Seen Around the Neighborhood

Just a couple of random observations:

• The wife and I went for a walk around the neighborhood last night, and as we left the park headed for the elementary school a pretty good sized coyote just went strolling by down the middle of the street, maybe 20 feet away. He never even looked at us as he loped off down through the the park and headed for the train tracks. It'll be a bad night for bunnies.
• On Friday night we were driving out of the neighborhood and saw a lady getting out of her car with a huge bunch of balloons for a birthday party. The lady proceeded to walk directly under a low hanging pine tree and for a moment it sounded like South-Central L.A. She probably lost half her balloons and we were laughing so hard we almost wrecked the car.
• Next week California enacts the new "hands-free cellphone" law for drivers. Starting Tuesday, if a cop sees you talking on your hand-held cellphone he can stop you and write you a ticket. I've got a suggestion - as long as we're banning cellphones, let's add a few other places. I was at Costco on Wednesday waiting to check out and had two encounters with idiots on cellphones. Heading down on aisle I came up behind a lady with a huge cart full of stuff blocking the aisle as she yakked it up on her phone. She was oblivious. When I finally made it to the checkout line another lady was blathering away on her phone and totally ignoring the clerk who was asking for her membership card. They asked her four times before she finally hung up and the world could go on. I'd like to ban cellphones in big box membership stores while we're at it.