December 2021, Me And You And A Dog Named...Steve, This Is Liberal Culture!, "We'll Take Your Bike Real Quick, Real Quick," and Five-0 Sweeps The Homeless Guardrail Camp

     I'm on the way home from work on Wednesday.  At the homeless camp along the guardrail, there is now a Starcraft-type pop up camp trailer.  This camp appears to be slowly expanding.  The following morning, there are a pair of Starcraft-type pop up camp trailers.  They are both deployed, and both appear to have seen better days.  Friday morning, I realize that I have time to hit the gym before work.  This will free up my afternoon after work on Saturday.  On Saturday, I'm headed to work down the street with campers along an open field. A motorboat now sits on a trailer, between a couple of campers.  On the way to work, I take what happens to be my last shot with a film camera.  I know now what I will be using my extra time for after work today.  It's just warm enough after work that I ride to the camera shop across town in shorts and a T-shirt.  Later, after I'm home from work, I decide to take the bus to the supermarket.  On the way home, on my boulevard are a couple of fire trucks blocking off a lane at either end.  An SUV is flipped onto its side.  Sunday I plan the now usual lunch with the sister, followed by another library used book sale.  I consider doing the ride in shorts, but I've come not to trust the weather, and I take warmer gear along with me.  After lunch, I decide that backtracking to the train from here is an idea I like less than heading to a station south.  Which in fact I make in jig time.  Today is quite temperate for December.  Just a long-sleeved T- shirt and light riding pants suffice.  It's a tiny book sale and yet I still manage to dig up a couple of books.  Back to the train, and I decide to get out at a station before home, for some food.  I'm off the train and at a restaurant, where I witness the in-ground sprinkles watering the grass around their building.  Eating inside, I don't notice anything out of the ordinary out the windows.  I come out to sunshine...and wet cement.  My bike has drops of water.  Did the sprinklers go haywire?  It feels 20 to 25 degrees colder out here.  Thank God I have gloves and head and neck gear.  My windbreaker over the shirt and my pants are just enough to keep me warm.  I'm back on the train and make it home before dark.

     On the three stretches of individual streets where every day I pass a gaggle of homeless campers, there are sometimes SUVs.  Many of these SUVs have one window which appears to be missing, covered instead with some kind of plastic.  I wonder if these are all stolen?  On my ride home from work on Monday, I notice that one of the two pop up tents at the guardrail homeless camp is gone.  On Wednesday I have a consultation with an oral surgeon.  It's in the middle of the day so I take the day off.  My appointment is at 1 PM, so I stop into a deathburger for lunch.  It's just down the street from the dental clinic.  After I finish eating I use the men's room.  The faucet does not work.  There are no paper towels.  The hand dryer does not work.  This place doesn't have to worry about the homeless coming in to use the men's room sink.  It's sheer genius.  I wonder if I have time to hit the yogurt place, just a hop, skip, and a jump from the clinic.  I ask an employee behind the counter if she knows what time it is.  She does not comprehend.  I ask again.  Still no comprehension.  I think she speaks English.  I'm sure of it.  I ask a third time.  She goes and asks someone else to help me.  He appears to have trouble comprehending her.  She asks him a second time and he comes up...and lets me know it's 11:52 AM.  I decide I had better head over to Denver Healt's Outpatient Clinic.  I cross the busy boulevard which is an artery in and out of downtown, and I make my way north the few blocks to the clinic.  I roll along past disappearing Victorian homes and brand spanking new-looking condo units.  It's a busy weekday at lunchtime and I'm dodging traffic and pedestrians and dogs among the old streets of this outer ring south of downtown. The residents are a familiar and curious collection of characters who would, in some other neighborhood, appear mismatched.   An oncoming twentysomething woman cruises past me on her own bike.  Her straight hair is long and loose, and she rides with her hands off the handlebars.  Very laid back.  She lifts her left forearm and gestures with an index finger that she's making a turn.  I do a convoluted dance through a construction zone, ending up momentarily stopped on the sidewalk.  A guy with long salt and pepper hair slowly walks past me, in a winter jacket and pajama pants.  Outpatient sheik.  I hear the speaker on his phone.  He's on hold with a business or institution.

