Beware of Surrealism

Today I went for my first real bike ride since I hurt my knee. I have missed it terribly! In addition to needing the exercise, I desperately needed to get outside and into the sunshine. My vitamin D stores seem to be a bit low. I am so horrifically out of shape that I had to go fairly slowly; it definitely wasn’t my usual high-speed zoom around Mountain View Drive. But going slower has its advantages--I noticed many houses I’ve never really gotten a good look at before, and I pedaled down every single dead-end street that forks off Mtn. View and onto the edge of the hills overlooking Mission Valley. I stopped at the end of each street to survey the canyons and the freeways buzzing far below. At my last stop I could even see a distant blue swipe of ocean framed between the ridgetops constraining the valley (that's a picture of it up there).

I do love this neighborhood. It’s laid back and comfy; people walk their dogs and go for bike rides at all hours of the day. And nearly everybody I passed gave me a big smile and returned my hellos. I can’t tell you how happy this makes me. The warmth of a stranger’s smile can be tremendous, and it made me laugh out loud with goofy joy almost every time. And then there was the old church on my way home where someone was playing the carillon, and there were a couple of older women stopped on the sidewalk, leaning against the fence and just listening to the wonderful noise of the bells. And then there are the cars sprinkled throughout the neighborhood bearing bumperstickers that say things like “Republicans for Voldemort” and “I Do Whatever the Rice Krispies Tell Me To.”

People in this neighborhood are are just downright creative; many houses have eccentric paint jobs or outlandish decorations, handmade signs and jumbled landscaping. This is my favorite “Beware of Dog” sign in my neighborhood. The owners also have several other multicolored portraits of their dogs displayed in two of their windows and on their garage door. I think you really ought to beware of dogs that look like this. They might bite you squarely on your sense of reality and permanently damage it, causing you to wander forever in a Cubist universe full of women with three eyes and one-sided faces.