A special day at the park

No photos, but I'll do my best.

It's a day, a Wednesday, one of those mid-week days during finals that floats, not really preceding or following other days in any determinate order. And the air is very clear and crisp, the way it is when you are supposed to guard yourself with marble pillars and bookcases shelving 300-year-old dust. In Santiago, where you sometimes have to convince yourself in a very non-philosophical sense that the sky is blue, the sky is baby-blanket blue. Magnolia leaves are deep green, varnished in the sun. And a man about 3 feet tall bumbles past, adjusting his horn-rimmed glasses that look thick enough to torture amazonian ants on the sidewalk. He wabbles one way as if aiming for us, then back the other as if he were walking on misaligned shopping cart wheels that can't seem to agree on their course. He's not drunk, though it does look as though he's having trouble seeing straight. Blonde and very nerdy looking, he meanders towards a young woman on a blanket. His wheels disagree and he swivels around heading towards us again. From the left side of the set comes sprinting a somewhat larger man (5'10") with soccer ball under one arm. He looks almost to be panting, galloping like a labrador after a slimy Wilson tennis ball. He too aims for the woman sunning herself in the shade and appears more committal as he actually pauses long enough to get down on one knee and say something before springing up, corkscrewing around, darting past his much shorter friend, still struggling with his glasses, and punting the soccer ball with all the force of a 32-year-old who has bottled up all the enthusiasm he hasn't used during his 16 year "hiatus" from the sport. It goes straight up and cracks into the magnolia, bringing down a small limb but no baby robin or nest. He bounds after it. The small one, apparently his son, apparently about 4 years old, wobbles, struggling against his parent-imposed vision torture device. He is impressively nerdy and endearing, like someone with one leg shorter than the other who always walks in circles but has convinced herself that IT's NOT A CIRCLE: IT's SRAIGHT! He keeps shoving his horn-rims back up his nose, even though that has to be what makes him totter so adorably. I mean they are thick. His father seems at least as young as he is. The mother is much too normal. And for the scene wipe, from the right comes this black lab looking street dog scooting along the grass, front legs rigid and straight, haunches collapsed like landing wheels, his butt forming the third leg of the tripod. He swivels, left, right, butt dragging, mirroring the drunk 4-year-old, progressing slowly but surely. The boy in the background collapses. The dad prances with his soccer ball. The mom anchors them in this world. The dog continues, intensely concentrated on cleaning his butt.

I'm not sure if I can eat miso soup again without knees-to-chest in laughter.