     I arrive at the clinic and head up to the 7th floor.  The dental receptionists are all at lunch.  There is a bank of empty chairs behind glass.  I mosey down the hall, to the Primary Care receptionist, and ask where the dental department is.  She's not sure and concurs that they must all be at lunch.  My adventure from deathburger to clinic took just 23 minutes.  I ask if there is a cafeteria.  '2nd floor.'  In the cafeteria are a handful of customers.  Mostly medical types.  A lone homeless guy sits alone at a table.  He's tall and lanky, and gives off a rural vibe.  He also gets on his phone.  "I've been down here all morning," he informs someone.  Is he waiting for a ride?  After particular treatments or medical procedures, the hospital won't let you leave unless someone comes to pick you up.  He has a 'service dog' which suddenly begins barking at someone in the cafeteria.  "Steve, be quiet.  Steve!"  Yes, there's a dog named Steve. Back upstairs on the dental floor, there is now a line of patients awaiting appointments behind a sign.  In front of me is a little guy in overalls with reflective stripes.  He looks around at the elevators, out from which employees are returning to work.  He turns to me and says, "Everyone coming back from lunch?  If this was the emergency room, they would be returning to patients who would be dead."  Looking at his head, there is one of the largest swellings on his jaw I've ever seen.  I meet with a member of the oral surgery team.  He laughs at my joke about the previous specialist I saw here, the root canal guy.  When this other guy suggested I do nothing about my infected tooth, I wondered if he was really a janitor disguised as a specialist.  The oral surgeon concurs with my regular dentist that, both my tooth with two previous root canals, and the wisdom tooth next to it should be removed.  He describes a simple procedure.  I have options for what to replace the tooth with, and I can replace it with nothing and decide later if I want another option down the road.  Not a bad deal at all.  Their office is booked up until the end of next March.  On the way to another visit with the sister, holed up waiting for joint surgery, I grab some yogurt at the yogurt place.  After my visit, I'm not worried about going home toward sundown, as I have my trusty lights.  On the way out of downtown, I decide it's time to put them on the bike.  And...I find I left them at home.  I hope I don't get ticketed, unlikely as it is, for riding without lights.  If I can just get back to my side of town, where no one gives a shit...

     Thursday is homeless day out.  I'm just down my street on the way to work.  Before I turn the first corner, a little homeless Toyota truck goes past.  It would not surprise me if it was from the 1980s.  On the bottom left side, the metal is peeling off from the body.  The body itself appears crumpled and decayed.  It looks just like tiny Toyota trucks I've seen in videos, crossing the deserts of Iraq and Syria, driven by ISIS.  The small bed is full of scrap metal.  The driver should perhaps put his truck in its own bed.  Soon I've entered the trail.  On one side is a golf course where I enter.  Across the other end of it is the highway, on the other side of which is the annual Christmas tree lot.  Its long string of lights along its length are prominent all the way to the trail after sundown.  On the other side of the trail this morning, parked off the road across the river, are a pair of much later model and bigger pickup trucks.  A black one is parked with its hood up, nose to nose with a white one, which has a flatbed trailer full of its own scrap metal.  The drivers are both outside of their vehicles and conversing.  Then I am rolling along the long stretch of trail with trees along the riverbank.  I get up to the growing homeless camp, at a damaged end of a guardrail along the road.  I remember when I saw the very first guy setting up this camp.  I first passed him yanking on the end of the guardrail, which was sticking up in the air.  Then more recently, a mattress showed up, standing on one of its long ends.  The was something spray painted on the side I approach on the way to work.  All I could read was, "This is..."  The rest was blocked by whatever junk was being used as a base to prop it up.  I have no clue why the guardrail was being yanked on, or why a mattress is being used as a billboard.  Two days ago, the junk at the facing side of the base had been cleared away, and what appears is, "This is liberal culture!"  I attempt to take a shot of it from across the street as a cyclist with no helmet approaches, along an adjacent trail across the road.  He takes an edge of one of the tents and shakes it, hoping to alert someone inside that he is there.  He gets no response as he stands outside, before crossing the road to this trail.  He accelerates ahead of me as I'm leaving.  When I tun a corner, I spot him way up ahead.  He disappears in the same place from where he came, into parts unknown.  Then I turn my head and notice the remaining of a former pair of pop-up trailers.  On the door is a printed sign, inside the window.  It reads, "No stupid people allowed."  The following evening, this pop-up trailer will also be gone from here.

