Walking around Crown Hill Park, the nature conservatory across the street from my grandmother’s apartment building. There’s a large pond in the middle of the park, 1.2 miles around. I walked it in 20 minutes. Gee, maybe I am in shape. The geese were swimming, going bottoms up to get at the tasty grass on the bottom of the pond. And then the flock came out of the lake and onto the concrete pathway to sun themselves. They hardly moved aside as I came near. The park gets its name from Crown Hill cemetery, which borders it on one side. The main building, the chapel, is a blocky, ominous tower. Minimalist gothic. Blood-red stained glass windows. My iPod was playing “Strange Meeting” by Bill Frisell as I walked past it. Skeletal trees framing my view, scrubby bushes and dead branches on the ground, low storm clouds, carmel sunlight. Genuinely creepy, in a Disneyland Haunted House kind of way.