The...feeling [of] reading a book while smelling the scent of rain...within a candle. ...also...candles dedicated to zodiac signs, for that personal consideration in gift giving. The lettering reflects that of a typewriter with...splashed ink dotted across the design. ...also...Greek mythology-inspired candles... The one of Hades features a skull... ...Hades and Persephone...cherished their short time together. ...the owner, states that...the space is meant for everyone to enjoy...witchcraft... - Out Front Magazine, 11/16/2020
We loved the outdoors to the breaking point this summer. Trailheads were packed, bikes were out of stock... Carloads of tourists from every state in the U.S. came to the trails, crags, rivers, and park lands of Colorado... We need to be promoting...better experiences. Heuristic traps or the ways we justify risks...can get us into trouble. Be willing to see beyond your fun-blinders.
...a mountain-town migration that has spanned the country... Affordable housing is in higher demand since March... Some came because mountain economies kept humming right along while their metropolitan counterparts fizzled. "I think I'm becoming a mountain person."
After years of facing housing insecurity in mountain towns, this was a chance for something tangible. I'm still not sure if it was the shipping container home-to-be or the composting toilet that ruffled...feathers. ...we didn't want to live in a prefabricated home. ...we're also an interracial couple. ...the town's former building inspector..."I'm going to make an example out of you.."... ...the cowboy who spit at my feet... ...the man recording me on his phone... ...we reject the privilege of indifference many Coloradans choose when they escape...to the mountains. ...my joy here, is resistance itself. - Elevation Outdoors, 10/2020
...the city's Support Team Assistance Response truck...pairs a mental-health worker with a paramedic... ...the Early Intervention Team [is] a new [Denver] city initiative. [They] have been visiting encampments that have just popped up...of five tents or fewer, with the goal of nipping them in the bud before they grow larger. Since...march, homeless encampments in Denver have increased in both number and size. [There were] calls for city employees to volunteer to be part of the new program; some specialists were assigned. The...Team was launched in October, following two weeks of training that included....discussion with those living in encampments... During business hours on weekdays...four or five sub-units...headed out in unmarked Toyota Priuses to visit small encampments. ...the...Team visited another encampment [with] seven tents...an increase from two...just three weeks earlier. "It comes down to getting to know them, listening to their stories...their situations, and helping where you...are invited to... ...to following through with what you say you're going to do." ...smaller encampments...pop up after sweeps of large encampments. "...they have...distrust...of the city because the city has moved them around so much." "...in the encampment environment...we're not hearing that folks won't engage with [us] or won't be forthcoming..." ...not everyone is suited for shelters. We need a safe outdoor space. We need a large one." - Westword, 12/10-16/2020
"Denver is one of the hottest real estate markets in the country, with homes selling in a median of six days this past October. Buying and selling homes in Denver has never been more competitive."
Density, zoning and housing are all inextricably linked to homelessness. Something's got to give.
Registered neighborhood organizations (RNO), business improvement districts (BID), and creative districts have received inquiries regarding the seeming surge of homeless encampments in Denver. - Washington Park Profile, 12/2020
The corner upon which I live was host for I know not how long a tire shop. It closed, this year I think. The lady who cuts my hair, Mrs. Thuy, told me that the land was purchased by the owners of the Vietnamese grocery store on the next block. Currently, ta new grocery building now sits on my corner. Shelves are inside, a brand new parking lot is finished, and landscaping is being done along a brand new sidewalk. A layer of big stones now lay there. The new sidewalk stops where the old and crumbling sidewalk begins along the parking lot of my townhome complex. I wonder how long it will be before stones disappear. Graffiti tags are already finding their way onto the exterior of the new building. On Wednesday I'm on my way home from work. Turning up the street with the open field, I notice that both vehicles are gone from each trailer. The following chilly morning, I'm coming back this way. There are vehicles both in front, behind, and in between both trailers, including a camper which has returned. Possibly nude man's camper. One of the trailers again has a cable running to it from under the hood of a pickup truck. On the way home, the big RV is back in the small lot across from the trailhead. Just around the corner, I'm back here on the street with the trailers. In the evening, the camper is gone again. Friday. I'm turning onto the street next to mine, just across my boulevard, on the way to work. On the corner where I make this turn is a camper, perhaps the one which was just a few yards further down this same street for the duration of this past summer. After work, I'm coming back home off the trail. In the small lot across from the trailhead, there are no longer two campers, but just the one remaining big one. And on the street next to mine, the camper on the corner where I turn is now gone. Saturday. I'm headed to work, across my boulevard and turning onto the street next to mine. Again the camper is gone from its new corner. It shall be back late this afternoon as I return home. This morning, in the small lot across from the trailhead, the big RV is gone again. Coming home, I m just off the trail and on the street, with the open field and two remaining trailers. This morning, the one trailer again had a cord from under the hood of a pickup, today with the hood all the way up and the engine running. This evening, I turn off this street and climb a steep hill. Along the climb, I can see the passenger door of the pickup is open. Just over this hill is a big RV camper. It appears extremely weathered on the outside. Behind it is a flatbed trailer with a couple of bicycles on it.
