October 2024, My Mailbox Lock Gets Replaced and Guitar Bear is On My Corner

      He offered craft cocktails and obscure Belgian Lambic beers to a neighborhood that would be fine with Coors Light.  ...offering housemade charcuterie before there was such a thing in Denver.  I snuck octopus into the Bouillabaisse...I stuffed rabbit loin and red mullet with artichokes I learned to prepare in France.  But the octopus often came back pushed to the side of the plate.  The servers made Bugs Bunny jokes about the rabbit, and only the dishwasher would eat the veal tongue, doused in hot sauce.  It's 2004.  We meet at an ugly suburban restaurant.  ...the next day...  ...I walk in the restaurant... The clientele are ancient...worn, thick green carpet; faux brass rails...posters advertising Pernod and Pastis; and moldy big band music coming out of the speakers.  There is a smell of old plumbing...  ...2008...  Don't you know, I want to say, that you never open an independent restaurant in the suburbs?  It's September 2023...  Thanks to...a population full of well-traveled and affluent first-tier city transplants, Denver...  ...is, unlike New Orleans or New York, a non-site specific metropolis...  - Denverse Magazine/Summer 2024

     ...September 16 [the] City Council [in the municipality where I work] approved a site development...  ...to demolish [an] existing building and parking structure and construct...townhomes...  The proposed...third commercial building is slated...to accommodate a high-end grocer.

     Ambassador [of Romania] visited [here] to strengthen the diplomatic, cultural and business ties between Romania and [this municipality], the State of Colorado, and the surrounding region. - Greenwood Village Newsletter - 10/2024

     Tuesday is the 1st.  I'm headed to pick up my mail at the post office.  This week I will be coming this way anyway, to swing by my sister's place.  She needs her plants watered while she's on vacation.  I'm coming down the sidewalk on my boulevard.  I move into the parking lot of a strip mall and follow it.  I spot the homeless purple wagon, on another side of which is printed "bear daddy".  The homeless guy emerges from around a parked vehicle.  He's pushing a broom, surely for a few dollars from one of the businesses.  He has a bear cap on his head.  Sunday.  I'm loving the 80-degree F. days.  Not a cloud in the sky.  I'm on the way to the gym.  More cyclists out here today that I ever see during the week.  A middle-aged couple pass me on their bikes.  The guy is first.  He has some kind of AI speedometer.  I hear a female computer voice say, "Seven...miles...per hour."  The bar is open at my bar and grill, where I grab lunch.  After some chocolate therapy, I hit the gym.  The hot tub is still under repair.  I hit the therapy pool, which is the next best thing.  I'm getting dressed in the locker room when a white-haired guy asks me if that's my Harley parked outside.  It isn't.  He tells me that the motorcycle has a unique style, such as I do.  I get home and I get the call.  Can I be at work 3 hours early?  Why not.  On the way to work the following morning, I'm on the way to work, approaching the connecting trail there.  At the intersection is a metal table and benches under a small shelter.  The table often has various stuff on top of it from different homeless.  This morning, among some electronic stuff, is a walkie talkie.  Mondays we close at 6 PM.  I leave work just as the sun has dipped below the Rockies.  I'm halfway up the trail along the river when I pass a guy in what appears to be dress pants, black shoes and white socks, and no shirt.  Tuesday.  I swing by the post office for my weekly mail collection.  I ask about extending the 30-day limit on holding my mail.  The clerk has me fill out another form.  Then it's on to the sister's place where I water more flowers before I'm off to work.  Another day when I can ride the rest of the way to work, and after ride home, in shorts.  After work, I'm on the first trail home.  I pass a homeless cyclist.  Resting on his handlebars is one end of what appears to be nothing less than a piece of a wrought iron fence.  It's after 5 PM.  As he passes, he says, "Morning."

     Wednesday after work.  I stop into a deathburger not far along the way home.  Behind the register is a short, middle-aged, female employee.  She appears to have mental health issues.  She functions well, but she has an expression as if she's an Amy Sedaris character.  When she finishes taking care of customers, she immediately leaves the counter to begin cleaning.  She strikes me as the kind of employee who any employer would want.  She grabs a spray bottle and heads toward one of the restrooms.  A couple of customers show up at the counter and the manager calls her name.  She returns to assist them.  He asks her not to disappear. I return to the counter to order something else, and she remembers my name.  The next morning I have a voicemail on my land line.  My mailbox lock has been replaced.  I swing by the post office and pick up the new keys.  I sign a form for the keys with a pencil.  I mention to the clerk that this is the first document I've signed that I remember using anything but a pen.  She says their office doesn't have a pen.  After work, I approach my mailbox and insert the key.  It won't turn.  I suspect they've given me the wrong keys.  Then I try turning it the direction opposite the old lock.  Now it turns.  Friday.  I got the call yesterday. I'm working open to close today.  On my corner in the dark, his purple wagon and himself bundled up at the entrance to the Vietnamese grocery, is the homeless guy.   On one side of the wagon is actually spray-painted "guitar bear".  When I get home from work on Saturday, I'm in the Vietnamese grocery in the early evening, picking up some Japanese ice cream. It's a half hour before they close.  In comes Guitar Bear, in his bear hat.  One leg has a single wrapping of silver duct tape.  He's apologizing to a clerk for his sleeping in front of the entrance.  Sunday.  A white thin cloud has arrived to cover the sky, allowing the sun to come in and out.  The temps have dropped just enough to bring out the pants and windbreaker.  The forecast for the week appears to be a mix of warm and cool numbers.  I ride to the bar and grill, where the outdoor bar is open late in the morning.  Thank the bar and grill gods.  The crowd waiting for their tables overflows outside.  After lunch, I head for some chocolate therapy.  The girl behind the register has a T-shirt on with Antarctica on the front.  I tease her by asking her if she's been there.  She replies that she has.  At the gym, the hot tub repair folks are due this Tuesday.  After my workout, I don't feel like riding home.

     I ride to the train where a bus back to my neighborhood awaits.  At one of the first stops along my boulevard, a guy asks the driver if he will take him to the top of the hill, which he claims he can't climb.  He appears able to walk just fine.  ...and he asks the driver this because he has no fare.  The next passenger also asks if he can ride with no fare.  He asks if this bus goes to a train station up the street.  It does not, but it connects with one which does.  He steps aboard.  The third passenger we pick up has a couple of small dogs.  This is the first one in three stops who has fare.  Might as well let the dogs on.  The entire bus departs at the next to last stop before the end of the line, just around the corner.  The driver doesn't see me, and through the open door he asks those outside if someone forgot a bike on the rack.  I stick my head around the corner and tell him I'm going to the final stop.  I run into the supermarket to look for anything I can use for a Halloween costume.  My lady appears to have a favorite event during the year, and it's a 'Halloween parade" which runs down a main boulevard out of downtown.  She's been asking me what my costume will be.  In the store, I spot a "creepy fabric". I wonder if I can wear it like a sheet somehow.  Tomorrow, I will get home and remember that I have a grey kind of top hat which matches this grey loose weave fabric.  I put on a black shirt and the hat, and I put the fabric around my shoulders.  I snap a photo which I send to her.  She approves it as scary enough.  Costume in hand, I begin the short ride toward home. I swing by an old coworker's home, just down the street from my own.  She's out on the porch with her three daughters.  It's ladies' afternoon.  The two younger ones are both in college and the third is here with her two youngest children.  The smallest is perhaps 3 years old and is an adorable girl. I enjoy hanging out with them.  Sometimes I come by here on Halloween, when they hand out candy to neighborhood kids.

     Monday.  I get the call.  Can I be at work a couple of hours early?  The past couple of nights, my sleep was a little short.  Overnight, I've had a fine sleep.  I'm out the door between 7 and 8 AM.  This means there's traffic and pedestrians.  I don't know which there's more of.  I'm headed for the train station for my bus to work.  A local weekly newspaper recently ran a story about the inconsistent bike lanes throughout the metro area. Hey, you wanna get around this town by bike, you gotta take it where you can get it.  They come in handy regardless of where they run out.  When I turn onto a busy avenue toward a highway, this is where I begin to dodge and weave.  I exit the sidewalk to circumvent someone on an electric scooter, then return to the sidewalk to avoid oncoming traffic.  I approach the highway intersection.  It's split into two one-way thoroughfares separated by the Platte River.  I'm trying to make the green light onto the bridge over the river.  There's an oncoming cyclist.  She stops for me behind an Uber bike and I make my way around both bicycles, as I'm also trying to make what's left of the green light across the other highway lane.  I just make it before a green arrow allows traffic to turn onto the highway.  Once oncoming traffic across the bridge is clear, the traffic turning doesn't wait for the green arrow. Across the highway, I'm through the underpass below the train, a popular spot for the homeless.  I'm headed for the interstate, where I turn toward a street which shadows it, and the train line which also runs alongside. I must ride down the sidewalk along a condo complex on both sides of the street.  This block resembles something out of a Monopoly game.  I decide to cross to the opposite sidewalk to avoid a young woman walking her dog.  There's a space in the median for a crosswalk in the middle of the street.  I'm crossing the median when another cyclist comes out of nowhere, crossing the opposite way.  Knit cap, no helmet.  I'm on the opposite sidewalk when I elect again to exit onto the street to avoid another pair of dog walkers.  I cross the street to a bridge over the interstate, and I'm at a street with traffic backed up.  I swing over to a nearby intersection and catch the last of a green light onto the street to the train station.  Soon I come upon a guy with a stroller reading his phone.  I'm back onto the busy street before I reach a bike lane.  I slip across the other lane before oncoming traffic reaches me, and I'm onto the opposite sidewalk on the side of the street with the train station.  Just yards from the station, a handful of residents exit an apartment building at the station.  They all have walkers.  Once again, I exit the sidewalk.  I'm in a bike lane headed the wrong way.

