Sundays are for accidental forest walks to the stinky river.

Went for a routine neighborhood walk with a friend and we ended up in what I always thought was a little creek-laden park next to the last north-south arterial in North Arlington, just something funded by taxpayers to make real-estate prices spike nearby. (At the moment I'm on an if-the-government-were-smaller-I-could-afford-a-house kick.) But upon investigation we learned the park has a trail going all the way to the Potomac, which I always though was off-limits except for the trail that runs along the river itself.

After much rock-hopping and hello-ing to fellow walkers, we came upon a curious creature that seems to border the gray lines of amateur animal classification. Tell me your opinion: Worm or baby snake? I couldn't find a head, so I think it's just a giant, muscular worm, but my view was vigorously contested. Whatever. We ended up at the Potomac, which wasn't more than 20 minutes from the park entrance, where a bunch of people were fishing. It's a lot prettier at the end of the trail than the brown sludge that characterizes the river in most places.

After lunch at home and anime (the PG-13 kind), off for coffee at Murky. Not much time before evening church, so I got the classic cappuccino (6 oz - a tad over the 5.5 regulation, but oh well). It was my lucky day for animal peculiarities - a crow was waiting on a briefly unoccupied table outside as I sat down with the paper, drawing giggles and cocked brows from other outdoor patrons. "Dude, the crow is still there," I heard a coffeenator say. Then it gave a couple wing flaps and landed on a table with three studying gentlemen, who laughed at it and periodically asked "Dude, what do you want?" I think I noticed a watery splotch on the ground under the crow after a quick look away, so perhaps it wanted a better place to relieve itself. The crow glanced around and pranced the table a few times, checking out the implements of humanity, even briefly dipping its beak into a nearly-empty mug on the table for a taste of the Ruling Liquid. My guess is, a crow with poor eyesight and satisfaction with a long life, like an elderly man at peace with his gastrointestinal habits and smug toward the society who wouldn't mind him dead but won't raise a voice against his casual bodilizing.

Yes, I'll keep inventing words against your objections. That's my flippant response to society.