I got up Sunday and eventually checked n with Facebook. On my neighborhood page, someone posted about hearing gunshots overnight. This would have been the intersection of a major avenue 15 minute walk north, and somewhere between my own boulevard and the next major one west. One resident mentions waking up to 18-20 gunshots. Another heard 50 or 60. One posts, "WTF is going on?" Another posts that he sleeps right "threw" it. I went down the boulevard to a Walmart across from my supermarket. A weathered camper was in the parking lot. I wonder if it's the one from the corner where I make a turn onto the street after mine, across my boulevard. This particular camper has found a particular routine. It's there in the morning, and it's gone in the evening. At work, I top off the brake fluid levels in both brakes. I do this by myself for the first time. I call my boss to let him know. We agree I need a new bike. Coming home on Monday evening, the smaller camper is gone from the small lot across from the trailhead. This could be the same camper mentioned above. Also, one of the trailers is gone from the street along the open field. Toward the end of this street toward the trailhead, out in one lane sits a wooden beam and two full trash bags. Tuesday. I'm on the way to work, turning at the corner where a camper has recently been parked during the day. It's not here this morning. Soon after, I'm turning onto the street with the open field. The not-so-old guy's minivan is back, complete with the rack on the back bumper. The wood beam and trash bags are gone. In their place is an overturned shopping cart with trash in it, spilled onto the street. On the way home, back up this street, the minivan is gone again. Both trailers are gone, and not a single vehicle sits parked along the open field. Just over the hill from here, the big RV with the flatbed behind it is also gone. Wednesday. I'm coming home from work on a detour, to a stand for a free weekly newspaper. The stand is in front of a 7-Eleven...which is an excuse to get a snack. As I approach the store in the dark, I watch a homeless guy walking backwards on the sidewalk, away from the store. He's walking a BMX bike. (Stolen?) This is regional street person #1. I pull up to the front and lean my bike in the usual spot, along the outside display of big bottles of wiper fluid. I notice that some bottles on the top row are akimbo. I arrive just before an Englewood Police cruiser does. Drivers of two separate cars parked out front describe a crazy man to the police, who reply that they will try to find him. I wonder if it's the homeless backwards-walking BMX guy, who has vanished into the Christmas light-dotted darkness. The young clerk inside asks me if I saw any crazy men outside. He notices the police. I let him know that the two drivers outside have made witness statements. He tells me about a guy who showed up and yelled at both drivers before punching the ice cooler outside, along with the wiper fluid bottles. Perhaps a half hour later, I'm just off the trail and coming up the street. Now it's the twin trailers' turn to find their routine. This morning, both trailers and not-so-old man's minivan are back. This evening, every vehicle will be in absentia from the curb next to the field. No one has moved the shopping cart. And the camper is back at the corner, where I turn off the street next to mine.
Thursday. On the way home from work, the big RV is gone from the small lot across from the trailhead. A camper is back in the spot where one was for the duration of this past summer. Friday's ride to work. As I approach the street with the open field, where a pair of trailers and other vehicles were parked, at the corner is a camper. The only vehicle left along the curb by the field is the not-so-old man's minivan. And of course, the overturned shopping cart. This morning, I detour toward Wednesday evening's 7-Eleven, where one crazy guy attacked a wiper fluid display. This morning, I'm parked again in front of this display. I hear a voice approaching. A woman who does not appear to be on a phone is talking to herself with a bit of agitation. But she does go inside to make a purchase. This regional street person #2. I get out of here and I'm looking for a supermarket I can't find. I need more protein powder for work. I find a Walmart with a grocery section. Some of the protein powder is behind a locked display case. I must ask someone to unlock it for me. I inquire as to what kind of customer steals protein powder. Is protein powder the new 24-hour Sudafed, for which to purchase you must provide a driver's license because it can be used to manufacture methamphetamine? Together with the powder, inside this case are 5-Hour Energy bottles. This is the hot item, and some of the protein powder is simply on the wrong shelf at the wrong time. He waits while I take a peek at the powder in the case. I find what I'm looking for on a shelf outside the case. The following day, I take another detour back to the 7-Eleven. Saturdays I start earlier than during the week, and I must have a snack along the way. Not far off the bike trail, I'm climbing a snowy and icy hill toward the 7-Eleven. Someone who appears homeless is on a ten-speed, slowly negotiating an ice patch downhill .He also is talking to himself. Regional street person #3. It's 14 degrees F this morning. I'm in my wool socks, but not my snow boots. When I get to work, I can't feel the big toe on my left foot.