     This week, my Facebook news feed (now under the command of computer software advertising) has included two separate short local news clips.  The stories are about homeless RV camps in other parts of the metro area.  The mobile dwellings appear just the same as all the others.  Friday evening I'm on my way home from work, after another day when I stayed an hour after we close.  I woke up this morning to light snow.  Most of it appears to have melted by evening.  Out on the trail, I am approaching the guardrail homeless camp.  On the street next to the trail, a scooter runs along toward the camp.  It's pulling a small makeshift trailer.  As I mention above, the camp has one less pop-up trailer.  After I exit the trail, I'm across the tracks and turn the corner onto the street with the line of campers next to a field.  A pickup truck, with body damage and covered in black spray paint, heads up this street past me.  I've seen it parked on this curb before.  As I turn onto a steep hill, I watch it turn at the end of another corner.  Its bed is loaded with junk.  I decide to get dinner at a Churches Chicken on my boulevard on the way home.  As I'm waiting for my order, a guy comes in to say one of his wheels went over the curb, and he's blocking the drive through.  He asks for help getting out.  It would happen to be the one and only vehicle on this boulevard which isn't a pickup truck with its suspension jacked up to the sky.  The entire place empties of its employees to come out and watch, including all the front-end staff, shift manager, and even the cook.  Also this week, I noticed the big park across from the waterpark up on the hill.  It's called Bellview Park, presumably because it's off of Bellview Avenue.  One day on the way to work, I watched Parks and Rec guys doing something out it the park.  I couldn't tell what.  One evening on the way home, they had strung some trees with lights around the trunks and up into the branches.  In the evenings, the park has become some kind of winter wonderland.  Some kids roam through the park after dark to see it.  Mostly, parents bring their brood to ride the train which I've only ever seen run during the summertime, along a track which runs the length of the long park.  This month, the train begins runs all day, and after sundown its strung with its own lights.

     Sunday.  The plan for today is simple enough.  And it ends up going the traditional direction of best laid plans.  Throw into the mix that the plan is for some Christmas shopping and no one would really expect that a plan would possibly become simpler.  Last night I got home from the gym after work, dead tired.  I elect instead to grocery shop this morning, after which I head off for lunch with the sister.  Grocery shopping required a coat warmer than my usual winter jacket.  As I'm closing in on the sister's current digs, it's closing in on noon and I'm comfortable in a hoodie.  The high will end up being 63 degrees F.  The sister usually has odd tasks for me around her dwelling, as my body currently has working joints.  She wants a photo of us in front of a pair of dolls of Mr. and Mrs. Claus, on a table in a TV lounge.  Sitting in a couple of chairs in front of the TV are a pair of recovery center residents.  The female in her chair is doubled over and apparently drowsy.  After lunch, I'm headed back crosstown again, toward a downtown bookstore.  It's an independent legend in the city.  My annual obsession is a spiritual wall calendar.  After I arrive, but before I lock up the bike, I notice that the place appears to be closed.  When I look in a window,  I can see that it's been completely vacated.  I won't discover until this evening that this particular location has moved.  As for now, I suspect the company may have gone out of business.  Change of plans.  I head to the next closest bookstore I can remember.  It's a chain store on the pedestrian mall, on a multi-level collection of stores.  When I get there, I find a lot of stores in this group are shut down.  I inquire at another shop here, and am told that no bookstore remains here.  I stop into some kind of boutique.  I ask a sixteen-year-old if the second location for the independent bookstore is still open.  She has internet access, but has never heard of this fifty-year institution.  Such is the way of all things.  She confirms that it is.  before I leave, I spot a big gold Christmas tree-shaped installation on the ground floor.  I decide to sit and take a selfie right next to it.  I like what the sunlight is doing, reflecting on it from an office building window across the mall.  A middle school boy, long hair which may be bleached, comes along and offers me some candy from a bag.  I tell him not to be embarrassed that he thinks I'm homeless.  He continues to offer it to me.  I tell him I'm on a diet before he reluctantly continues on his way.  I arrive at the second location shortly.  The men's room now has a keypad.  In no time I have my spiritual calendar.  I head a bit west and then turn straight south, to grab a bite of yogurt.  Then, I' head for a deathburger for my final shopping.  I want to get my girlfriend a gift card to a place she likes.  She doesn't frequent many places.  I arrive there, only to discover that they are out of gift cards.  I then make the journey straight west, back to my own boulevard.  This other location does indeed have gift cards.  Hmm.  Two gifts, one man, and a bicycle.

