November 2024

      [A] young cycling champion...was killed at age 17 by a driver...on the Diagonal Highway...between Boulder and Longmont [CO.]  ...in the ER, dirt still stuck to his face, blood from his skull fractures...  -  Cycling West, late Summer 2024

     Okay computer club members. Last week, my kickstand became loose enough that it began kissing the spokes on my rear rim.  It did so again on my ride home after work on Halloween.  On the 1st, I awake after a fine sleep.  I'm out the door to the bike shop in the sporting goods supercenter.  I can wait across the street for a bus to the train, which may only crawl its way into downtown.  I elect to do the ride.  I'm across my boulevard and headed toward a steep downhill street.  The street is closed for some kind of work and I hop up onto the sidewalk.  A Public Works guy tells me I will have to slow down, before he confesses he's joking.  It comes across as odd.  Along the way, I'm detoured off the trail at a busy avenue.  I scout a route into downtown I don't recall, trying to pick the trail up past the detour.  I'm rolling past the city water headquarters and other industrial lots before I spot familiar landmarks.  Inside the supercenter, a tech has a look at my fancy, modern kickstand mounted next to the rear axle.  A rivet has come loose inside the stand, and it can't be tightened due to its design.  A new kickstand is fifteen bucks.  It's as old fashioned a kickstand as there is, and gets mounted where they have been located on bike frames throughout the decades.  The tech also tightens up my brakes, and I'm off to work.  Again, I ask myself if I want to risk the train to my bus.  I elect instead to simply ride to the train station to catch my bus to work.  On Saturday, I decide I have enough time to ride to work.  The overnights are frosty now.  This morning, my upper body is comfortable in T-shirt, hoodie, and windbreaker.  But even in lined pants, I wouldn't be uncomfortable had I put on long underwear.  And without a second pair of socks, my toes are just beginning to feel the bite of the chill.  When I leave work at 3:30 PM, it's at least 66 degrees F.  I grab a bus to the train station, where I do the short ride home without a shirt.  I snuck in one more afternoon.

     Sunday.  I get up and move my six clocks back an hour.  The day is in the 50s F.  I make a reservation for my bar and grill before I'm off to that stop before the gym.  I do the entire ride, arriving at the neighborhood with the grill and my gym.  I pause at a pedestrian crosswalk to remove my balaclava.  I'm not going through the crosswalk.  A homeless guy on the other side has pressed the button for the light to alert traffic that he's crossing.  He never comes across.  I move a short way down the sidewalk before I sneak across the street and to the grill.  I'm some 15 minutes early for my reservation.  I sit on the concrete just the other side of a fence where the outdoor patio is.  It's in the mid 50s F and the outdoor bar is open.  A patron is seated on a stool, his dog on a leash.  He's telling another patron how his dog, "is only scared by really sharp loud noises.  Shotguns.  He likes to chase squirrels."  I decide to move closer to the host so he knows where I am.  I sit on a bench across from a senior woman on the bench opposite myself.  She's telling someone that Tim Kane was on Saturday Night Live.  "I didn't like the band though.  They were silly.  The music was weird."  My table is ready.  WE enter through the outdoor patio.  The guy at the bar pulls his dog out of the way.  After lunch and a visit to The Chocolate Therapist, I hit the gym.  This gym has an annual used book sale.  Today is the sale.  I pick up a couple of books before my workout.  The hot tub is broken again.  After the gym I take the bus back to my neighborhood.  I grab a few items from my neighborhood supermarket before I ride home.  The lightest of rain begins to fall.  I hit the Vietnamese place for dinner before walking home past the Vietnamese supermarket.  Vietnamese shoppers are coming out of the door, past Not Guitar Bear.  He's asking each one of us, "Gotadollar?  Gotadollar?  Gotadollar?"