Sunday begins another week. This year is approaching an end. I will find out on Tuesday if my investment brokerage firm will by my $1,300 tax bill or tell me to take a hike. Thursday I get my first crown from Medicaid at my dentist. And Friday I meet my first Medicaid doctor just down the street. She has the same last name as the lady who cuts my hair, but I can't find her on the clinic website. It snowed perhaps a couple of inches overnight. I'm off to take Christmas presents to the sister, and pick up a check for a new bike. Along the way, I almost forget to drop off a card at an old friend's house. I'm across a busy avenue and headed down a parallel residential street. On another intersecting street, I see a familiar-looking camper parked. Soon, I'm on a main avenue to the sister's. I don't know what the city would do without these bike lanes. Where else would they put the snow from the street? Before I left the house on my weekend bike, I straightened out the rear rim once and for all. This appears to have done the trick. At the sister's, the exchange is made. I also forgot to put another card in my own mailbox, so I put it in hers. Then it's off to have lunch at a deathburger. The first two in a row are drive through only. The last in an adjoining trio is open for take out. I have ten nuggets, then another ten. I eat outside the place. I can't complain, they ain't bad. I appreciate them having an open lobby, as the drive throughs will not serve bicycles. Then it's a hop, skip, and a jump to Lakewood, Colorado's posh Belmar shopping center. I run into their Whole Foods for some mushrooms. The well to do are bustling to and fro, ignoring a small Christmas tree fallen over among the other standing trees. I get the bike locked, water bottle in my bag and mask on before I stroll over to put it back upright. I grab the mushrooms and a small snack. I stand in what I assume is the express line. It's the longest line. It turns out the express line is at the opposite end.
Monday. I'm out the door early, and make a detour to a supermarket for a particular product it carries. Then I'm headed to the gym. Along the way, I decide I should have already jumped on the train as the hour is late. I roll into the next station and grab one there. Passengers with a bike must stand at either end of the car. It's just me and the guy in the seat closest to myself in this car. From the back, he appears middle-aged. I think I hear a younger guy speaking to a friend in another seat out of my view. The train pulls into the next station, and this guy gets up. It's he who is speaking, and only to himself. or perhaps no one. He's actually in his twenties. He can barely walk, and it takes him so long to get to the exit that the train door closes before he can even get there. He slowly makes his way to another seat. The following stop is mine, and as I am riding the miniscule distance from the station to the gym, only then do I realize that i didn't bring any sneakers. For the first time, and I hope the last, I workout in my snow boots. After this, I head back to the trail and turn south, onto a stretch of bike trail I haven't seen in years. I don't go far before I exit the trail. I've found a handy branch of my bank. A Pakistani woman is at the teller window. She speaks some Hindi. I deposit the check from the sister before I decide to take the busy avenue straight toward work, instead of return to the trail. In fact, I forget that the avenue will take me directly to the waterpark, where I can rejoin the tail. There's the drop slide into the pool, which I last went down four months ago. Now it sits in temperatures somewhere around freezing.
Tuesday is a miserable ride to work. The snow is melting, but it's in a disturbed form which I can't get any traction on along the residential streets. I never should have exited the trail, which is clear and much easier to ride. But I exit the trail for breakfast, and I take this morning of miserable sidewalk and side street conditions to explore a potentially faster way to work. I'm along a highway, and the slog through the snow and dirt filled drifts covering my path would fell a lesser man. I end up along the same avenue right back where I was yesterday morning. But I don't want to have to deal with similar conditions on the horse trail, brief as my route upon it is, and I elect to pass up the trailhead this time. Soon, I can't ride through the snow piled onto the sidewalk along a steep hill. I can barely get any traction with my snow boots on this stuff, much less push a bike through it. I pause to call work, and tell them I expect to be as late as a half hour at least. This was a stupid decision to take this way. I cross the avenue at a break in traffic. The opposite sidewalk is better, but not by much. At the intersection, there is a small business. A cyclist stands with his bike in a doorway. he's on his phone as i pass him. he says to me, "Hey." I turn my head and he points to his bike and silently mouths the words, "Inoperable bike." Is there some unwritten obligation that I stop and assist him, even when I have no help to give him? What am I supposed to do? I keep going. He follows me to the corner. I cross the avenue and look back. He's vanished. I get to work somehow a mere eight minutes late. The ride home that evening is much better. I exit the trail and cross the railroad tracks to the street with the pen field. I watch as small groups of runners, each one with a headlamp, are coming from this street and crossing when traffic permits, and running along the avenue. Don't ask me. It's been a long morning, and the week ain't over.
The following morning the streets have cleared considerably. I'm back at this very same street on the way to work. The trailers have been gone for a little while. Even the not-so-old man's minivan is gone. A lone vehicle is here which I don't recall. It's a tiny Toyota pickup which is so old and worn out, there's less paint on the body than bare metal. This thing appears as if it came from a junkyard. The rear window is gone and some kind of cargo net is in its place. In the cab are a couple of bundled up guys. And I am just around the corner from here on the way home. Off the trail, I notice the big RV camper is back in the small lot across from the trailhead. Twenty-four hours from now, a completely different camper will be there. This evening, I turn the corner and climb the hill, turn another corner and turn again onto a main residential street. A homeless camper and I pass each other among the streetlights and Christmas displays. The following morning is another Saturday, and another end of the week. I'm turning onto the street next to the open field. There is a trailer here which I don't recognize, next to the curb along the field. It's the saddest trailer I think I've ever seen. It appears almost as if all the right side tires are completely flat. It ;leans to the right. Every window, around each frame, is covered with clear packing tape. I turn off this street and into a bike lane for the few-yards-long journey to the trail head. As I do, a big weathered camper turns onto the street I just exited.. Some nine hours later, I turn back onto this very street. There is a camper parked at this end of the street, on the side opposite the open field. It appears to be just as worn out at the trailer. Shortly thereafter, I have just crossed the boulevard on my corner, busy with Saturday late afternoon traffic. I spot an old camper passing along with the other traffic.