     Monday evening arrives after a long day.  I was called into work to open for my coworker.  I stayed an hour after we closed.  The end of this year has seen a desire for more service industry service.  Other businesses closed down, and their customers are discovering us, either by chance or word of mouth.  At least a few things never change.  I'm on the trail home, and it's closing in on 8 PM when I arrive along the guardrail homeless camp.  The following morning, it will appear to have begun shrinking.  But this evening, in the dark, there are a pair of pickup trucks parked nose to nose at the far end.  I watch as a scooter comes down the road and stops where the trucks are.  I'm back here the next morning, going the other way toward work.  I'm past the camp, across the road from a power plant and building equipment and supply yards.  On my side are the long line of trees between the trail and the riverbank.  I watch as a young guy comes briskly across the road, from one construction supply yard and over to the trail.  He has a blue plastic hardhat on.  He's in a camouflaged hoodie and has his pants slung low, exposing his underwear.  His underwear exactly matches the color and tone, as well as the camouflaged pattern of his hoodie.  Just when I think I've seen everything.  At first he's walking the way I'm going, facing oncoming bike and pedestrian traffic down the opposite lane of the trail.  He must move into the trees when an oncoming bike approaches.  It's some eight hours later when I am again just about at this same spot.  It's after work and I haven't yet reached the guardrail camp.  In the distance I can see someone on the trail.  As I watch, it appears to be another cyclist.  Even from this distance, I recognize the makeshift homeless bike trailer.  Along this stretch of trail, streetlights illuminate it to some degree.  When I get up behind him, I see his "trailer" is some kind of wheeled collapsible shopping cart.  The connecting arm, which otherwise belongs between a child-carrier and the back end of a bicycle, connects cart and bike.  In the cart/trailer are some items at the bottom and tree branches in between, presumably for a campfire.  The very next morning, I am again on my way to work, back at this same spot.  The same homeless cyclist, in his long winter coat and face like the grim reaper and shopping cart trailer, passes me headed the direction of the camp.

     ...5,530 people in the metro-area...were experiencing homelessness...  But Denver has been moving in the right direction by implementing...the Safe Outdoor Spaces and opening hotels...  - Life on Capitol Hill,  - 12/2021