     ...we, editors and readers alike, can actually influence the course of human history.  [Those of us] concerned with the quality of life and the future of our species.  can become a formidable constituency.  ...eager minds anxious, if not determined, to advance science, peace, and intellectual prosperity in our world...  - Bob Guccione, publisher OMNI Magazine, 10/1983

     On Election Day, I get another late start.  So late that I ride toward the train station with doubts that I will make the bus.  As I approach the exit from the station, I see my bus pulling out.  I turn down a residential street to race it to the stop where I used to wait for it.  I'm yards away when I see it pass along.  Looks as if it's time to grab lunch at my cafe across the busy avenue from this stop.  There's a new local magazine.  A new what?  In 2024?  It's kind of literary, kind of historical, with featured local artists.  I think it's monthly.  The editor of last month's premiere issue, which I found here at the cafe, mentioned in the mission statement that he wanted to begin a new magazine which didn't employ artificial intelligence.  His editorial discussed the detrimental effects on writing students of no longer having to rely on the traditional organic human brain for things including my own computer which suggests which word I want to use next.  His opinion isn't evident in the articles.  It's not a collection of pieces which take a stand against software.  They strike me as having the kind of insight to local experience, not of city events or news stories, but simply living here.  The magazine has made it to its second issue.  And here at the cafe, it has its own rack.  It's been some time since I decided to collect and save issues of a magazine.  After lunch, I head across the street to the stop.  I notice a small few square feet which is fenced off for some kind of construction.  There's still plenty of room for the bus to pull up.  I just happen to notice the bus stop sign.  It's closed again, this time through Friday.  I should have plenty of time to ride to the next stop.  It's closing in on noon when I try to call the transit system.  Traffic isn't especially heavy.    I can't get a signal.  Then I see the bus coming.  It's 15 minutes late.  At work it's approaching closing time.  It's been a busy month so far.  I notice outside a blustery wind.  And it's darker than it should be.  I'm fine in my hoodie and windbreaker.  Not long after I leave, I feel the first drop.  A few minutes later, light white flakes are falling.  An hour later, I'm approaching the street where I exit the trail.  It's mountain snow a-blowin', tiny wet flakes.  I'm on my corner.  Throughout the year, I've seen the occasional pickup truck turn this corner, with an American flag mounted on a pole in the bed.  I've also us flags displayed on days when I don't know which holiday it is.  This early evening, a pickup with a pair of flags turns the corner.  One is a US flag.  The other is for one of the presidential candidates.  Is the driver attempting to influence voters at this late hour?  With a candidate's flag in English, and a neighborhood full of residents not all of whom speak English?  I wonder where you purchase flag poles for the bed of a pickup truck?  Not long after I get home, it begins piling up.  The next morning, there's a few inches on the ground.

October 2024, My Mailbox Lock Gets Replaced, Both Guitar Bear and Not Guitar Bear Are on My Corner, and the End of a Long Indian Summer

      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.  Past the underwear kids, I turn a corner, after which I spot a Public Works pickup truck.  I turn off the trail onto a path around a playground, which returns to the trail.  The path goes along a big field where a children's soccer game is going on.  On the other side of the path are parents watching the game.  Where the path rejoins the trail, I pause as a couple of local police SUVs follow the pickup down the trail.  I ride to the connecting trail home and stop at a supermarket on the way home.  Another local police SUV is parked outside the building.  No one is inside the SUV.  Friday.  My lady must work on Saturday, so there shall be no Halloween parade.  Instead, she suggests we go to lunch on Sunday.  This means I must hit the gym some other time than Sunday around lunchtime.  This morning, I awake with time to go to the gym.  Just as I'm headed for the shower, my phone rings.  Can I come in a couple of hours early?  No gym this morning.  Perhaps I can hit it when I get up Sunday and be back for lunch.  I leave the house shortly before 8 AM and ride just a block down the sidewalk to a pedestrian crosswalk with a button for a blinking light.  I never use the light.  I wait for a break in the traffic.  When I see traffic in both directions have stopped, I realize that someone on the opposite end of the crosswalk has hit their button.  I hear unintelligible yelling, perhaps of words in another language.  A little homeless guy with shaggy greasy hair is walking his own bicycle through the crosswalk.  I'm through and headed for the train station where my bus to work stops.  It's rush hour proper. Down the busy avenue, I make it across the river and both lanes of a highway.  Across a busy boulevard are the Monopoly condos.  From around a corner comes a resident walking his dog.  I'm off the sidewalk.  he moves off the sidewalk.  I move back on.  Around a corner and down the street is a crosswalk backed up with traffic.  I sneak through it as it begins moving.  Dodging more traffic, I take a sidewalk down one residential street.  Turning trees and falling leaves.  I turn back toward the street which follows the train line, that follows the interstate.  before I can make it onto that sidewalk, I dodge yet more traffic and turn into a parking lot filled with cars.  Out from between a pair of vehicles comes a mom holding the hand of a child.  I make my way a cross some small landscaping stones and finally onto a sidewalk.  Which takes me to a bike lane.  Which allows me to sneak into a turn lane into the station.  No army of residents with walkers this morning.