If I want to keep up with these homeless campers, I had better get a new bike. Seriously, the sister told me at the beginning of the autumn that she wanted to buy me a new bike for Christmas. This decision was the easy part. I went online sometime toward the end of October, or perhaps later, and it was clear that every bicycle under $7,000 had been sold out. We finally decided that she should give me a check for a round figure and I would do it the old fashioned way, go inside what is now refereed to as a "brick and mortar" store. I only need a new bike every three years. That's how long it takes me to wear one out riding to work and back six days a week. My current main bike has a pedal which is breaking down inside. When is doesn't want to rotate, it pushed by foot forward and off of it. This being the third and final year for my current bike, it just happens to coincide with a pandemic depletion of online stock. My life has unexpectedly collided with everyone else's. I don't know why I decided to begin with downtown Denver's REI store. But they open at freaking 9 AM on a Sunday. They're already way ahead of me. I had previously called another bike shop, to ask if I could put a bike on layaway. The answer was they wanted 20% up front, and would only hold it for maybe a week. REI tells me they have a few of their own brand of bikes in stock. They agree to hold one until the end of business day. I gather my biking gear and take the transit system toward downtown. I step onto a bus for the short ride to the train station. A young guy gets on at a stop after I did. He's taking time to put in the three dollar bills required. The last dollar bill won't go into the fare box. The driver just has him leave it on the dashboard. Finally, he sits down. When he does, he drops a penny and a scrap of paper onto the floor. The driver, a grey-haired woman, says to him referring to the dollar bill, "There's something sticky all over this." "I know, I don't know what it...I'm sorry ma'am." We approach his stop. He gets up and moves toward the back door before he darts back and reaches under the seat for something. He makes a break for the door, and then returns for the scrap of paper. He says, "Sweet, right on," before he makes his exit. I connect with a bus into the city. Watching the familiar downtown streets reminds me of my bike rides this way. The bus swings around the park downtown. Most summers, Civic Center Park is host to several different cultural festivals. Last summer it was witness to a Back the Blue rally, where Antifa crashed the party, pro-police bikers stayed home, and pundit Michele Malkin lost her shoe. It was more recently the scene of a shooting. A security guard was hired by a local TV station to protect them while reporting a police protest in the park. After the protest, a counter demonstrator (who also makes cowboy hats) got into an altercation with the security guy. The latter fired a extra large spray can of mace at the former, who then drew and shot his firearm at the latter. He died from his injuries.. It turns out the security guy was not licensed. It's odd, because I listened to a local pundit announcing the rally on radio the day before. He was going on about how the police told him that, to secure a permit for the rally, he needed to hire his own security. He was like, "At a pro-police rally? The police aren't coming?" No, they had actually asked him to call it off. The news station claims they hired the security guy through Pinkerton. Pinkerton claims they hired him from a subcontractor. The subcontractor claims they hired him through a sub-subcontractor. It's like trying to follow the story in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The security guy was arrested then and there, and awaits trial. During the holiday season, however, this side of the park is the first time host to a German Christmas outdoor market. A line of patrons waits to enter the fenced in event. It runs halfway down the park. I mention the park this morning because I watch a line of cyclists, perhaps as many as ten. They cross the street in front of us. None have helmets, but they don't appear to be homeless. I wonder who they are?
I'm out of the bus and down the pedestrian mall on foot. I suppose you could say my speed is...pedestrian. Seriously, I stop into a 7-Eleven for lunch, with the same hustling homeless guy outside. There's hardly anything hot left for sale. I look at a Cesar salad which has almost 1,000 grams of sodium. I ask for two of the four remaining taquitos. They're so old, he just gives them to me. "They've seen better days," he says. They're a perfect fit for his clientele. I like this young guy behind the register. He has to put up with a parade of marching mental cases, and he does it with a cool pragmatism. Another homeless guy stands in a corner inside the place. His winter jacket is on the floor in an aisle. He approaches the clerk, who stands behind a plexiglass window. He bends down to speak to him through the thin space at the bottom, between the end of the window and the counter. I'm out and onto a free shuttle down the mall. I get out just before the train station, where the shuttles turn around. I go inside a Whole Foods, for a more substantial few pieces of baked chicken. Very whole...some. Outside are some vacated wooden picnic tables. I sit. I eat. Ii watch the downtown weirdo NYC-wanabes stroll past a line of signs which repeat the same message, "Keep dogs off the plants and grass." I guess dogs and plants just don't mix. At the north end of the line, it's a short walk to REI. It now calls itself REI Co-op. There's no line outside. Inside, it's not nearly as bad as I thought it would be five days before Christmas. Regardless, I suspect this may be a long transaction. I use the men's room. I wait at the sales counter for a grey-haired couple to finish purchasing a kid's bike for who I assume is their grandson. When they are making their way to an exit, it's as if the kid in the green vest suddenly can see me in front of him. I tell him they are holding a bike for me. He searches and can't find it. He asks if I ordered it or just asked them to hold it. 'Tis the latter. He still can't find it, but offers to show me one. I look at a tag on the handlebars. It has my name on it. He tells me it's great that we found it. He wants to lower the seat after I get on. I tell him the seat is fine where it is, but to be sure I would like to test ride it. First, he says they can't allow any test rides unless I brought a helmet. Guess what? I pull out my helmet. The one I purchased from this very store a couple of years ago. This kid is good, but I'm better. Still, I can't do a test ride without filling out a form. And he needs my driver's license. He takes down my address, adn wants to know how to spell "Kentucky." "There are trails around here," he suggests. I have more trails and streets committed to memory and then some, kid, downtown, 35 blocks north of here, miles south of here, west into other municipalities, and just as far east, so don't get me started. But I don't say this. I simple say the test ride will only take me a minute. Outside, in the space of a minute, I have to avoid someone exiting through a door and a guy with his kid headed for the entrance.
