“I’ll probably get blamed for that.”

The Movie: After Hours, 1985 (Joseph Minion, screenwriter; Martin Scorsese, dir.)
Who says it: Griffin Dunne as Paul Hackett, a word processor
The context: Pursued by a vigilante mob after a series of misadventures, Paul sees a woman shoot her husband to death.
How to use it: When you see something bad happen.

Water Street, where I live, is also State Highways 9 and 126. Across Water Street from me are the abandoned Gardiner Paperboard factory (previously mentioned); D&H Motors, a Lincoln-Mercury dealership; a school bus parking lot; and a pet-food distribution warehouse. Walk down the hill a little ways and you get to the (still active, hurray) Kennebec Brewing Company, which has its own small restaurant.

It sounds like an eyesore, but this is Maine, so it's not. The woods come right up to the industrial buildings, and behind the buildings, it's only a few dozen yards down to the Cobbossee Stream. I'm used to thinking of "streams" as small things; the Cobbossee is only a stream in comparison to the Kennebec River, and Gardiner sits at the junction of the two.

The speed limit on my stretch of Water Street is theoretically 30 mph, but that seems to be more of a guideline than a rule. So I haven't crossed Water Street much, especially because (as some of you know) I get anxious about crossing roads where there isn't a traffic light or a crosswalk.

But my neighbor, Holly, told me that she had taken Dizzy to run around in the waste ground behind the car dealership last weekend, when I was out of town. It was too cold this morning to make the trek to the cemetery, so I took Dizzy across the street instead.

It's a whole world back there. Snow and ice make the creek inaccessible, but once the snow melts and the grass comes back, it'll be the easiest way to get to the water. I didn't see any "No Trespassing" signs, so I figure it's legal. Even the paper factory isn't posted, which surprised me.

But I should probably ask, before I spend too much more time over there.