     Monday after work.  I'm back on my corner.  Guitar Bear is there with his bear hat off.  I suddenly recognize him as another homeless guy I've seen recently.  They are one and the same.  Tuesday. I'm due at work at my regular time.  I'm coming down the long street which hooks up with the bike trail halfway to work.  Along the sidewalk comes a middle-aged homeless guy.  Among his disheveled gear is a white buttoned-down sweater.  It has a high school sports letter on the front.  He raises his hand to wave at me.  After I leave work at the end of the day, I'm coming along the first trail home.  The cool temps are fighting with the warm temps, and the ride home is borderline.  I try it without a shirt.  I'm swinging past some apartments where a couple of kids are playing at the edge of the parking lot.  I hear one of them mention that I'm "riding in my underwear".  When my shirt is on, there's never any mention of my bike shorts being underwear.  When it's off, the shorts suddenly turn into underwear.

September 2024, 'Do You Hate Pickleball for the Noise?', "Vegetables and All That Bullshit.", "What's the Nature of the Sandwich?", and "Excuse Me Too."

      Sunday is the 1st.  I do dishes.  I clean the tub.  This is more remarkable than otherwise.  My chopped vegetables are old enough that they are slimy.  I won't be making any omelet at home this morning.  I'm outta the hizzy and down the sidewalk on my boulevard.  It's the easiest way to take the hill between my home and parts south.  I have a teenaged guy on a bike behind me, struggling with the hill.  We're coming up behind a couple of young guys on foot, straddling the width of the sidewalk.  One of them has his pants falling down.  The guy behind me moves onto a strip of grass between the sidewalk and the curb.  I move onto a tiny strip of concrete between the curb and the grass.  I stop at a deathburger and order a couple of breakfast sandwiches.  One of them they give me is the wrong kind.  I ask for another which they give me for free.  I ask if they want the other back, and I'm told to keep it.  So, I shouldn't be hungry for lunch anytime soon.  At one table is a Hispanic guy with shaggy grey hair under a hat with a brim.  I hear him speak English without an accent to a middle-aged couple seated in front of him. "Who's that pretty lady?" he asks.  Outside, sitting in the driver's seat of a pickup truck, is a guy in camouflaged overalls.  The driver's side door is open.  He sits there for some minutes before he slowly and unsteadily shuffles in.  He orders, takes a seat, and is brought a tray of food.   I ride toward the long street to the bike trail.  On the trail, I ponder whether I should first head for the waterpark or the rec center. At the fork in the trail, I choose the waterpark first.  On the far horizon is a thin band of clouds which may mean nothing.  ...or the sky may turn grey before I swim.  I have a fine swim and ride down the drop slide.  Then I'm off to the gym where I do a workout and use the hot tub.  I ask for the number to the rec center the opposite direction from work. I call land find out that the outdoor pool there is open only until 3 PM.  I hit my favorite bar and grill near the rec center for a late lunch.  I have no trouble getting a table inside.  (The trick must be to come late.)  At a table are four young guys perhaps from some South American nation.  They speak English and frequently laugh loudly during particular points during their conversation where they get worked up.  I wonder what they are doing in this neighborhood of Caucasian families and political podcast devotees?  On the way home, I stop at my neighborhood supermarket, for items to make lunch and dinner.  I haven't made meals for myself since I can't remember, the beginning of the summer?

     What a way to end the season at the waterpark.  I pay a visit to the town of Golden with the sister in the morning.  It turns into one hot Labor Day.  Back home, I apply sunscreen and head down the sidewalk along my boulevard for lunch along the way to the waterpark.  I exit onto the street to avoid someone shuffling along the sidewalk.  Further along, an Uber bicycle and a couple of electric scooters block the entire sidewalk.  Again I exit onto the street and attempt to reenter the sidewalk, where there is just a bit of a rise.  The rise turns out to be too high for me to take at an angle.  I go down on by right side, complete with my head hitting the concrete.  ...that's why I wear a helmet.  The elbow and ankle are scraped, as well at my hip.  My shoulder is sore.  But nothing appears to be broken.  I get up slowly, expecting something to be broken.  After lunch, I stop into the supermarket for some bandages and antibiotic ointment.  Then I ride to the waterpark for the last swim.  The wounds appear less deep than the one I received on Memorial Day weekend of last year.  I'm guessing that I'm safe to swim.  We shall see how I feel when I wake up tomorrow.  Not only am I lucky I didn't break anything, I'm lucky I wasn't effing run over.  When I get home, I get the call shortly before 9 PM.  Can I work open to close tomorrow?  I don't take any pain medicine.  I try to sleep.  My shoulder hurts too much.  Perhaps I get a couple of hours at the most.  Another ride to work in the dark.  I'm sure I will be too tired to swim   afterward.   During parts of the day, I dose off in a chair for a few minutes.  Then less than an hour before close, I fall asleep for a half hour.  In fact, I'm too tired to ride all the way home.  I end up working a little past close anyway.  I'm across the street at a stop for my bus home.  The sun is about to disappear behind a large cloud.   Meanwhile, I'm trying to fit my body into a limited area of shade from the back of the bus bench.  Please go behind the cloud.  Please.  Overnight, I'm able to get to sleep at last.  I get a good 7 hours.  I'm up and out the door to the distant rec center for a swim before work.  Then I go blasting down the crosstown trail to work.  Got more sleep overnight Wednesday.  But with a decent sleep overnight, I'm still catching up.

     "...nothing is better than being...outside...seeing different neighborhoods."  "It's the parents with the kids, the risk-adverse and the cautiously optimistic about biking in the city."  "We have been taught...that bike commuting is biking to work..."  - Washington Park Profile, 9/1/2024

     There's all the pieces and parts you want for healthy society.  Can we bring them together...?  Some artists, they're lone wolves, they want to work alone.  Totally respect it - that's just not our vibe.  ...headliners get...money and other people are painting for free."  ...large communities of Ethiopian, Eritrean and Nepalese descent...  "You can't really talk about art in this neighborhood unless you're talking about: We're do you come from?  Who do you represent?  Who do you feel like you speak for?"   - Westword 9/5-11/2024 -

     Friday.  I wake up too early.  I try to go back to sleep but I can't.  It's seven hours after I went to bed, but I don't think I slept the last hour and a half.  I get up groggy, but by the time I leave the house I feel better.  I wonder how long I will feel fine until I feel like falling down.  I have an email which claims I have a prescription to refill.  It turns out to be something I can get over the counter.  I ask the pharmacist if she can cancel it.  She suggests not picking it up.  I ask her if this will make it go away forever.  She shakes her head yes.  I tell her that we shall put this suggestion to the test.  She lets me know that real prescription will be ready tomorrow.  Then I swing by the bank for more ones for the bus.  Saturday.  Can it be?  I've caught up on my sleep?  The usual stop for my bus to work is closed for "construction".  None appears to be going on.  It isn't due to reopen for another week.  There's a route I take home from the train station where a bus from work drops me off.  I do this route in reverse this morning.  It takes me half the time to get there as it does my usual stop for this bus.  The bus arrives and I step aboard.  Behind me steps a young guy in a black hoodie and groovy sunglasses.  For the second year in a row, the transit system has been letting passengers under a certain age ride for free.  This guy tells the driver he's "Eighteen.  I forgot my ID."  I laugh out loud.  Sunday.  On the schedule today is lunch, a workout at the rec center, and a swim in the outdoor pool at the distant rec center.  I've had a fine sleep.  The weather is effing perfect.  Blue sky with a cool breeze.  I head for the same trail I take to work, down the long street which hooks up with it.  I pass a church, inside which I can hear singing.  As I approach the trail, a couple of cyclists are on the street.  Out on the trail are a line of cyclists in Lycra.  Riding in groups.  The weekends this month have been popular with more cyclists than I've seen all summer.  After lunch and the workout, and meeting a couple of young women in the hot tub who are speaking Farsi, I ask the lady behind the desk at the gym if I can peek at a map of the greater metro area on her computer.  I spy one route to the distant rec center...from this rec center.  I end up going past the sister's place along the way.  I hook up with the trail there and turn off of it earlier than I have before, in search of a route which avoids a steep and long incline.  I don't avoid the incline, but I do spy what I think is a neighborhood behind a fence along an isolated road.  I enter a parking lot and follow a gravel patch to a drainage ditch.  I pick up my bike and straddle the ditch.  Now I'm on the lawn between a couple of residential homes.  A few steps, and I'm on a residential street.  I follow it to the distant rec center.