My last two serious bikes were Specialized brand. These were the first bikes I didn't get from department stores. And they were different. When I went down on ice, instead of the front rim immediately fucking bending into the traditional banana shape, the Specialized bikes you could pick up without a scratch. And you were on your way. Tough bikes. This one appears to be the same design, similar to other designs I've seen from other manufacturers. Cables run inside a lightweight composite frame. I'll take it. Great. He asks if I want to join the co-op. WTF? By joining, I collect dividends. I don't get a 1099 at the end of the year, but I collect credit towards a purchase, which I may either use or cash in for dollar bills. Sure. I get a one time $20 gift card. I ask if I can get sealant inside the tubes. I may, he says, but I have to purchase different tubes. Okay. I ask if REI Co-op sells road hazard-resistant tires. Another shop once suggested those. He looks at my tires as claims that these should be just as good. Okay. As he's ringing up the tubes, I notice that the vales are Presta. I don't have a Presta valve pump at home. He has both hand and floor pumps. We walk over to a display where another customer stands. I'm behind the guy and the kid is in front of him, so the customer can only see the kid. He shows me $40-$100 floor pumps. The other customer says, "Oh, I don't need a pump, I was just looking." "Uh, I'll take a hand ump," I reply. $15. I tell him I've never used a hand pump, and ask him how it works. During his demonstration, he discovers the pump serves both kinds of valves. The service shop is putting my new tubes in, complete with sealant, as he rings me up. The what? REI Co-op has a fucking bike service shop? I didn't know this. And they're open on Sundays? I've been making trips down to the one on the way to work, on the single day I don't work. And all I had to do was come down here? As a member, I will get 10% off all service. A customer spots my new bike. She tells the kid that her daughter bought this very bike "three times. And three times, it was stolen." He finishes checking out my purchases. In the process, he discovers I'm already a member of the co-op. I joined when I purchased my helmet. I don't recall the store referred to as a co-op, or a discussion of dividends. I ask if he wants the $20 gift card back. He confirms this. No worries. I ask him if I have any "dividends" already accumulated. Oh hell to the nah. I do indeed. They will almost pay for the pump. He must cancel the current sale for the pump, add the dividends, and recharge my card. That's fine, but I still need my license back. The woman for some reason is picking up a long box behind this kid's counter. She interrupts him to ask him to move, as she doesn't want to hit him with the box. Give her a lever long enough... The kid is double checking that he hasn't forgotten anything. In six months, or 100 hours of use, I get a free tune up. (Let's see? 3 hours a day x 6 days into 100? That's something like 114 hours of use in a month and a half. I'll bring it back in July and get my money's worth. But I don't tell this either. Heck, six six-month tune-ups, and it'll be time for another new bike.) And then just like that, we're done. And immediately he's onto another customer. I ask a guy who appears old enough to be his great-grandfather to snip off the tag with my name on it.
And I'm off on a rare experience, I'm out on a new bike. I have high gears again. The chain is new, so I don't have to baby it. I hardly have to shift at all, I can put some force on the pedals. The shifters operate like butter. The frame is a tight as a rock. Instead of thin tires, they're new, and take the bumps like shock absorbers. It almost pedals itself. I didn't see any ports for brake fluid. I wonder of the disc brakes are mechanical. I should have asked the kid. But I didn't want to push it. The bike trail runs from REI, all the way down to where I would join it for a few yards when I worked downtown. After I'm home, I grab dinner from the Chinese place. During this autumn, I don't know if those who have been sequestering are suffering behavioral effects. A month or so ago, four of high school kids showed up here. Two girls and a pair of guys. This tall guy was acting like he was high, walking and running and laughing, outside the gas station, inside, outside the restaurant, inside. The others thought he was hilarious. "I'm just chillin' I'm just chillin'," he said. They eventually left. I didn't see them purchase anything. This afternoon, I'm in line in front of a young Hispanic guy. He appears agitated, breathing fast, jumpy. He wipes his forehead, leans against the brick wall on his side, on his back. When he gets inside, he's pointing at the shrimp and broccoli. He's demanding the employee scoop from a particular corner of the bin, with more shrimp and carrots. "From that side! Or I will cancel the order," he says.