     [Denver's] Department of Housing Stability (HOST) just enacted a Five-Year Strategic Plan to tackle the issues of homelessness and housing in the city.  [Created in] April 2019 [, it was given] a full departmental budget.  ...many service providers...believe the city's current trajectory is positive.  It just took too long to get to this point...  "Contemporary homelessness really exploded in this country in the early 1980s...when federal housing programs were decimated." In 2004, Mayor Hickenlooper's administration convened the Commission to End Homelessness...  The administration really "embraced the word 'homelessness' as something people could connect with," Hickenlooper recalls.  In 2005...Hickenlooper...created Denver's Road Home...  "I wasn't ever going to completely solve it."  Or as Hickenlooper puts it now, the plan was "aspirational."   "The...financial resources weren't there to the degree they are today."  ...the number of 'chronically homeless' in the city has dropped...  ...Mayor...Hancock's....executive director of Denver's Road Home.  ...and members of the Commission on Homelessness began to disagree on how the money should be spent.  ...in mid-2012 Hancock started pushing an unauthorized camping ordinance.  "...as a way of essentially forcing people into shelter and service."  With the passage of the camping ban, Denver Homeless Out Loud emerged as a major force.  [This organization] is unique in the landscape of municipal politics.  "To me, it's always seemed...surprising why Denver and why this mayor have not been more supportive.  ...in June 2014, Hancock announced that the administration would establish a Social Impact Bond...to provide supportive, permanent housing for hundreds of chronically homeless...  ...it was a "remarkable success"...  "That kind of dispels the false narrative around homelessness being a choice."  In 2017...Hancock disbanded the commission that had been advising the city on homelessness [, instead creating] the new Office of Housing and Opportunity for People Everywhere.  [Within HOPE,] "there wasn't in any way a clear chain of command to push an agenda forward.  HOPE was just a political office designed to send a message, that was it.  This was intended to be window dressing.  ...Denver's Road Home and HOPE were essentially folded into [HOST.  And more money for homelessness came from] emergency COVID federal relief money.  "I think the conversation shifted in 2020 - specifically some neighborhoods and busniesses..."  ...those...struggling with mental health...and substance-abuse...may be helped by...the Support Team Assisted Response...staffed by a paramedic and a mental health clinician...  - Westword, 12/16-22/2021

     ...Golden mobile home...park's owners rebuffed the residents twice in their attempt to buy [it,] they ended up selling to...a California-based corporation...that billed itself as "family oriented" [and] operates 33 parks across the West.  ...mom-and-pop...mobile home parks...owners...by and large kept rents affordable as red-hot real estate markets sent rents soaring in metro Denver and cities across the country.  ...Corporations come in, raise rents immediately and often, while instituting rules and regulations...  The company...said in a June interview with Authority Magazine that "(w)e pride ourselves on maintaining and expanding the affordable housing stock under our control.  Seeing people experience homeownership for the first time..."  - The Denver Post, 12/17/2021

     He liked to say that the best time to be in a war is right at the beginning, when you can do whatever you want, before people get their shit together and start making rules.  "It's just no fun anymore," he said.  - I Lost My Love In Baghdad, M. Hastings, 2008

     I checked my bag - one Yippie film, ten copies of "Fuck the System"; Mao's little red book; recipes for Molotov cocktails, electric Koolaid and digger stew; a children's game manufactured in Albania called "Kick the Yankees in the Balls"; five hundred YIPPIE! buttons and ten million dollars worth of pot...  - Hoffman

Fast Food Follies

     Shortly after passing the grim cyclist, I decide I'm hungry.  I stop into a deathburger off the trail.  I'm eating and looking out the window at a middle-aged guy slowly walking toward the front door.  He's some kind of contract delivery driver.  He has a cap on his head with an image of an eagle's head on the front.  On the left side of the brim, in case there is someone who doesn't recognize the national bird, it reads "eagle."  Some nine hours later, I'm home from work, and across the street at the Chinese takeout place.  There is an elderly woman inside.  She's not in line.  She's standing next to her walker, which has a container of Chinese food on the seat.  She's eating out of the container as she greets incoming customers and orders other food from where she's standing.  She doesn't have a mask on.  I order, wait for my order, and others get in the line.  The elderly woman moves to the other side of the line and continues to eat and ramble on about building mobile homes.  The young woman behind the counter lifts herself up to look over the counter.  She tells the elderly woman she has to be on her way, who then replies, "Shut up."  She heads toward another exit, continues to eat, and says to the rest of us, "They're supposed to be busy, but they're watchin' everybody."  I will be back in here a couple of evenings from this one.  The employee, whom she told to shut up, will tell me that she's around here almost all the time.  The following day, I get t work.  Sometime later, I notice that my front tire is flat.  I know where I am going after work.  I take the bus to the train, to downtown and over the bridge across the tracks.  To the sporting goods supercenter.  They don't have a tube with sealant, but they do have a thorn resistant one in my bike's size.  It's on in ten minutes.  I will be riding home.  This morning, off the trail and around a corner, I'm rolling behind and then along old money dwellings straight out of Better Homes and Gardens.  This evening, on the way to the supercenter, I'm walking my bike past downtown condominiums.  I take a trail home from here and exit on my own side of town.  And I'm pedaling past weathered bungalows which look like candidates for demolition.  Many guises, many names.  Many median income levels.  I exit the trail where I do in order to shorten the distance between the supercenter and my old deathburger on the way home. I get there an hour before my bedtime...and an hour after the lobby closes.  I wonder if this policy is more safe for the employees?  I'm forced to get another $20 dinner from a restaurant behind my place.  I'm lucky it's good food.