     Monday.  The outdoor pool at the distant rec center is open.  But I have a real prescription this time to pick up at the pharmacy. Also, I get the call this morning. Can I come in 2 hours early?   I wait in line behind a guy with his whatever support dog.  It lays on the floor, taking its own space in line.  When he gets to a window, he's told that his payment method, or his primary care physician, or something is out of network.  The woman behind the window mentions his account being from an entirely different hospital chain.  I wonder why he attempted to get a prescription here?  He's out.  The dog's out.  I'm out.  I backtrack a couple of streets to hook up with a route to the train station, and my bus to work.  The route takes me to the interstate, where I turn along a street with shops and cafes.  On the sidewalk, I first navigate past a woman with a stroller for two kids.  Then, I make my way around a dog sitting next to a table at an outdoor cafe.  It's owner is a young woman in a tank top and a bandana around her head.  This route gets me to my bus in no time.  The bus comes and collects me.  The driver is slow.  He somehow prints my transfer slowly.  A couple of young women onboard pull the cord, to ring the bell for the very first stop out of the station.  He isn't going to stop until the pair yell, "We have a stop!"  At work, we close two hours before I have to hit the hay.  I have to open tomorrow.  I ride to a train back to my side of town.  I wait as the sun goes down.  A train arrives going the opposite direction.  A train pulling boxcars arrives along the far tracks, and comes to a stop.  A train comes our direction, but doesn't stop.  It's "out of service".  Another train arrives going the opposite direction.  Finally, ours shows up late.  A couple of other cyclists with their own bikes are on the car I step into.  They each are in an "extra space area".  One sounds like a homeless guy, going on and on to the female.  We pull up to her stop and she almost doesn't get up and out the door in time. A couple of stations later and I'm off.  I'm around a corner and running through an underpass. Yards ahead is a dark figure silhouetted against the streetlights of the highway intersection through the other side.  He's dead center of the path before he sees me and moves to one side.  When my headlamp hits him, I see a bald guy with a long white beard.  His hands are crossed behind his back.  Father Time?  I get home a half hour after I would have, had I done the entire ride.

     Thursday.  With the change of the seasons, and the end of the insanity in my daily schedule, I've decided (once again) to get serious about my diet.  I haven't had time to pick up more diet soda for work, or get a new bike helmet.  I end up taking a 12-pack to work from home, and replacing it with another I pick up on the way home after work.  In the morning, I stop by my neighborhood bank branch to order more checks.  I like doing this with people I trust, as I do the tellers at this branch.  I'm at my bank at 10 after 7 AM.  A couple of employees arrive and open the bank, go inside, and lock the door behind them.  I don't have time to wait.  I've been called into work an hour early.  So I head for the train station for my bus to work.  At the station, I'm there a few minutes early.  But the bus pulls up right away.  When I step aboard, the driver doesn't wait until the scheduled departure time.  She takes off as soon as I sit down.  This same driver will do the same thing 24 hours later, when I again get called into work early.  This morning, however, traffic is held up at my usual stop for this bus.  There is indeed some kind of construction going on here.  I end up staying at work late enough to catch the bus.  This one I don't take to the train station, but to a crosstown bus, which drops me off right in front of my neighborhood supermarket.  I first head across the avenue to the department store, for a new bike helmet.  Then I'm back across the street to load up on groceries for my back-to-the-diet plan.  I don't recall the last time I bought this much food at once.  I've been eating almost every meal out.  I pack the food into two extra bags, both of which go over my shoulders.  Friday, I'm back at the bank on the way back to the train station.  I ask one of the tellers I saw yesterday about their locking the door ten minutes after they were supposed to open.  She tells me that traffic was backed up so bad on the interstate, they couldn't make it until then.

Noisy Pickleball and Bullshit Vegetables

     Saturday.  After work, I head for another library used book sale.  It's just a 30-minute bike ride the opposite direction from work.  I leave the old money neighborhoods behind and roll through what feels as if it's farmland.  I have but an hour and I spend it all looking through titles.  It takes me right up until closing to look through everything I want to.  Some weird skinny elderly stooped over guy with colorful suspenders approaches me.  He says something I can't hear.  I end up behind him in line at the register and snap a shot of him.  The books go in a bag over my shoulder, and I cross the busy street to grab a big salad at Panera.  I will eat half of it at the train station I'm headed for, and finish the rest at work tomorrow.  This train station is on a more opulent side of town.  The Technology Center, or Tech Canter.  I'm climbing a hill on a sidewalk through manicured bright green grass.  The lawn is in front of what I assume is a private club.  A teenaged kid asks me to throw his pickleball back over the chain link fence surrounding the tennis court.  I tell him I have a train to catch.  Tomorrow, I will end up telling someone behind the desk at a rec center that I hate pickleball.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.  I eat half my salad during the half hour I wait for the train.  It takes me right back to the station I rode to this morning, and I retrace my route home.  The following morning, the sister picks me up for breakfast.  She drops me at the rec center, where said guy behind the desk asks me if I'm there for pickleball.  He asks why I hate it.  "Is it the noise?" he wants to know.  I tell him that the tennis courts at a park in my neighborhood stood empty until white people began moving in.  Now the courts are full of pickle ballers.  After my workout, I'm in the hot tub with a trio of guys.  One is telling the others how he's building a home up in the mountains.  "It's gonna have a greenhouse for vegetables and all that bullshit."  He says it's already in the upper 20s F. overnight up there.  After the hot tub, I ride to the bar and grill, where I get another salad and save half of that one.  I skip chocolate therapy and ride to an art festival across the street from where I work.  I peruse the tents and their works.  Toward the end, one middle-aged artist tells me he's been watching me looking at the art "very intensely." He asks if I paint.  I tell him I used to.  I stop into the bakery across the boulevard from work for a cold drink before I catch the bus up the street.  The same bus I take from work to the same train station.  Only I decide to ride to the camera shop.  I cross the boulevard at an impossible corner and ride straight east.  It takes me to a sidewalk along a supermarket and into a parking lot, and across the very next busy boulevard to the camera shop. I run in and grab my prints before I ride to a nearby train station.  I catch a crosstown bus which goes all the way to the distant rec center.  Or it did until the schedule changed.  Which I discover at this moment.  The next bus, which does go all the way out there, comes in a half hour.  I decide to ride the rest of the way.  I make it to the street where the rec center is, just as this next bus catches up with me.  I do the last swim on the day this outdoor pool is open.  Even though it's only three feet deep. The sky is now very ominously overcast.  The water temp is posted on a white board, 72 degrees F.  It's cold when I get in, but I quickly adjust.  During some laps I taste chlorine.  The only other swimmer is a woman who climbs out.  Another woman takes her place.  In fifteen minutes or so, a wind picks up.  Suddenly, the surface has ripples.  A noodle is being blown into the pool.  I hear thunder.  I glance at the lifeguard who gets on a walkie talkie.  I decide to call it a season and climb out.  Raindrops appear.  Inside, I change and exit through the front.  A light rain is falling.  I ride through it until it stops along the way home.

     Monday I get the call.  Can I come in two hours early.  It's back to the train station to catch the bus.  We're slammed at work.  I need the extra two hours, plus the extra hour later we're open than the rest of the week, just to finish everything which comes in.  I stay late enough to catch a bus home.  Tuesday.  I don't have to be at work early today.  I swing by the bank for more ones, for the bus.  Along the way there, I pass the house where the homeless woman danced with her pants falling down.  Where a guy watering his bushes with a pitcher welcomed me to the "American Whore".  I hear his voice up on the porch.  I turn to see a couple of guys there.  After the bank, I get to work and cross the street to the bakery.  I have a brownie for lunch.  I grab more bananas for work, at a grocery in this shopping center.  A gray-haired guy is waiting for his sandwich.  Someone at the counter got his name wrong, but he suspects the sandwich is his.  Instead of asking what kind of sandwich it is, he asks, "What's the nature of the sandwich?"  At work, my coworker calls to ask if I can come in four hours early tomorrow.  So...as soon as we close, I run across the street and order a salad at the bakery for dinner.  I run from there back to the grocery and grab more milk for work.  I run back to the bakery and grab another loaf of bread for work.  I run these back across the street to work before I again run across the street back to the bakery.  I eat my salad before I head out to the bus stop.  I catch the bus up the street and ride home from there.  One of my neighbors walks a dog which growls at everyone.  This evening, he loses his grip and the dog comes after me.  He grabs it before it reaches me.  he apologizes and shakes my hand.  Wow.  This is more than I've ever had from any of the dog owners out on the bike trail.  Wednesday.  My coworker has asked me to come in four hours early today.  I arrive an hour before I'm due at work.  I head across the street for breakfast.  This means I'm here just when we open.  I can see across the street.  It's a little after 7 AM.  The open sign isn't on.  But instead of rush over there, I go and eat breakfast.  Before I left the house, I checked the voicemail on my landline.  I have two.  One is reminding me of a dental appointment I have today.  ...which I completely forgot about when I lustily agreed to accept the four extra hours my coworker threw at me.

