sails.  They're fun to play with in the tub, but they're educational as well.  Each ship is a color and has a matching, removable sail of the same color.  Each sail has on it a picture of a basic shape (triangle, square, circle, star, etc.) and the way the sail connects to it's color-matching boat is through a similarly-shaped foot.  So, for instance, the green boat has a picture of a star on the sail and the connection from sail to boat is star-shaped.  The wrong color sail won't fit into another boat.  And until just recently, my son had no idea that there was some sort of order going on.  In just the past few weeks, he can say the colors, many of the shapes and understands the sails and boats have a pairing.  Last night for the first time when I dumped the boats and sails into the tub he started looking for matches and in short order had outfitted all the boats with sails.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Babbles.  She is just starting to babble.  Not just one sound that's repeated in a chant-type fashion, but a series of distinct little syllables when she's investigating an item or looking at you while you hold her in your lap.  She had a whole conversation with Uncle Jonathan last night. 

Fitness Update:  18.2 miles in twenty-six hours across three runs.  Most distance over time yet.  And my legs are tired.  Although from a cardiovascular perspective, running today was much easier to get started.  If my legs weren't overworked, I think a long run today would have been much easier than yesterday.  We're taking tomorrow off.  Today... maybe a beer leftover from the neighborhood party to celebrate Labor Day.

Someone Once Said:   I laugh because I dare not cry.