On the first 60-degree day in six months, while walking with the black dog on the red leash and the black and brown and tan and white dog on the green leash, the following sights were duly noted:

A small sign stuck into the ground by a large, low stone-rimmed planter: “Please.”

A Corona beer bottle slowly emerging headfirst from an ice prison on a front lawn.

A blue plastic bag containing what appeared to be dog turds, knotted and emerging slowly from a melting pool of ice on a sidewalk.

A swingset so long buried in snow that only now can its bright red plastic seats be glimpsed, darkly, under murky, thawing ice.

A homemade Santa sign stuck into the ground next to an evergreen, with “Ho Ho Ho” painted onto Santa’s oddly slender belly.

In a scene reminiscent of Moses parting the Red Sea, a heavyset woman slowly pushes an extra-wide shovel down the sidewalk in front of her house to rid it of its six inches of meltwater, while an enormous plastic blow-up Christmas carousel next to her on the front lawn circles round and round.

A man in shorts and t-shirt, walking down the street and tossing a baseball into the air and catching it, and tossing a baseball into the air and catching it, and tossing a baseball into the air and. . . wait. . . yes, catching it.

An elderly woman in a dark overcoat, moon boots, gloves, and scarf knotted over her curly blue hair, knocking gently on the window of a car which appears to be empty, peering in, then shading her eyes and looking up and down the street.

The black dog and the black and brown and tan and white dog peeing simultaneously on either side of the same mulberry tree.

Under a park bench, emerging from a thawing patch of ice, a photograph of a woman holding a child wearing an “It’s my 1st Birthday!” crown.

The rounded toes of the long-broken-in hiking boots of a woman walking a dog on a red leash and another dog on a green leash,  soaked through and covered with mud.