     The second voicemail was from the dentist, telling me that my appointment had to be cancelled.  A hygienist is not available today.  So I'm off the hook.  Yesterday after work, I did what I always do.  I checked my mailbox.  Or I tried to.  My key won't go into the lock.  This morning, I ride down to my neighborhood post office.  I don't remember the last time I was here.  I'm told it may take some time to fix or replace the lock.  It's unclear if I will be charged.  And I'm going to collect my mail at this post office.  But I'm required to bring in a copy of the deed to my home, to prove I live there.  I have tomorrow off, for a doctor's appointment.  Then I ride to the clinic down the street from where I live.  I reschedule my dental appointment.  The lady behind the desk tells me that they called me a third time, to tell me they found someone to clean my teeth.  Outside, I'm unlocking my bike as another cyclist is doing the same.  This other cyclist asks me if I know of a bike shop close by.  I hear a man's voice, but I can see inside she/her v neck halter.  She/her has breasts.  She/her shows me she/her has a flat front tire.  I mention the sporting goods supercenter downtown. She/her replies that she/her has only five dollars and ain't goin' all that way.  She/her mentions another bike shop she/her says is within a mile.   I decide to take the bus to work.  I want to stop into the diner across the street from my usual stop for the bus.  I'm parking my bike along a narrow walkway between the wall and a railing along the street.  An elderly couple is approaching along this walkway.  The guy is using a walker.  I step out of their way, and I grab a notebook from a pouch on my handlebars before I enter the diner.  The wife is holding the door for her husband.  I enter behind them and I spot a new local free magazine at a small newspaper stand.  The wife asks me if they are to wait to be seated.  I tell them to sit anywhere.  As soon as I do, a waitress tells them the same thing.  I follow them inside and I glance at a clock on the wall.  It's just about time for the bus to show up.  I head over to the bus stop.  Sunday.  It began raining overnight.  This morning, it's a steady, light rain.  My sister alerted me to the rain yesterday.  Today is the first day of autumn, and the first day when the high is out of the upper 70s.  Last Sunday was the final day to swim outdoors, so I only have the gym to go to today.  I will take the bus, unless the rain lets up.

I'm Finally Racist

     Yesterday at work, I opened the door for a guy pushing a walker.  He had a swollen left leg, the pant leg of which was pulled up a few inches so he could show his leg was swollen.  The first thing he told me was that someone "smashed into my walker, and one of the wheels is busted."  He went into a story about moving here from Michigan.  He claimed he worked at a casino up in the mountains.  That he fell and injured his leg.  That his boss told him to stay home and recover.  That his leg has blood clots.  That he isn't homeless, that he has kids 5,7, and 9 years old, that a woman gave him $20 and he's counting on God to direct him to good people who will help him out.  (...with cash.)  He talks nonstop.  He says that skin color doesn't matter to him.  His own skin is black.  He says he gets $600/month in food stamps.  He tells me his age, which is 4 years younger than myself.  He says his landlord is trying to put him out because he can't afford his $200 rent.  That anyone found a place to rent for $200/month is the least believable part of this story.  He told his landlord that he thinks he can do $100 because "that's fair."  An interesting attitude from a tenant, more of which is about to be revealed.  He offers for me to meet his kids and landlord, I presume so I know his story is on the up and up, though he never explains as much.  He's "in pain, but I'm out here taking it like a man."  He's in sweatpants and a stained sweatshirt. I look at this guy, who I don't expect to get out on a bicycle, open an investment account, or get a gym membership.  In my new tax bracket, I suppose that I'm paying for his health care and groceries. I offer to call 911, so perhaps they can hook him up with social services.  Now, he's dissatisfied that I've wasted his time as I've listened to his story, "shaking your head in agreement as if you're interested."  This reaction makes this encounter all worthwhile.  He tells me I'm racist.  It's the first time in my life anyone has said this to me.  Though, just last week, a customer came in and told me she saw the funniest "movie" by a socially conservative pundit named Matt Walsh.  His film is titled Am I A Racist?  I haven't seen it, but I've seen him online speak a few sentences.  Walsh strikes me as the least funny guy I ever seen, with a face frozen into expressionlessness.  I'm not convinced he's ever smiled at anything.  Someone should instead make of film with this guy in my store.  I open the door for him and he returns into the ether from which he emerged.  He makes his way along the line of shops and tries his story on a mom exiting a minivan with her son.  How do I respond?  I take it like a man...

     The rain lets up by mid-morning.  I'm off on my bike to the gym.  I' wearing my balaclava for the first time this season.  Out on the trail along the river, I swing past the steep sidewalk up to a big shopping center.  To come down here to the trail, all ya gotta do is coast all the way. I watch a homeless cyclist.  Instead of a helmet, He has a hat with a wide brim, something from the 1970s.  It sits on top of his shaggy grey hair.  He's coming down from the parking lot, over a steep embankment of grass. His wet brakes squeak as he cautiously descends.  I first head for my bar and grill.  The outdoor bar is closed on this chilly post drizzle morning.  The wait inside is 45 minutes to an hour.  I find an alternative for lunch at a brewery.  It's a limited menu; perfect for a diet.  I sit a couple of tables away from four people having some kind of staff meeting.  I grab some chocolate therapy before the gym.  After my workout, I discover that the hot tub is broken.  No doubt the work of those infernal racists.  I ride to a supermarket and grab more diet sodas and a local newspaper, and I ride to work to drop off the sodas.  ...and discover that I forgot to turn off a piece of equipment yesterday.  I run across the street and take advantage of the opportunity to grab a salad for some future meal.  The sun has come out and the temps have come up.  I ride home in shorts and no shirt.  I'm back on my side of town, climbing a steep hill on the way home.  A camper passes me, and I suspect it's homeless. I follow it around a corner I wouldn't otherwise take, and I discover a less busy residential street.  I like this.  I don't spot it before I turn onto the long street a block from my own.  Glancing down toward the next street, there it is moving down a busy avenue,

     It's Tuesday.  I'm on my way to work in the dark.  None of this simply ride to the bus stuff.  I'm doin' the whole ride.  I've just turned onto the connecting trail and I'm approaching the very first underpass.  On this side of the underpass is a steep embankment opposite the creek.  There's a low cement wall, above which the embankment goes almost straight up.  Worn through the weeds is a dirt path from the wall to a sidewalk along a highway just above the underpass.  It's a shortcut from the trail to the sidewalk above.  Just yards behind me is a level dirt path to a street, again just yards from the sidewalk.  This path here requires a cyclist to carry a bicycle either down or, worse, straight up.  It's a climb across dirt which isn't stable, far to steep to push a bike up or roll it down.  Directly ahead of me in the dark is a homeless guy holding a tricycle, with the front rim in the air and balancing the trike on the two rear ones.  He puts the front rim down on top of the wall.  I'm convinced he's going to attempt to get this trike up this path. As I pass him, he gives me the universal homeless greeting.  "How's it goin'?"  Wednesday.  For the second time only in recent memory, I sleep until 7 AM.  This is something I just don't do.  Friday morning, I will get up after perhaps only 4 or 5 hours of sleep.  The overnights may be cool, but the days warm up incredibly fast. Thursday will he 90 degrees F.  I'm enjoying the balmy commute out on the bike.  This month, I spotted a homeless guy around my extended neighborhood.  I wonder if he's the same guy with an acoustic guitar.  I vaguely recall he also has an electric one.  The guy I've seen more recently has a sizeable bike "trailer".  It's appears to be some kind of wagon with a cylindrical dome over it, the shape of an old, covered wagon.  Written on it is "I love music."  In spite of my middle of the night rise from bed, I get a late start and head toward the train station for my bus to work.  The first one which runs during the week.  Even at 5 AM, it's still in the low 60s F. I can almost ride in my bike shorts.  To get there, I head cross town first through my extended neighborhood.  In the absence of streetlights, I roll past driveways in the dark.  Suddenly, there's another cyclist ready to come out of one of them.  I now must keep an eye out for bikes pulling out.