     On Saturday, I stayed an hour after close.  This is a first for a Saturday.  This didn't give me time to get to the gym.  So, the plan is to do so Sunday.  I'm on the corner of a street out of my extended neighborhood and a busy avenue.  Directly across the avenue, shortly before sunrise, is an individual smack in the middle of the crosswalk.  He or she is standing next to what looks like nothing less than an adult sized version of a children's toy from the 1970s.  It was called the Green Machine, and was a kind of chopper style tricycle.  This chopper trike is right on the center line dividing both lanes, facing my way.  Whoever it is simply stands there, tinkering with it.  Down the avenue and across the highway, and I'm at the station.  At the end of one platform are a trio of homeless guys.  The bow-legged one I recognize.  He and another, who has his coat unzipped on this frosty morning, are both throwing pieces of bread to seagulls.  The gulls are riding drafts over the tracks.  The first two have smaller backpacks.  The third has a full camping pack, with a couple of sleeping bags on the back.  He's looking at his phone, and when the other pair run out of bread, he wanders over to a woman on a bench.  She has no coat, just a plaid wool shirt.  I hear him tell her that he has three phones, or three sim cards, which he ordered.  He gives her a story.  His ex is trying to destroy his business, which he has transferred into the name of a friend.  Hmm.  A business owner with a camping pack and sleeping bags out of the train platform.  He claims to be a single dad with more than one son at home.  ...and he's left the boys at home, spending the morning hiking the train platform   He also has an errant daughter, who doesn't respect him, and stays out for three days at a time.  I wonder if she has her own camping pack?  I hit the gym, and with time still on my transfer, I take the train back north.  Soon, I'm crosstown for another lunch with the sister.  On the way back home, I take a route past a lot which used to have a big homeless encampment.  It was six months to a year ago.  Or was it longer?  It's between two streets which act as a on and an off ramp for an interstate highway.  I pause to take a photo of another remarkable random piece of homeless refuse.  It's a patent leather shoe resting atop a discarded bicycle tire.  As I'm taking out my camera, I hear, "Who's that?"  I turn to see a homeless guy, who then disappears behind a previously unnoticed little makeshift camp trailer.  It's here on the lot.  I'm next to a "no trespassing" sign.  I consider taking a shot of the trailer and the sign together, but decide against it.

     Monday.  The curb next to the open field is once again full of campers and a huge trailer.  And a boat.  And, down at the camp at the guardrail, I see the first camper.  It will be gone by the evening.  Just down from the guardrail camp is a guy with a big backpack.  He's walking along the bike trail with a broom, and he's playing with individual pieces of trash.  Mondays we are open an hour later than the rest of the week.  And I end up staying an hour and a half after close.  That's around the time we stayed open before the pandemic.  It's somewhere between 8 and 9 PM when I'm coming around the first golf course I pass on the way home.  The moon is out and providing light along the trail.  I come up behind a homeless cyclist.  They reflect no light but remain completely dark, in what appears to be a long black down coat.  And they ride the line separating the two lanes of the trail, cruising along at a greatly reduced speed coming off a downhill stretch.  This week with Christmas at the very end is a bit chaotic.  My hours are bouncing around.  Wednesday.  I work open to close.  The guy who showed up this year where I work, the guy who works on customer shoes, he's been raving about his electric bike.  He doesn't need his one which is not electric anymore.  He offers it to me for just $100.  I grab it.  It's not bad at all.  But the rear tube has issues.  I take it home on the bus.  Along the way, a couple of homeless are shouting at each other on the train.  One pulls out a stun gun to show the other.  The following day I get a lot done before work.  I make it to thew bank to deposit my Christmas bonus check, and order more checks.  On the way home I pass a pedestrian on the bike trail.  He's a homeless guy walking toward the guardrail camp.  The previous evening, I passed a couple walking from the camp the other direction.  Tonight, this guy turns to look at me with a ghostly expression.  After I get home from work, I head over to the Chinese place for dinner.  I ask about the woman with the walker.  I'm told that she's been in there with her three grade school kids running around.  Grandkids?  And she's been witnessed being dropped off outside.  She can walk fine without a walker.