    Toward the end of the week, the high temps have subsided.  I'm riding in my windbreaker and pants now.   I get home from work Saturday.  I'm on my boulevard, at the corner across from my own.  From a gas station comes a cyclist on a bike festooned with colored lights.  He's yelling at no one in particular.  On the other corner, I see both Guitar Bear and the other homeless guy who I thought was him.  I guess they are two different people.  I have a message from my lady.  She's picking me up at noon.  This will end up being after 1:30 PM.  Which is fine, because we will spend 2 1/2 hours doin' what we do, enjoying each other's company before she has to go to work.  So my plan is to hit the gym before then.  Around 7 AM, I'm out the door Sunday morning.  I'm down the sidewalk along my boulevard.  At the pedestrian crosswalk, someone is bundled up under a tree.  When I come through this crosswalk, just off the bus a block away, I will see a woman here folding a blanket.  I'm not sure whether a tent is here as well.  Guitar Bear will also be down here then with his purple wagon.  This morning, I grab breakfast at a deathburger down the boulevard.  Inside in a chair is a homeless woman asleep, her white hair laying across the table.  Over the back of the chair is a pink blanket with something written down the length of it.  I collect my order and sit near a window.  Just the other side of it is my bike, parked where I can keep an eye on it.  Opposite the window is a flat screen TV.  It's tuned to a channel sponsored by the restaurant chain, and appears to be nothing more than videos of people outside doing activities.  Horseback riding, snowboarding, skateboarding, boogie boarding.  On Tuesday, I'm perhaps halfway to work when I stop along the trail.  I change out of my shoes, pants, and windbreaker.  The shoes go in my bag and I put on sandals.  It's another late morning when I'm riding to work without a shirt.  With a bag over my shoulder, I can feel the sun on my upper back.  I believe the high reached 80 degrees F.  Along the way, I stop at a supermarket where I wanted to pick up some items yesterday, but had to go in early.  I'm checking out at a U-scan next to a young guy.  He's just staring at the screen, his wallet frozen in his hand.  He appears to be struggling mentally.  As he begins rambling, a clerk comes over to assist him.  He alternates between saying "thank you" and making random insults, exclaiming to no one that his "roommate stole" his "medication."  The clerk assists him with each step.  By the time the young guy is making his way to the exit, he's yelling.