     "...to consider...what gives our identity meaning was not from a place of choice, so what would it mean to wrestle with our cultural identity?  ...to each find our own truth in how we want to relate to our culture...in real time?  ...uplifting...archetypes...also acknowledging whose shoulders I stand on."  - Westword, 9/26-10/2/2024

Excuse Me Too

     I'm on my way home from work Saturday.  I'm back on my own corner, in front of a Vietnamese grocery.  At a corner next to the grocery's parking lot is the purple wagon guy.  He is in fact strumming of his guitars along to a device plays music.  I wake up Sunday feeling caught up on my sleep from the previous two days.  Yesterday was busy enough at work that I stayed a half hour late and just made a bus home.  This morning I'm out the door to the rec center.  It's a beautiful day.  I'm across my boulevard and on the long street a block from my own.  One of a pair of homeless campers, which are here off and on, is still here.  Another homeless vehicle is parked in front of it, packed with stuff from the back up to the front seat.  Someone inside starts the engine as I roll past.  I turn down the long street which hooks up with the trail much further than the closest trailhead.  I'm in my bike shorts and no shirt, just a few blocks from home when I come upon a church, named Victory Outreach.  A couple of young guys are standing next to the curb.  In black suits and holding welcoming signs, they're both underneath a tarp.  As I pass, they greet me.  I reply with a peace sign and say, "Victory."  They thank me.  I' down a hill and up another.  Across a busy avenue, down the same street, up another hill and down a long one.  A short hop to the trail.  Lotta cyclists out on the trail, lotta Lycra.  Cyclists trying to get some last-minute Indian summer riding in?  I approach the connecting trail to work.  Across what's left of the river, a baseball game is going on in a field.  Just beyond, I can see garbage trucks lined up and parked at the dump.  Just past the connecting trail, I park and take a seat under the shade of a tree trailside.  I'm on something of a blind curb as I write this down.  One cyclist goes past.  When he spots me, he says, "Uh."  A pair of young cyclists emerge from the opposite way.  They stop mid-conversation as first one says, "Excuse me."  Followed by the other who says, "Excuse me too."  I watch a fisherman wading in the river.  Across the river is a parallel trail.  I hear someone yelling.  A middle-aged couple come cycling along.  The guy is complaining to his wife about someone who doesn't appear to care that "a couple of hundred people cross the border!"  It's a bit of a longer haul from the connecting trail.  I turn off the trail and am soon in ye old towne southernly suburb of Denver, and my bar and grill.  It's a decidedly warmer Sunday today, and the bar is open.  This means I get to eat lunch here.  I stop in for some chocolate therapy before I hit the rec center.  I can't figure out why my paycheck was so big when I took a day off, unless I'm actually saving money my returning to a diet.  I have the money to take advantage of a sale on more punches for the rec center.  The hot tub is still under repair.  After my workout, I have a nice swim in an indoor heated therapy pool.  I ride to a nearby supermarket for some groceries, which I then transport to work.  I stop into the bakery for a snack and then ride home.

     When I get home Sunday, I get the call.  Can I work all day tomorrow?  I get the call with plenty of time to get to bed for a decent night's sleep.  In the very early morning, indeed I've had a fine sleep.  I even have time to put together a salad for lunch.  It almost feels warm enough to ride in shorts, but I leave the house in long pants and a windbreaker.  Out on my corner, in front of the Vietnamese grocery, the homeless purple wagon guy has moved to the entrance.  Under the streetlight, a trio of other people stand next to him on the concrete.  He will be here when I get back home some fourteen hours later.  I turn down a long street to a distant trailhead.  I come to a stop at a stop sign, along with a vehicle.  I cross the avenue.  The vehicle just sits there.  I'm some distance when I still see its headlights in my rearview.  I reach the trailhead, from where the connecting trail isn't far.  At the end of this trail, I stop at a table and bench and take off the windbreaker, pants, and shirt.  I climb a steep hill to a horse trail.  I get going when I hear voices in the dark.  I see just in time three or four elderly people standing in the dark in the middle of the trail.  I swing around them and on to work, where eleven hours go past in no time.

August 2024: "Hmm. You Don't Know If There's an Event.", The American Whore, and Stabbed in the Butt with a Bike Seat

     ...she was chef at Panzano, then...to Rioja.  ...moved on to Bistro Vendome, after Crafted Concepts...  ...then...to her own place, Work & Class...  "It's a great business.  We can go anywhere.  More people should think of this as a career."  ...an early partner...helped open Ulteria.  ...his successful side gig - Split Lip, an Eat Place...  "I planted a...culinary garden on the patio.  Bartenders...pick what they need every day.  They'll come downtown for a concert or sporting event...but they think it's so unsafe."  ...the rising minimum wage.  "The City of Denver has made it too arduous to be a small-business owner.  We were so busy from start to close.  There was no sitting down.  We would stand and eat, shrimp tails flying, in the cloffice."  (...the closet that served as an office.)  - Westword, 9/8-14/2024

      Thursday is the 1st of yet another new month.  This is the first day this week I haven't had to go in early.  Since Sunday, I haven't been to the waterpark.  I arrive this morning shortly after they open.  I'm in line at the drop slide.  A little girl is ahead of me.  Another girl, perhaps a high school freshman, comes out of nowhere and runs up the steps ahead of us.  In her sunburst patterned bikini, she goes down the slide and comes up with her long blonde hair in her face.  She also appears to be unaware that she needs to get out of the deep end.  When a lifeguard blows a whistle, she replies, "I'm okay."  She leaves through the shallow end, which she isn't supposed to do, but at least the line can proceed.  I take my turn and get back in line.  She begins to run past me again, up the steps, before her dad calls her back.  The following day is my birthday.  A swim in the morning and one in the afternoon.  The next day is Saturday.  After work, I have a swim at the closer pool before the sister picks me up, and takes me to dinner.  When I reached the pool, I was told that they were beyond capacity.  I discovered that this meant a lifeguard hadn't shown up for work.  When one arrived to replace the guard, the pool was suddenly admitting swimmers again.  At dinner with the sister, no mention of last month's drama with her.  When she drops me back home, I have a message from the woman I've been dating.  It's curt: "I will pick you up [tomorrow] at 3 [PM]."  Again, no mention of our drama on Facebook.  The following day is Sunday.  I would like to drop off film at the camera shop, have a swim at the pool, swim at the waterpark, workout, and drop my bike off for another tune up.  The camera shop does not open until 11 AM.  Before that, I decide to ride down to my neighborhood supermarket and back.  Before I return home, I stop at a deathburger for breakfast.  Ayoung guy, a kid wanders in.  He goes to the soda machine and fills a cup with ice, and then he wanders back out.  The middle-aged manager is working the counter and the drive through alone.  His only help is a drive through intercom which isn't working.  By the time I get home, I decide to ride straight to the camera shop.  When I get there, I decide no skip the workout, waterpark, and even the pool which is right down the boulevard.  I ride to the nearest train for the trip downtown to the sporting goods supercenter.  At the train, the elevator to the platform isn't working.  I carry my bike down a long flight of steps to the platform.  I hear a crazy person yelling.    I take a seat on a bench.  A couple comes along the platform.  The guy is bent over as if he can't stand straight.    He's eating from a small container of ice cream with a torn piece of cardboard.  Another couple comes along.  This guy is even more bent over.  Both couples leave shortly before the train arrives.  Another young guy comes along by himself.  Over one shoulder are the handles to a big canvas bag with a bright pink flower print.  He's stepping down to the tracks and then climbing back up to the platform, picking up trash which he puts in the bag.  Sandals are on his dirty feet.

     The train arrives and takes me toward downtown.  At one stop along the way, I watch through the window as one passenger boards the next car with a dog without a leash.  This line drops me on the far side of a downtown college campus.  I'm joined at the station by a group of goofy hipsters.  They've just come out of the car with the guy and his dog.  They step too close to the tracks and a train approaching from the other direction blows its whistle at them.  I ride to the other side of campus, to the downtown trail and then on to the supercenter.  I manage to get the door to the entrance open when an elderly woman insists on squeezing past myself and my bike.  So that she may hold the door for me.  I feel time slipping away from me, in spite of the city's rapid transit.  I reach the bicycle department at fifteen to 1 PM.  Not bad.  A tech tells me my bike will be ready in 40 minutes.  This is fantastic news.  I'm getting new brake pads, having a rail straightened which should have been done a couple of visits ago (which is why one sifter won't come out of gear and which I'm told I won't be charged for), get my brakes adjusted, and even check the oil.  So to speak.  (By this, I mean get the chain cleaned and oiled.)  The tech asks me if I want a "soft adjustment".  I tell her, I don't want anything soft.  Cables tight, tires full. The tech crew this afternoon is almost all young and female. Forty minutes turn into an hour.  The tech tells me that she checked my front rotor.  This is the literal disc in the "disc brakes".  I need a new one.  I tell her she better check the rear rotor.  She says I need two new ones.  (I need to tell her to check both and not only one?)  This is turning into some kind of comedy.  She says it's not a time-consuming replacement.  I watch her as she slowly unscrews six screws from each rotor.  She shows me a new one.  "Nice and shiny," she says. The minutes are something which I can almost feel slipping away.  An hour and a half after I get here, my bike is ready.  I race down a trail from here back to my side of town.  I get home five minutes before 3 PM.  I jump in the shower to wash the perspiration off.  I throw on some clothes.  I step outside to see if my lady is here, just in time to see her walking toward my door.  We head down my boulevard to our favorite Mexican place.  We have an early dinner and sit and talk for four hours.  My butt gets sore.  Next weekend, she wants to go hiking she tells me.

