Thanks to Criminal Minds...

It's true and I admit it freely.  I watch too many crime shows.  I love the CSIs (especially CSI Miami because I have a huge crush on Horatio Caine) but my absolute favorite, almost to the point of becoming an addiction, is Criminal Minds.  That one is over the top in intensity, sometimes to the point that I actually have to turn it off.  There are those times that I should turn it off-- when Hubs has to work overtime or is mixing the bio diesel fuel for our vehicles and I am home alone--but I don't.  And then the house makes those noises that it NEVER makes when Hubs is here or Tucker stops in his tracks and looks at something that isn't there---right, scary hardly covers it.  No matter that I am more than plenty old enough to know better--an active imagination knows no age boundaries!  And it never helps that this always occurs after the sun goes down.  At night.  In the dark.  Until today.

We are having the first actual fall feeling weather today.  The sun is shining but the temps are cool and there is a strong breeze blowing...a strong Halloween breeze to be precise.  Tucker and I got a late start on our walk today.  Usually, when we have finished our walk, most everyone else is just arriving for their morning constitutions.  Not today.  I actually thought about foregoing the walk because of this very fact but Tucker would have no part of that.  So we went.  Probably the fact that there were only two other people out there at that time of morning should have been my first red flag to alert the 'uh-oh' section of my brain.  And, after our first mile, Tucker and I were alone.  A fact that became very apparent as we started on the section of the path that circles around the back pond.  It's always darker around the back pond.  On one side of the path is the pond but on the other side, the path is surrounded by thickish woods that come right up to the edge of the path (see the picture on the right, up there?).  It was also at this time that I noticed the strong, Halloween breeze blowing through that thick, foresty area.  It was making that rustling sound as it blew through the trees that is just loud enough to attract the kind of attention that might make a person listen very carefully for some other noise. And to look cautiously over one's shoulder.  And that also casts shadows of the swaying branches and dancing leaves onto the path.  This is when I heard something (of course) coming up behind me (where else?) that sounded like a person fast approaching causing my heartbeat to speed up (and my mind to flash through several episodes of Criminal Minds) all the while telling myself, "I am NOT going to look!  It's just the wind blowing a stupid leaf."  followed by a quick turn around to see what it was--a leaf.

In my defense, the wind was that strong Halloween wind and the leaf was ginormous and it did make a loud noise!  I couldn't get around the back pond quick enough.  Poor Tucker, who just wanted to stop and smell EVERY DARN THING WE PASSED, was rushed around the back and up the side of the dark part of the path and we didn't slow down until the woods ended.  I have to wonder whether or not my imagination would have remained in check had I not watched every single episode of Criminal Minds?  Maybe.  But, then again, when you find a strong Halloween breeze together with dead leaves, a dark path and some thick woods who knows what tricks- or treats- the mind will play?      

Shadow of dancing leaves

This is taken from the front pond looking towards the back pond--it's dark back there!

The leaf that was chasing me was shaped like these only bigger!


And now, the fun WEEKEND HOPS!!