     The following morning, I'm getting a late start and am headed to the train station for my bus to work.  I'm across the highway and climbing a sidewalk which leads through an underpass ahead.  On the side of the underpass opposite the street is a field of dirt.  A handful of homeless are moving their collection of stuff, from the wall along the underpass to the space between the sidewalk and the street, along another lower wall.  I make an s-curve between them toward the underpass, where one of them ahead of me is carrying a skateboard.  One of the handful yells, "Andy!" to alert him I'm approaching from behind.  Andy is tuned out.  After work, I'm on my way home.  On top of my usual back on the back rack is a smaller bag.  It's an old bag with an old pair of cycling pants.  It also has a windbreaker which is much newer, but it's a size too small.  I bought it on sale.  Along the trail home, I detour to a deathburger for dinner.  When I park my bike, I notice that the bag has slipped out of the bungee cord.  It's gone along with the items inside.  I can't say that I'm upset.  This deathburger is in a big shopping center.  And today is payday.  After I eat, I head over to a Target and find new cycling pants.  A clerk chases down the last windbreaker.  And I find a new pair of jeans.  As well as a couple more items from the grocery side.  This windbreaker is a size too large, which has to be better than a size too small.  Thursday.  I waited until today, until I made sure my paycheck had been deposited, to take a check to my investment broker.  I'm half-way to work when I realize that I left the check home.  I'm so pissed off that I detour to a branch of my bank and pick up a money order.

     ...a professional bicycle race...  ...part of the American Criterium Cup series...  ...the city [where I work] completes the event with a beer garden, live music, and a ride for families to participate in.  "...neighbors...enjoy the breathtaking action of high-speed bike racing..."

     "I drove down [the boulevard on which I live], bought some chiles...  The next year, I went back to the exact same place: empty parking lot.  ...a lot of roasters don't pick up their phones...  Drive [my boulevard and the next one west] until you see a tent, a sign and, maybe, some flames."   - Littleton Independent, week of 10/17/2024

     On Saturday, the sister picks me up and takes me to work.  We have breakfast first across the street.  She's broke until payday so I pick up the tab.  I awake too early and end up cleaning the bathtub finally, and the tile above it for the first time successfully in years.  And I get dishes done, clean the kitchen sink, and some of the kitchen counter.  Yesterday I was able to do a ride home in only bike shorts.  I do so again today.  There's the slightest of cool breezes with cloudless sunshine.  Overnight I catch up on my sleep.  I awake at 6 AM. Outside is 40 degrees F.  Four hours later, I leave the house.  It has already warmed up again to shorts weather. A high of 78 is forecast today.  This week, a literal storm approaches.  Wednesday, a rain and snow mix is forecast.  Before I head out the door, I attempt my first reservation at the bar and grill near the gym.  I end up getting there early and they find me a table.  This is a place which hosts fairly large groups of friends and family.  And it can get loud in here.  In spite of the fact that there is not so much as a single flat screen TV.  Today it appears a bit slow.  There must be a football game on TV.  I'm near a big group.  One young guy is doing most of the talking.  He's studying engineering and talking about life on campus.  He's at that time of his youth when life is good.   This is the weekend before Halloween.  Along this block of shops which harkens back to a more traditional era, the stores are passing candy out to kids in costumes.  There are also tables along the sidewalk, where kids can get candy from costumed characters.  Parents are also dressed up.  I'm sitting in The Chocolate Therapist, in front of a window, as a father approaches with his brood.  His kids are all dressed in costumes.  He appears as a typical dad from a Spanish-speaking nation.  He's in a sweatshirt and a ball cap.  He waits outside for his kids.  He clearly is out here to take his kids around.  Dressing up for Halloween is something he doesn't take part of.  In a small park across the street from the bar and grill is a little Halloween festival for the kids.  I make my way through the throngs to The Chocolate Therapist for a small treat before the gym.  I'm through my workout and in and out of the hot tub.  Then things really get crazy.