     Monday.  I hit my old rec center before the waterpark, to do the workout I missed yesterday.  When I reach the waterpark, I enter the parking lot off the trail.  Hidden in a corner of the lot, next to the entrance of the trail, is a small homeless pickup truck.  The hood is open and the air filter is removed and sitting on the engine.  In the pool are a couple of females who I am convinced are sisters.  The oldest is perhaps a high school junior or senior.  She's absolutely beautiful, with long honey blonde hair.  The other is not yet old enough for kindergarten.  The younger one is reluctant to come off the steps into the shallow end.  By the time I'm leaving, the older sister has convinced her.  Mondays, we're open until after the pool closes.  I'm riding home in a rainstorm.  I'm rolling past the parking lot for the waterpark.  It's empty now, except for the homeless pickup.  It will be gone the following day.  Now, swimming.  Let's briefly discuss.  Monday through Wednesday of this week, I had to be at work early.  So no waterpark.  Monday we close late.  Monday through Thursday afternoon, it rained.  No pool.  Thursday.  It's overcast and 64 degrees F.  When I leave for work, it's drizzling.  I go to the waterpark anyway.  I have the pool and the drop slide entirely to myself.  This may be the last week of the season when the pools and this waterpark are open during the weekdays.  Moving to weekends only.  There is another outdoor pool, the opposite direction of the far one where I've been swimming on weekends.  It's open during the week through Labor Day.  As for the rain, it's forecast tomorrow as well, and next Monday. As it nears time to close at work, the sky turns a familiar shade of dark. Just minutes after I leave work, there's a bright flash overhead, followed by loud thunder.  Seconds later the rain opens up.  I stop under a tree in a front yard and pull out my poncho.  It lets up halfway home. Back on my corner, the homeless guitar guy occupies a spot at a corner of the Vietnamese grocery parking lot.  He has the guitar in hand.  He has other possessions in a plastic trash can somehow affixed to his bicycle.  The following morning, I'm due at work a half hour early.  Again it's grey and cool. No waterpark.  I'm out the door and on the long street a block from my own.  Coming toward me is a homeless couple, both on bicycles . I've seen them around, the woman much older than the guy.  Neither have helmets.  As I said, homeless.  Both have unlit cigarettes hanging from their lips.  This is one end of the street.  Toward the other end is a big dog laying in the street.  From here, it appears as if it's dead.  As I approach, I then notice the owner on his phone.  When I pass, the dog jumps up.  Deceased indeed.  Its owner says something to it in Spanish.

"Hmm.  You Don't Know If There's an Event."

     I'm on the way home Friday.  I pass a spot on the trail, along the bank of a creek. There have been a pair of tents down on the bank, and a clothesline, and assorted stuff.  With most of the week having seen rain, this creek has surely risen, as it always does.  Everything down on the bank has been moved up and to the other side of the trail.  I'm sure it was hauled up here by the proper authorities, as it's neatly stacked.  Branches lay among the collection.  Saturday.  The sky is clear for the first time in days.  At work I check the sky to see if I need sunscreen.  I see some clouds in the sky.  I roll the dice and don't put it on.  At 3 PM, I leave work and there are dak clouds to the west rolling in.  I make a break for the distant pool.  I'm almost there when thunder shows up.  I stop to put on my poncho.  When I get there, they're shut down for a half hour, until they get the OK to reopen.  I decide to ride home.  I'm just back across the tracks, coming up a busy avenue, just a couple streets from my own.  An ambulance approaches from behind.  I turn my head to avoid the siren...not watching where I'm going.  The next thing I know, my front tire is hissing, alternating louder and softer as the rim rotates.  The air doesn't last long.  There's no slime in this tube.  Fortunately, it's not a long walk home. I know where I'm going tomorrow.  I make it up to just a block from my street.  On the corner is a pile of parked cars.  I think I hear a PA system.  Along the way down this last block, a teenaged kid comes out of his home.  He asks me, "Sir, is there an event [going on]?"  I tell him I don't know.  "Hmm," he replies, "you don't know if there's an event."  Hey, I'm just a guy with a flat.  I could be homeless for all he knows.  When I get home, I have a message from my lady.  The hike has been postponed.  She wants to go out for coffee at 5 PM.  I again suggest we get dinner.  The good news is, I have the day to complete a list of tasks.  The first thing I do on Sunday is remove my front rim.  Fortunately, 'tis the front one which is flat.  The rear rim involves winding the cassette around the chain while somehow removing the rim straight out of the slot with the brake pads.   I secure it to the back rack of the bike I ride on the weekends.  I'm out of the house shortly after 8 AM.  I decide to get the tube replacement out of the way.  I forget that all I have to do, to hook up with the trail to the sporting goods supercenter...is ride north.  Shadowing my own boulevard.  Past the construction I would otherwise run into catching the trail across town.  And that's exactly what I do, head across town.  I ride down the neighborhood streets I walked up a little more than 12 hours ago.  I realize what I did and decide to continue on to the train.  It whips me downtown, and soon the tube is replaced.  I ride back down the trail to my place.  Along the trail, a Lycra-clad cyclists saw I had stopped to polish off the hot chocolate I grabbed from the coffee shop next to the bike place.  He asks if I'm "Okay?"  Then I'm home.  Front rim replaced.  It was only a 3-hour trip.

     The rest of the afternoon was another successful mad dash.  I grabbed lunch at the bar and grill near the gym.  The outdoor bar had one seat left, between two couples. On the left, the guy was telling his lady about listening to a Joe Rogan podcast.  He killed a fly on the bar with his hat.  I did indeed grab some chocolate therapy.  Hit the gym, the hot tub, and made it to the waterpark.  All before making it home in time for another dinner date with my lady.  Monday.  I'm called in to work a couple of hours early.  At work, I check the internet and make a couple of calls.  Beginning today, the pools in my municipality are done for the season.  The waterpark has gone to weekends only.  But...there is a rec center to the west of my home. And it has an outdoor pool which is open every day until Labor Day.  I check online for this week's schedule for that pool.  Tuesday through Thursday...the outdoor pool is open until 7:30 PM!  I get out of work at 5, and I think I can do the ride in an hour.  I stay a little late at work today, when we close an hour later than the rest of the week, and I abort the idea of a swim this evening.  I do grab a bus up the boulevard.  From the train station, I ride toward home.  I'm coming through the intersection of a busy boulevard, approaching the underpass of another train station.  From the sidewalk on the other side, a homeless couple on bicycles have pulled in front of me, toward the underpass.  This is a long sidewalk, raised above the busy avenue below.  It goes under both a set of passenger and commercial train tracks, and it comes out at an intersection with a highway.  It's a popular underpass for homeless to pitch a camp.  The guy is behind the lady, both ahead of me, and he's pulling a bike trailer.  The cloth top is gone from the trailer, which is full of some stuff.  A bulldog stands on top of the pile.  I follow them through the crosswalk.  They turn off at the opposite corner, and I head for home.  I'm coming over the sidewalk where my front rim picked up a shard of glass 48 hours ago.

     Tuesday.  I do the ride to the outdoor pool the opposite direction from work.  At the outside, it only takes me 50 minutes.  I have a fine swim.  This early, it's only lap swim.  My bags are on a bench next to the pool.  A young guy in the lane next to me is doing a butterfly stroke.  When he turns at the end of the lane where the bench is, he splashes water on my bags.  I'm suddenly in a Three Stooges sketch.  The ride to work however appears to be something like two hours.  I can still make it back to the pool by 7 PM.  Or so I thought.  At closing time where I work, I have my bag secured to the back rack on my bike.  Helmet and bike shorts on.  The front tire is flat as a pancake.  Well, it's been threatening rain all afternoon anyway.  I grab a quick diner at the bakery before I catch the bus with the bike.  From the bus to the train downtown, and up and over a bridge with many stairs.  And a walk back to the supercenter, The tech finds a thorn in my tire, so it wasn't a defective tube.  But he tells me the previous tech adjusted my brakes "sloppily."  I ask if he has any Teflon tire liners in stock.  The warehouse from which it would otherwise come is out.  And my new tube does not have a valve which may be removed (in which to insert slime.)  But he doesn't charge me for the brake readjust.  And I'm ready to ride home.  Which is fortunate, because I'm opening Thursday.  I've been gone today from 8 AM to 9 PM.