Congratulations and thank you for your purchase of a Tektro mechanical disc brake. - Tektro Installation Instruction, 12/2013 (included with my owner's manual)
It's been a year in which I was furloughed for the first time. And for far shorter than many. The first time I've been referred to as an essential worker. Even if my job is at the very bottom of the list. This year was the first time a bike shop, where I took a bicycle to be repaired, called me to ask if they could instead saw it in half. I don't know if that is more unexpected than my answer, which was yes. It's been more than a year since I stopped my mutual fund payments. I may be able to return to paying them sooner than I ever thought. This year, I hadn't been on vacation in 11 years, and I had a month and a half off, paid by unemployment, and extra unemployment. In fact, with the federal relief check, I ended up with next year's dental insurance, home owner's insurance, and life insurance premiums. I had put off paying my annual gym membership when I was working downtown, and as soon as I paid it, the gym closed down. The place I donated my late mom's walkers and canes. It remains closed. I know not what happened to Christie, the lady behind the desk who gave me a reduced rate and basically ran the place with no credit for doing so. But I went back to work in another municipality. Not only is there gym open, but I was able to swim at their waterpark this summer, for almost a full season, before any other pools in the metro area opened. In the summer, I had my first prostate biopsy. My health insurance plan does not pay for specialists, and the bill I could not immediately afford. With a small loan from the sister, and my not yet resuming investment payments, I was able to pay her back during some Sunday outdoor socially distanced lunches in her back yard. That's how I had my birthday. Then I was qualified for Medicaid, which resulted in me cancelling the rest of my health insurance, as without the exchange's tax credits, I couldn't afford it. Because no one can be removed from Medicaid until further notice. Though I got the qualification letter the day after I paid my annual dental insurance premium, I got a new crown and a deep cleaning for basically peanuts out of pocket. With no monthly health insurance premium for the time being, I was looking forward to saving up for my three annual insurance premiums due at the end of this coming year. Until I got a bill from the IRS for over $5,000. My investment brokerage firm reported a figure I didn't realize I needed to for the 2018 tax year. They got me the figure, I reported it, which brought the bill down to $1,300. There goes next year's annual insurance premium payments. My advisor suggested I speak to her and another guy on a conference call, and he suggested I protest it formally. And he said the company would do an "investigation."
I wasn't optimistic, more so that in spite of my crying about it, it seemed to me that it was my responsibility either to understand my 1099 B or to hire someone who does. But I still felt left in the lurch. Story of my life. To my great surprise, yesterday at work, I got a call from my advisor, informing me that the company agreed to pay my bill. I will be signing my first agreement in which they are required to disclose no wrongdoing. I've never done anything like this. Though it's being referred to as a settlement, I've never been involved or done any kind of business negotiation. My first doctor I think may have thought I was some kind of executive. She used the metaphor "make that your most important business meeting" in reference to some health advice which I don't recall. I recall the end of my sophomore year in college, in the mid 1980s. I didn't realize I let a checking account run out of money. It would have been over the summer. I deposited a loan check into it the following semester, and it was returned to me in the form of a money order, fees deducted. I began using a savings account I already had, and didn't realize until three years later, I had been reported to something called Checks Systems. It turns out, they monitor people who don't pay banks, or something like that. I was beginning graduate school and attempted to open another checking account. The clerk is the one who first told me about Checks Systems, and that I was banned from having a checking account for five years. Which meant I had another two to go. She had to repeat whet she explained, because my response was a complete lack of comprehension that something such as Checks Systems would do what it does. I still remember her tearing up my paper application. I walked across the street to a branch of my credit union. I don't recall opening another checking account for another three or four years after that. Now, here I am wheeling and dealing. I have it on good advice that I could have sued my investment firm for damages. But I'm planning on a long term relationship with them. And speaking of my source for legal advice, throughout the better part of this year, the sister has been buying my groceries, so they may be delivered, so I don't have to expose myself on a regular basis at the supermarket. And on the outside of my ridiculous travails, thousands continue to die from a pandemic virus. I'm the age now which my late dad was when I began my senior year in high school. I sometimes try to imagine him commuting by bicycle and going to the gym, or living among Hispanic and Vietnamese residents. Or how he would have handled my financial nuttiness. Some years ago, he once called me to ask me to cosign a loan so he could purchase a house. It didn't sound as if he knew what my finances were like.
