I opened the door and walked out onto Elmwood Avenue carrying my bag of deliciousness. It had been several months since I had sampled Captain Jack’s fine Coconut Shrimp (free plug) and as I wandered up the avenue 20 minutes before with a chatty belly I listened carefully to it. It said coconut shrimp! And who am I to argue? Besides, it had been a long time and as I approached the big red painted fish in the window my gut told me this was the way to please my guts.
I walked into an empty fishery (is that what you’d call it?) save the woman behind the register and a man cooking in the upper back. I grabbed a menu and began to relearn all the tasty treats they offered. Since no one else was around I felt like I should hurry and find something fast so my eyes scanned the menu in a way where I probably eyeballed everything on it but couldn’t tell you one thing that I had read. Well, there was one thing. I saw the words “coconut shrimp” and only those words. The thought made my brain water and my tummy swoon.
Since I didn’t have one I put the menu in my pocket and looked up to the woman behind the counter. She had these big sparkling blue eyes. They reminded me of someone else I know and they also reminded me of the sea although I’d never been to a sea. It’s funny how something could remind you of something you’ve never seen. Regardless, I thought her eyes were apropos for this type of restaurant. I ordered and sat down blinking occasionally but every time I closed my eyes I could see those things fixed upon me waiting for me to say 3 words… coconut shrimp please.
I’m in a bit of a dreamy state today because of this paperback I’m reading and sitting in a chair next to a giant tank full of various fishes while I stared out into the nighttime on Elmwood was perfect. My mind danced around ideas, people, flashes of light and the rhythm of the little guys swimming directly to my right. I wanted to apologize to them for eating their shrimpy cousins. It had me thinking… would I feel comfortable eating a hamburger next to a cow? A ham sandwich next to pig? It was probably a good thing I was taking this home because eating it there might have felt weird.
The nice lady greeted me with a box in a bag and a nice smile. I exited the place with a deep inner smile of my own and as I crossed the street to the other side of Elmwood I noticed my tummy was now quiet. It knew the same as I did, we would be dining on yummy food in a matter of minutes.
As I hit the other side of the street in front of the Poster Art store I slowed down for a few steps while I contemplated my route. I had walked down my street to Elmwood and then walked down it until something tickled my fancy but now I wasn’t so sure I wanted to walk back down Elmwood to return to my street. Elmwood is full of distractions and while the vast majority of the time I love those distractions at a time like this I wanted a quieter, direct route so I headed down Bird towards the parkway.
My mind was shifting gears from “find food“to what to do or watch after dinner. The block was definitely quieter than Elmwood, great for thinking. It was also much darker. I looked up the block and there was a lady walking her 2 dogs and they were awfully large. I was a half block away but they looked like full grown huskies to me. She was walking ahead of them and they both stopped to check out a tree and a bush and I didn’t think she knew she was moving without them. She moved far enough ahead of them that I realized even in the darkness from a good distance away that they were not on leashes. I thought about crossing the street. I love dogs but I’m not sure how I feel about big 50-60 pound ones when I strongly smell of fish and fries.
She didn’t have them on a leash so they were probably friendly, easy going dogs. I thought that until she turned around to see where her dogs were and realized she was about 20 feet past them. She started walking back to them in a leisurely manner until she saw me coming up the block and then she scurried over to the closest one to leash him up. I thought uh-oh. I started to slow my pace. I was only about 10 houses away. She leashed up the first one and while keeping it close to her she made her way to the other one. The leashed one saw me and wanted to say hello and she was struggling to hold him. I switched my bag of food from my left hand to my right hand which would be farther away when I passed them.
As I was only a few feet away it occurred to the woman that she was not going to get the 2nd dog locked down in time so she reached in there and grabbed a fistful of its collar to keep it from advancing. Luckily the only dog who wanted to greet me was the one on the leash that she was struggling to keep still with her left arm. I walked by quickly but calmly. I didn’t think they were dangerous or anything like that but I suspected they would have jumped up on me or something based on her reaction. That wouldn’t even be a bad thing normally but these were very big dogs and I had food I didn’t want to share.
As I was about 10 feet past them I heard her making all kinds of sounds and excited noises. I think now they were both trying to meet me. Maybe they caught a whiff of my food after I passed them. I wanted to turn around and get a visual on what was going on but my tummy began speaking to me again. It said; “don’t look back”. After a few more seconds I could no longer hear the woman behind me. I was walking very briskly and I had opened up enough distance that I believe the dogs didn’t care any longer. Again I thought about taking a look over my shoulder where I could picture this poor woman crouched into a retraining stance trying to keep at least 100 pounds of dog from being rambunctious but again my tummy advised me not to look back. The shrimp encounters of the dog kind were over.
No comments:
Post a Comment