Keeper of the Frequency: an evening walk in the 'hood

"Hey, Little, you wanna go for a walk?" After many quick full-circle turns and happy dances, Little is at the door. Forgetting the stretchy wrist thing that holds the house key, we gather only the essentials; a camera and a dried magnolia leaf for poop-scooping. (Fact is, we're a green family & we don't need a plastic bag for picking up something that seldom equals the size of my little finger minus one inch.) Where was I?

We almost always pause to admire some flowers, and Lil' checks for messages at the corner of our block. (what's she talking about?)

We stop to visit with neighborly neighbors. Sometimes friends join us and we walk together for a few blocks. It's a very friendly neighborhood, especially if you're a dog person, or a garden person, or a person with a garden and a dog.

Meet a few gang members: Senor Leo. A very laid back maestro.

And his house-mate, Katie, a feisty little bitch who's far too cool to walk in public with the dudes. A face only a mother could love (in the south, we always follow such a statement with, "bless her heart!" I suppose it's meant to take the sting out of the insult?). Anyway, Katie gets big points for attitude.

Then, there's darling Zoey, who's usually airborne and one of Little's most very cheerful friends.

It takes a while to greet all the gang in the neighborhood, and eventually we stroll 2 blocks over to the great lawn by the museum where we run into some more of Little's friends.

Ellie is a baby. She's even littler than Little and she wears a pink harness. They are happy to see each other and perform the required formalities of butt sniffing, then wag tails 'hello'.

Cleo is Ellie's elder and shows her the ropes in the 'hood. She's not a poser, that one. Much too busy for such nonsense.

It's fun to walk thru the lawn-art. Little enjoys his culture. He has attended art openings, and visited several museums in our neighborhood. He has (while hidden in mommy's purse) also paid respects at two funerals, partied at a reception in a hotel bar, takes regular road-trips traveling east to La., and driving out west in Texas, and has flown on 12 airplanes where he has thrown up only once.

There are dozens of flowering trees around the museum, and a park across the street with even more giant trees, plus a bona fide bat-house on a post. The park was once recognized by a local paper, as "Houston's Best Dog Park" where our gang of a dozen or so canines romped freely. Until an onslaught of wanna-be gang members read the article and raised the population by 30+ dogs, and their people-who-did-not-scoop-up-their-poop, and one misfit from "outside the loop" who went after a neighbor's cat. (I won't give the sad details, but I'll mention that it was not pretty.) Hence, some strong petitioning promptly resulted in a new leash law forbidding the once peaceful family of dogs-of-all-sizes, and unscathed cats, free to roam.

Sometimes we see people climbing or sitting in the hospitable oak trees. (We're building a photo album labeled "Tree People")

But, today Little is the only tree dweller around.

Sometimes there are signs in yards that we notice, and make a mental note to look up what the initials represent. Seems this one is the "oldest registered ecumenical lobby, founded in 1943, and the largest peace lobby in Wash., D.C." (note to self: look up ecumenical)

Our afternoon constitution has been quite lovely and social enough. It's nearing dinner time and some of us are hungry to the point of distraction ... so just one more stop to leave a message for our Big Dawg pals whom we've missed today.