Tuesday. On the way to work, I turn down the street next to an open field. A trailer and camper have appeared. I don't recognize the camper, but I've seen so many. They will disappear again the following day. My store is closed both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. I go back to work Saturday. Our downtown store is closed Christmas Eve straight through New Year's Day. There just ain't anyone downtown. So, on Thursday, I go to drop off some black and white film at the camera shop across town. When I do get home, I will find a message on my land line that it's ready. It's "color-develop" b & w. But I don't expect this. I know where I'm a goin' after work on Saturday. But this morning, I'm on my new bike, headed for the place where I bought it, so they can install a back rack which I carry with me. It's not long before I'm at the camera shop. Who is there but my tall photogenic hippie goddess. And she looks so damned stunning in a purple velvet dress, with two rows of buttons down the front, it's all I can do not to make a fool of myself. I recount my story about the letter from the IRS and how I'm really not some big deal negotiator. She tells me what her dad always says, "It never hurts to ask." I renew the membership, drop the film and pick up another roll. This one isn't color-develop, so I can drop it off next time and not have to feel tricked that I didn't return for it in a short few hours. I hook up with a bike trail which will take me straight into downtown. I stop at a Whole Foods across the street from my dentist, along the way. I spot the long line to get in and abort this idea. Across the street, I would say hi to my dentist, but he's closed for Christmas Eve. I won't be getting lunch at WH, so I grab a few chocolates from a store at the other end of the strip mall and some dental floss from the pharmacy in between. Five bucks for floss. Happy Holidays from Cherry Creek. Back on the trail. Before I get to the sporting goods place, I run into a detour on the bike path. I decide to backtrack to our downtown store to use the restroom. I follow the detour back tot the trail, which takes me straight there. They tell me they can have the rack on in 40 minutes. I go next door to Starbucks and break down and get a panini for lunch. It's a beautiful, almost warm day. I mingle with the urban set. Case in point: a tiny grade school girl slowly makes her way up a kids rock climbing boulder and down again. twice while I sit and eat, and watch her. Her dad couldn't give less of a fuck. He's watching his goddamned phone. The bike is ready, and all I have to do is take a connecting trail all the back to my side of the tracks.
Saturday it's back to work. I'm coming along a street behind some businesses, where the trailer with the citation was parked. This morning it's gone. Not long after I get on the trail, I'm rolling past where the nude man camper used to be. Now, there is an even larger camper here. It's c, c, and c. It's a camper complete with crap all over the roof .And then comes Sunday evening. I go to bed around 9 PM. Around 10:30, I wake up. I'm not yet nauseas, but I feel a kind of gaseous pressure in my stomach. I go upstairs to the bathroom, and my stool is liquid. I go back downstairs and the nausea arrives. I'm prepared to vomit into the trusty old waste paper basket, complete with plastic bag. At the same time, I attempt to aim my liquid stool at another open plastic bag underneath me. It goes just too far, and the stain is a perfect circle on the rug. I go up a couple of flights to grab a towel which I put over the stain. By midnight, a second round of vomit appears, and it's clear that this ain't gonna stop. I make u my mind I need to head out to the hospital. I know there is one close which is in network for the kind of Medicaid where I've been relegated. I dial 911. An ambulance is here pretty quick. I must digress some 25 years, when I lived across town and had similar concerns about a spell of vomiting which wasn't subsiding. I then called an ambulance. One of the arriving paramedics tells me that, if they transport me to the hospital, I will probably be told to "take some Malox and have a good night." For some time, this led me to believe that there was no treatment for vomiting at the hospital. Skip ahead 25 years. This paramedic gives me a pill for nausea to put under my tongue. The ambulance whips me to the hospital, I'm wheeled in, and I'm on a gurney in a small room. I get fluids and IV medicine. The vomiting stops and the liquid stool chills out. Various team members ask plenty of questions and draw blood. My vitals are good, my electrolytes are fine. I consider myself lucky. They check my heart by placing five or ten sensor patches on me. They are checking everything. This is a thorough team. The attending doctor believes my nausea is the result of the "gas station pizza" I had for lunch. Really? The place I eat from all the time? My experience has been over my decades that this is something I refer to as the 12-hour flu. I also have had what I call a 24-hour flu. If I'm wrong, then I've had food poisoning throughout my entire life.
What's funny about this is, earlier this month, speaking of the past 25 years, I got onto a kick of watching emergency room reality shows from the past two and three decades. This evening is a slow one in the ER, unlike the frantic medical team on the TV shows, attending with arms almost flailing to a patient on a gurney. I take this as a good sign. I hear a nurse outside my room tell a patient not to go wandering around outside their own room, because "there's a lot of Covid out here." It's after midnight, and I am drifting in and out of sleep, snapping awake from the beginning of dreaming. I ask for a bedpan, and I'm instructed instead to use the men's room, a short walk away. A nurse comes in with juice and crackers. I am instructed to sip the juice every ten minutes. The clock on the wall is broken. It becomes a subjective, existential process. I am also expected to eat a corner of a cracker. These tasks are to determine if I can keep them down, to see if the medicine is working. I sip and take a tine piece of a cracker. What's ridiculous about this is, if I wasn't nauseous, I would gobble all four crackers inside two minutes. They stay down. Later, I have to urinate again. The doctor is there and I ask him if there is something to urinate in. He repeats that the best option is the men's room. But I'm hooked to a line which monitors the oxygen in my blood. I ask the last nurse who comes in. She points to a bottle hanging on the rail of my gurney. "You can use the urinal." So...how come the doctor didn't mention it? Dr. Gas Station Pizza, MD. I manage to sit up when I'm alone once again, left finger bound to the blood oxygen monitor, and take the bottle off the rail. before I can use it, I drop it. I can just barely reach it with my foot to scoot it closer. Then I manage to find a position in which to use it, having to use one hand to pull down my pants, then with the same hand hold the bottle.