     ...interacting with the natural world.  ...in busy neighborhoods or quiet forests...  ...jot down thoughts and observations...  It's easy to get lazy observing nature...amidst beautiful surroundings.  ...sharpen your senses as you record delightful details, ever present in the ordinary but commonly ignored.  ...walking barefoot...then sharing your experience.  ..."Nocturnal Nature," "Urban Nature,"..."Traveling and Tramping" and "Just Breathe."  ...just dip your toes into a cool pool...  - Well, Summer + Fall 2024

     I'm calling Wednesday a triumph.  The sun is out.  It's been raining overnight all week.  I do the math incorrectly and leave for the pool an hour later than I want.  I still make good time.  In spite of my not taking a correct turn.  And taking a brief goose chase around a residential loop, resulting in zero benefit and wasting precious minutes.  Only then do I realize that I came too far down one street.  I turn onto a trail along a busy highway.  The rain clouds have retreated to the far horizon.  The sky is as blue as the fire smoke will allow.  I'm climbing a long hill, at the crest of which is a wonderful view. It hits me then that I've been on this asphalt trail before.  I just can't remember why I've been here.  It's downhill fast to the avenue upon which I want to turn.  I move around an overweight girl at the corner.  Onto the avenue's sidewalk, I'm then confronted with a mom pushing a stroller. I find a moment to move around the pair.  I weave along the sidewalk for some blocks before I reach the street with the pool.   I reach the parking lot and weave around several elderly rec center patrons.  One guy in a buttoned-down shirt and slacks says, "Hello."  I still make it with a fighting chance to swim.  At the desk, they charge me two dollars less than yesterday morning.  I have a quick lap swim before I head for the trail from here to work.  When I did this ride 24 hours ago, I concluded that the end of this trail took me out of the way to connect with my usual trail to work.  I ended up doing some backtracking.  This morning, I exit this trail along a street which I use to ride to the sister's place.  It requires climbing a long hill.  But I end up at the bakery across the street from where I work...having shaved at least a half hour off of yesterday's ride.  Perhaps more than that.  After work, again the sky is threatening rain as usual.  I decline to return to the pool this late afternoon and head for home instead.

     Thursday.  As I'm working open to close, I ain't simmin' before work this morning.  I ride to the stop for a bus to work.  Along the way, in a residential neighborhood close to the stop, a cat pursues a mouse around a corner.  The cat stops to look at me before it continues its chase.  I don't get as much sleep as I would have liked, and at work I briefly doze off.  I have a quick dream that I'm riding through an underpass, and outside is a flash of lightning.  Even days such as today, open to close, they always go flying past.  So many customers drop off the last 2 1/2 hours, I wonder if I will leave on time.  I get everything done, and I do the ride from the distant rec center in reverse after work.  I have a fine swim, though this particular outdoor pool is 2" 9" on one end, and 3" 3" on the other.  Inside the rec center, through a couple of open garage doors, is a diving pool and another large swimming pool.   I ride home and have dinner at the Vietnamese place behind my home.  I listen to one of the managers speak English to another employee.  I'm listening to her ask someone to, "Clean this.  Okay?  Clean this?"  I wonder why she doesn't use Vietnamese and I look up to see an employee who isn't Vietnamese.  I wonder if he's Hispanic, because he doesn't appear to understand right away.  Friday.  Along the way to the rec center, I take another goose chase through a neighborhood loop.  When I leave for the rec center, the temperature feels as if it's in the 60s F.  After work, I'm headed home as the outdoor pool is closed by now at the distant rec center.  It feels as if it could be 100 degrees F.  I stop at a deathburger to grab dinner.  When I cone out, my front tire is once again flat.  Fortunately, I'm within walking distance of a train.  It whips me downtown where I have a short walk to the sporting goods supercenter.  The same tech from Tuesday is here this evening.  He has a look at the tube, which I told him lasted 72 hours.  He tells me that he discovered a manufacturer defect.  There's a missing gasket.  I never would have guessed.  He comps me a tube.  I ask if he has one with slime.  He has one which fits.  Before the defective tube went flat, I had planned to hit the supermarket on the way home.  I decide to hit one downtown this evening.  At one intersection off the trail, a pair of young guys pull up on choppers.  One yells at me, "HEY!"  He keeps yelling as I ignore him.  The other yells, "Help me!"  Neither has helmets.  At the green light, they take off.  One accelerates ahead and darts across into the next lane.  A few seconds later, I turn into the parking lot for the supermarket.  It's covered by the rest of an office or residential tower above.  I sneak between a police SUV with its lights flashing and a concrete pillar.  Its siren blares next to me and it takes off for the exit ahead.  It's followed by an identical vehicle behind me.  I pick up some vegetables for lunch to take with me to work, in an effort to return to eating at work.  With 12 diet sodas and veggies, I take off in the dark.  Out of downtown, and toward a trail back to my own side of town.  I ride down a street with what appear to be Victorian era homes, now occupied by kids attending the downtown campus.  It's an interesting thing to see in this low-income neighborhood.  Makes me want to yell, "HEY!"  And I'm not even on a chopper.  I take a long and steep bridge over the train and highway to the trail home.  The sunset over the mountains is quite a sight.

The American Whore

      Saturday.  I'm on the connecting trail home after work.  I'm coming along a big golf course with a small forest of trees along the river.  Ahead are perhaps ten paramedics from a firehouse.  On the grass, under the shade of the trees, is a thin young woman.  When I get home, I have a message from my lady.  She's repostponing our hike.  Her car is making a noise she doesn't like. Not unlike my bike repair, she took her car in and paid money to have it looked at.  They didn't find what was causing the squeak.  She has since recorded the noise on her phone and is going to take it back in this week.  Instead, she is picking me up at 5:30 PM for another dinner date.  So, on Sunday, I on the way to the waterpark.  I'm in cycling shorts and no shirt, climbing a hill on a street in my extended neighborhood.   An oncoming hatchback passes me.  I hear the driver say, barely audibly, "Put some clothes on."  I have a fine swim at the waterpark, lunch at the bar and grill, workout at the gym, and some chocolate therapy.  During lunch, I have the outdoor bar to myself.  There's no one else here to complain about the fan blowing air out of the bar, to keep out the bugs.  It appears as if the overhead tarp has been moved closer to the bar.  I don't have a shaft of sunlight on my head and neck.  Soon, a young couple takes two of the seats.  The bartender asks the guy if he wants anything to drink.  With the supreme confidence of a local, he orders a "Hazy IPA."  The bartender tells him he has one particular kind.  Sophisticated drinkers are up on their details.  "That'll do," the guy replies.  The girl is silent.  The bartender asks is she's going to "start with Mimosas...Bloody [Mary]s?"  I make it home in the late afternoon and have another long dinner with my lady.  Monday I get another late start and I have a lot to do, so I skip the pool before work.  It's a gloomy grey day anyhow.  I'm coming down a long street in my extended neighborhood.  I'm stopped at a busy avenue, at a home on the corner where the woman with her pants down was pulling weeds.  This morning, there's a grey-haired guy out next to a tall row of bushes.  He's pouring something out of a pitcher. He says to me, "Buenos dias, por favor.  Welcome to the American whore."  Does me make reference to the previous woman?

     Tuesday.  9:30 PM.  I get the call.  Can I open?  My alarm wakes me up.  I don't get as much sleep as I would like.  When I am ready to leave the house an hour later, it makes me laugh. I have my bag secured on the back rack of my bike.  The last thing I always do is check the sir in my tires.  Is this the 4th or 5th time?  My front tire is flat as a pancake.  I would otherwise return downstairs and bring up the bike I use for the commute to work, when my newest one is in disrepair.  But I don't have the time for all this, including moving Velcro pouches from one bike frame to another.  Next to the bike I have upstairs is the one I ride on the weekends, with its own bags on the frame.  I simply move my back from one back rack to the other.  The hell with the rain poncho.  I ride to work and back, and the entire day goes past in a flash.  When I get home, it's then I bring the other bike upstairs and move the pouches and fill the tires.  Thursday morning, I secure the flat front rim on top of my bag on the back rack.  I ride into downtown and make my way to a deathburger for breakfast to go.  This particular bike uses break fluid, and it's notoriously low.  I have to walk down one steep hill to get out of my neighborhood.  I hope its something the supercenter can handle. I'll find out when I get there.  From the deathburger to the downtown trail which goes straight to the supercenter.  I have to make my way around a guy asleep on the sidewalk.  I end up running over some landscaping stones.  My butt is thrown off the seat, and the front end of the seat stabs me in the butt.  I pass another homeless guy directly after this, who says out loud, "That's it?"  I reply, "That's it."   It's a short ride to the bike shop.  On the crest of the final hill, acyclist passes me and says melodically, "Good mor-ning."  I reply, "Goodbye."  Somehow, with a rim on my back rack, breakfast to go, and being stabbed in the butt by my own seat, I have arrived at the infamous front door of the sporting goods supercenter.  Speaking of but, I'm here but a few seconds when a guy with a coffee in one hand reaches for the handle of the front door.  It's locked. He tells me he was going to open the door for me.  Then...he leaves.  He wasn't even going inside himself.  (?) The next attempt is by a young woman carrying a beagle in one arm.  She was going to take her dog inside?  When the door is unlocked, I'm in front of a tech who hears the story of my three or four previous visits.  This particular bike tech tells me a couple of significant things.  One is that he immediately notices that mt front tire is worn out.  This is undoubtedly the reason for my flats.  I suspected as much. The other is, with the purchase of a new tire, a new tube is free.  Had the tire been diagnosed a week and a half a go, I would have not had to pay for two tubes.  I ask him to top off both brake fluid lines.  He recommends the lines be flushed instead, which obviously can't be done today.  I ask him to top off the lines anyway.  He asks for a half hour.