     I ride to one supermarket for diet soda, which I then take to work.  From there, I ride down the trail to Target, where I pick up some low-fat cheese, along with a small duffel bag I saw here last week.  It's perfect to put my helmet in when I take it inside of stores.  With my cheese and new bag, I head back up the bike trail toward an exit to ride a short way across town, toward a Whole Foods where I will get more soap.  Along the way to my second grocery for a specialty item, I'm on a part of the same trail I take home from work.  ...I literally am coming from work, on a Sunday.  On one side is the river.  On the other is a golf course.  I come up behind a couple pushing a stroller.  They are staring down at a pair of packages on the concrete.  I pass them only to find another pair of small bags sitting on the trail.  These pairs of bundles are positioned square in the middle of the trail.  They immediately strike me as the belongings of someone homeless.  Right after the second pair of bundles is a middle-aged woman who is walking back from a third pair of small bags in the middle of the trail.  It's not far from here to Whole Foods, where I unzip my new bag only to find more paper stuffed inside than I've ever seen.  I take it out and put my helmet inside, along with bungee cords, sunglasses, and my gloves.  I take the paper inside and put it in their recycle.  More soap in hand, I back track and ride down the street I usually take home off the trail.  Only I take it along the way to my own neighborhood supermarket, for more diet soda to take home.  I ride up the street back to my corner.  I grab a burger to go before crossing my boulevard.  I run into the Vietnamese grocery for more Japanese ice cream.  The homeless guy who isn't Guitar Bear sits cross legged on the concrete in front of the entrance...as he's been doing this month.  He meekly asks every single Vietnamese resident for a dollar, in English.  The family who enter ahead of me don't appear to comprehend English.  This grocery also employs local residents who are fluent in Spanish.  I mention to one in Spanish that a "drunk is at the entrance."  She laughs.  She says he collects a lot of dollars.

     On Monday after work, at 6 PM I do the ride home again with no shirt.  This appears to be the last day this year to do so.  The highs will dip after today.  On Tuesday there's a cool breeze.  I've picked up a prescription from the clinic down the street on the way to work.  I'm now climbing a hill along a residential street, headed to the bank for more singles.  Standing on the sidewalk is a Caucasian thirtysomething.  Instead of a middle-aged Hispanic guy, on his phone waiting for a crew to pick him up and take him to work, there's this guy.  Phone in his hand.  helmet on his head.  Skateboard under his arm.  Doesn't look like he's going to work.  Early Wednesday morning.  I'm lying in bed wondering why, in spite of this long Indian summer we've had, my furnace has not yet come on.  It certainly hasn't been cold in the house, but it's been slightly cool.  A month ago now I've changed the filter.  I get up and look at the door for the filter.  It's just slightly ajar, just barely.  The split second I adjust the door so it's now closed, the furnace immediately comes on.  Yesterday I finished another roll of film.  This morning I'm on my way to the camera shop before work.  I ride crosstown to the shop and exchange the used one for a new one.  Then I head for a nearby train station, where I should have boarded a train to take me to my bus to work.  I get on the wrong one.  I'm used to taking the wrong one and I don't remember why.  I realize my mistake at the next station.  I'm now out of time.  With the disrupted train schedules due to rail construction, I don't know when the next train back the other way will show up.  ...and if it will get me to the station I wanted in time to catch the bus.  My only option is to ride to work from here.  I'm not far from the pool where I swam after work this past summer.  I first have some distance to close between this station and the pool.  From work to that pool is a fifty-minute ride.  When I get to work, I have a half hour to spare.  I end up staying late enough at work today that I take the bus to the train station and ride home from there.  There is a little rain on and off.  This is the first day of the season that I wear my winter jacket.  On my corner is the homeless guy I will call Not Guitar Bear.  I ride past him sitting cross-legged in front of the entrance to the Vietnamese grocery.  He asks me for a dollar.  I stash the bike in my house and walk to the Vietnamese restaurant next to the grocery to grab dinner to go.  The place is packed with Caucasian hipsters, along with people picking up orders.  I wonder if it has anything to do with the facts either that tomorrow is Halloween, or that a US presidential election is in six days.  Dinner in hand, I return to the grocery for a couple of vegetables.  Not Guitar Bear is standing up.  He assumes I'm turning the corner and walks alongside me asking for a dollar.  In a neighborhood with a higher income level, this would be considered aggressive behavior.  I turn around him and enter.  When I come out...he asks me a third time for a dollar. It's a third time for myself.  He rolls according his own schedule.

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.