I am discharged around 4 AM. I shuffle my way to the lobby in a post-vomit and sleepless stupor. I threw on some sweat pants before I left, and together with my winter coat and turtle-like energy level, I suspect I appear as homeless as I imagine it may feel. I shuffle to the front desk. Do I owe anything? Nope, I'm an initiated Medicaid patient now. I shuffle outside to try and call the manager where I work. He's always happy to give me a ride. I can't get a signal to him on my phone, or to a cab, to to anyone. It's in the 20s F out here. I shuffle back inside to ask if someone can call me a cab. A security guard, the one I just shuffled past, asks me if I'm a patient. I'm coherent enough to mumble that I am indeed. he directs me to three phones against a wall. When I dial a cab, the cab company immediately recognizes that I'm at the emergency room and at which hospital. No sooner do I shuffle back to a chair than I spot a cab driver walking toward the door. He whips me back home, almost as fast as the ambulance raced to get me here, and he thanks me for the tip. I deposit bags and clothes on the floor and crawl into bed. I get a few more hours sleep. The following day at work is a long day of non-stop stool of pure water. It snows lightly all day. The day after, I feel much better. I'm on the way home when I am coming up upon the trailhead. 'Tis a frigid evening. I exit next to the small lot which is the sometime home to a big RV camper or two. This evening, a pair of headlights from a much smaller vehicle is coming out of the lot. The vehicle comes up alongside me, up to a red light. We both cross at the green as it makes it way ahead of me. I suddenly recognize the tine Toyota pickup which looks like death warmed over. True to homeless vehicles, the truck is loaded with junk, from the back of the small bed all the way to the top of the cab's roof. The rear suspension appears nonexistent. The truck does it's best up the hill. A tiny white turn signal comes on and it makes a right onto the street next to the open field. By the time I make the same turn, this truck has already vanished. I turn left up another hill and get onto the sidewalk. It's free and clear of snow and ice. I approach a vehicle parked at the curb, and realize it's the truck. It's parked with it's lights on. I notice a passenger has an open laptop, I see the light from the screen. Just as I roll along the sidewalk past it, a dog inside begins barking.
The COVID-19 pandemic has created the biggest bike boom the world has ever seen.... People are discovering and rediscovering cycling as a safe alternative to public transportation... ...in early December [the municipality where I work] joined the any Colorado cities that adopted the safety stop law. The safety stop law allows cyclists to treat stop signs as yield signs, and stop lights as stop signs. ...a safer way for...bikes to cross at intersections when they have the right of way. Most importantly, it's safer for bicyclists and motorists alike... Decriminalizes a common-sense behavior, freeing up law enforcement resources... - Englewood Citizen, Winter 2021
I'm not sure about this. It strikes me as contrary to the rest of traffic laws. I'm all for bikes being more visible. But any driver who isn't aware of the newly adopted law won't know that every cyclist is waiting for the car to go first. Wednesday. I don't know where the hell these single-digit morning temperature are coming from. The evenings are thankfully not quite so cold. On the ride home, I notice on the street with the open field, there was a camper opposite the side with the field and at the end opposite the former trailers and other campers. That particular camper I no longer see. I just came off the trail around the corner from here, and spotted the big RV back in the small lot across the street from the trail head. The camper will be gone again the next evening. This particular street figures in a news story I see posted online, which I read at work on Wednesday. The story mentions a street intersecting this one. On the way home from work, I turn onto the intersecting street and climb a steep hill. Halfway before my next turn is a gulch, alongside which runs a very short trail. I never so much as glance at it as I pass by. It's not obvious, but it isn't at all hidden either. The story mentions a couple of suitcases found by Parks and Rec alongside the trail. They each contain parts of a body believed to belong to a Caucasian male. The body is believed to have been deceased not very long. The trail is behind a sleepy residential neighborhood of old bungalows, lit up with Christmas lights. From what I know, it's extremely uncharacteristic to this neighborhood. This is my first time riding past body parts.
But I will end the year on another perplexing story. On the 22nd, I got an electric and gas bill in the mail. It was almost three times the usual amount, even taking into consideration the below freezing temperatures overnight. But I paid it without question. Then about a week later, I got another electric and gas bill. And it hit me. I mistakenly got my neighbor's electric bill. I was able to stop the check before it was cashed. And when I mentioned to the energy company that my neighbor surely needs another bill, they acted like it was no problem at all. But I thought I should explain it myself to my neighbor. This neighbor is Vietnamese. And I never see them. So I went to Google translate, and I wrote my first letter in Vietnamese. I think perhaps my resolution should be one directed at living in this neighborhood. That resolution is: don't panic.