     I wait and listen to others who show up.  One is a customer who arrives to pick up a bike.  He sounds like a dork.  "They called me to ask, 'Can I pick it up tonight?'  And I'm like, 'No.""  The tech asks him for paperwork.  He has none.  The tech wants to make sure that all the work on his bike has been completed.  He asks the customer, "Do you have any other shopping to do?"  This customer begins most sentences with "Um".  "Um, not really."  I laugh at this.  He's not smart enough to humor the tech a little, or play along.  I wonder if he knows the guy who opens doors to businesses without entering them himself.  The tech asks for 15 minutes just to check over the bike the customer is here to pick up.  Another customer in line has a bicycle which I am glancing over.  It has no gears, and only one brake on the front rim.  A female tech cocks in.  She's gabby and upbeat.  Another tech asks her about something of hers which he admires.  She answers with the address of a website.  "Gear dot com, dude," or something.  The guy with the gearless bike is with a tech.  He tells the tech, "I could have adjusted the brake myself, but I brought it into you."  My rim has a new tire and a new tube with sealant inside, otherwise known as slime.  I decide instead of putting the rim back on the rack, to use the bungees to carry it on my back.  I also decide, instead of my original plan to take the rim to work, to ride home from here.  I do so and put this bike back in the basement.  I'm home with time to head for the bus.  Rim replaced on its frame, along with Velcro pouches, I'm out the door once again.

     ...the lights at the Buffalo Bill restaurant and gift shop will be switched off at year's end.  ...employees, many of whom are international citizens in the U.S. on work permits who stay in housing on the Tepee's lower level.

     "Coffee doesn't have to be this global commodity.  Coffee...can be very regional...  It can tell a story.  ...what different localities taste and feel like."  ...a professional travel and food photographer...  ...Yacht Club (recent winner of best cocktail bar in the U.S.) ...  - Westword,  8/22-28/2024

     Sunday.  After a week of my swimming before work thwarted, I made it to the waterpark yesterday after work.  And the hike with my lady is postponed until she gets a day off from the job she begins this weekend.  So I make it to the gym as well as the waterpark again today.  At the waterpark, I'm in line at the drop slide.  A mom has an interesting one-piece suit on.  It has long sleeves.  I think I hear her speak both Italian and English.  I ask her if she's Italian.  She replies that she's speaking Hebrew.  Afterward, I run down a goose chase which claimed to be an outdoor art festival.  Nope.  My lady and I do go to the park near her home.  We sit and discuss our contributions to social services through paychecks.  She's receiving disability until the end of this month, recovering from a shoulder operation.  She's done nothing but work and has worn out the joint.  I can't believe that Labor Day is just around the corner.  I get home and get the call.  Can I come in 3 hours early?  On Wednesday, I sneak in a swim before work, at the distant rec center outdoor pool, the opposite direction from work.  I'm flying down the trail from there to work, approaching an oncoming pedestrian.  I check my rearview mirror and spot an approaching cyclist.  I get past the pedestrian and move to the right.  The cyclist who passes me has a Lycra cycling shirt on.  Upon the back, in capital letters, it reads as follows, "TRIPLE BYPASS".  I get to work, and during only my regular shift during a busy day, it flies past.  One of my customers I mention the cycling jersey to explains that it's the name of a particular invitational bike ride.  On the way home, I stop at my neighborhood supermarket and pick up more diet soda for home.  Then I realize I can swing by the clinic a few blocks away and pick up a prescription.  I arrive home and am working on this blog...when I realize I left the sodas at the clinic.  I jump on a bike and ride back and collect them.

     Thursday.  I get the call to come in a hour early.  The following day I will work open to close.  I'm sitting at a stop for my bus to work.  Last night's rain clouds have burned off and it's a beautiful blue sky.  School is back in chaos.  I awoke with plenty of sleep.  Again, I can't believe it's the end of the last month of summer.  How long will it be before, instead of removing my helmet because of the heat, I'm removing it to put on the hood of my winter jacket?  Here on the sidewalk is a diaper.  The bus comes and collects us, and soon we're at a stop across the boulevard from a supermarket.  The elderly passenger in an apron who steps aboard strikes me as somewhat familiar.  He's counting out change for his fare when the driver asks him to sit down.  She has to get moving she explains, and he can't be standing when the bus is in motion.  The following evening, I will end up working late enough that I catch the bus home.  In a first for myself and another passenger, the driver does not even stop at the gate in the train station.  This is news to us.  She tells him the cord must be pulled for the train station, just as any other stop.  Either this is brand new...or this driver is off the chain.  But Late Thursday morning, we stop and pick up a guy with a child in a stroller.  Seated directly across from me, the stroller and I make a kind of gauntlet through which the elderly apron guy passes five times.  Once when he takes a seat, the next two when he again approaches the driver with the rest of his fare, and the fourth when he yet again walks up to the fare box next to the driver.  Now she's yelling at him to please sit down when the bus is moving.  He's finally taken aback, and replies, "Okay," as if to tell her to calm down.

     "If you get on your bike at one end of the city where I live...on the southeast corner ... I want to be able to find my way...downtown without risking my life or feeling...nervous the whole way down."  ...sidewalks are "an integral part of the whole transportation mobility mix."  - Littleton Independent, 8/22/2024

     ...bike lane construction, which began in 2022 and lasted until April, [was] "the real hit" that made it hard to survive...  "It was a matter of survival to...outlast the bike lane being open."  ...the lack of connection to other bikeways in the city...means the lane could be underutilized until the...infrastructure is built out, which will take years.  "...really problematic is...a lot of bicycles and scooters on the sidewalks."  - Westword, 8/29-9/4/2024

     'Tis the last day of the month.  Yesterday I left the house around 4 AM.  On my corner is a Vietnamese grocery.  It's a building outside of which has seen three of its exterior side occupied at different times, by a homeless guy with an acoustic guitar.  And a bicycle, and a bike trailer, and a shopping cart.  The last two are overflowing with a collection of apparently random items.  Four hours past midnight, someone is bundled up asleep across the front entrance.  I ride through the crosswalk.  Across the street is a 24-hour gas station.  Three homeless guys stand at the entrance.  They watch me ride in the dark, bike shorts and no shirt.  One whistles at me, or does his best.  On this Saturday morning though, I leave the house shortly before 7 AM, as the sun is just coming over the horizon.  I'm headed to a stop for my bus to work.  I cross my boulevard at the long street a block from my own.  A homeless couple are crossing the street in front of a dive bar.  The lady is in a hot pink coat.  It's a chilly morning.  Just a short block away, another homeless guy turns the corner on an Uber bicycle.  In his left hand, he holds a pair of aluminum crutches.  They flash in the rising son.  I will end up at work in an hour and a half, and cross the street to get breakfast before work.  At 3 PM, I leave work and ride to the waterpark, for their last weekend of the season.  I get some funnel fries, deep fried waffle sticks covered in powdered sugar.  Every time I've been here this season, a different middle-aged person is manning the funnel fry stand.  This afternoon, it's a slow guy.  He somehow even fries slowly.  When I get my order, I hand him six ones.  He makes a joke, "We don't take ones." before he smiles and takes the cash.  There's an old push button cash register at this stand.  Another middle-aged guy comes along to empty his trash can.  He tells him he has no trash and to check on the lady at an ice cream booth.  In the pool is a young dad surrounded by kids.  He's in a shirt from a surf shop somewhere.  If he's a surfer, I'm the Pope.  I have a swim, a couple of rides down the drop slide, and I head for home.  The park is open today, Sunday, and Labor Day.  The outdoor pool at the rec center the opposite direction from work is open through the 15th of next month.  It's been a fine month and something of a confusing summer. But mine is not to question why.  I found myself sitting at the bakery across the street from work one morning. I just wanted to stay and sit and read.  I asked myself why I was do responsible?  Why didn't I just blow off work?  because if I wasn't at work, the place would spin out of control.  I suppose that's a compliment.  Oh, but to sit in the bakery for an entire morning, just once...