     Friday is Christmas Eve.  I went to bed early last night, because this morning I'm scheduled to open the store and work until only 1 PM.  I'm out of the door at 4:30 AM.  It's a dark and quiet ride with temps in the 40s F.  I don't recall how long ago the half block of campers, next to the open field just before the bike trail, was swept of all dwellings.  Not only is the curb full again, but another camper is again just around the corner.  I'm pushing it to get to breakfast before I must begin my shift.  At the guardrail camp, I hear a female cough inside a tent.  The mattress with "This is liberal culture!" spray-painted on it is now on the ground.  Through a final underpass and I break out of the trees along the riverbank.  Past another golf course and a junkyard is a storage yard for the traffic management department.  Stacked together is an entire line of signs which spell words with lights bulbs.  One of them is operating, spelling out words warning of road construction ahead.  I make it to the breakfast place with some 45 minutes to eat, before I must get to work.  The same hostess was here yesterday, late in the morning, when I tried to get a bite before my afternoon shift.  They were full up then and it was no go.  I order a side of strawberries with my meal, and I'm told they haven't yet had their delivery.  Ah, I did not know that.  I check the hours on my gym today.  I won't make it in time to work out, even though I'm leaving at 1 PM.  I elect to ride home and take my newly purchased bike to the sporting goods supercenter.  All I need is a back rack for it, and I have some kind of dividends.  I'm a member with this place, which is some kind of cooperative.  I call and speak to whoever answers the phone, who tells me service will take four days.  I ride home and arrive in a light rain.  If I won't be riding home, I change out of my riding gear and take the bike on the bus, and then on the train.  When I get there, I'm told that not only will the dividends turn a $70 purchase into $18, but that a new rack can be put on in 20 minutes.  Shit, on Christmas Eve?  Zero complaints here.  The tech even moves the rear reflector, which would otherwise be covered by the rack, to the end of the rack.  I also ask him to decipher one of the shifters for me.  I can't figure out how the high gears work.  Turns out, it a kind of manual slide lever.  Sort of a "grind 'em 'till you find 'em" design.  Shifting by sixth sense.  I like it.  He tells me to stroll the place until he's done.  I ask where I can get some food and am directed to a street with some civilization on it.  I grab a salad from a pizza place, again open on Christmas Eve, and take it back to the supercenter.  When I return, he's done.  I head back to the train, which arrives shortly thereafter and returns me to a bus home.  I haven't heard from my girlfriend.  I ride over to her place and one of her sons invites me in.  I spend an hour with her and her family.  She will be with them tomorrow, and she suggests we make plans for the day after New Year's.  Tomorrow, I will spend with the sister.  What a day.

     Christmas Day.  It doesn't feel like a long ride across town, to the sister's temporary digs.  When the lab results of her shoulder biopsy come back, if they are negative for infection, she will be outta there and back home.  The place she has been staying is a half a block from one of the streets which make up an intersection, which is the center of downtown.  It's lined with small businesses which are boarded up.  One claim to fame of this avenue is having been profiled in a long-ago issue of Playboy Magazine.  Before the economic burdens of the past decade, this street was one of those abuzz with both danger and adventure.  If the commerce has dried up, so too does it feel as though the crime has left for greener blocks upon which to get its hustle on.  Like the pedestrian mall not far away, the wind which blows along its sidewalks has replaced the life which used to throw down and bust out here.  It's not unlike my ride this late Christmas morning, out of my neighborhood.  I take my old route to work, when I was going downtown.  As I approach the bike path along this particular stretch of trail, with its own line of homeless campers, I spot a homeless cyclist.  It's another temperate day.  He's in jeans, a T-shirt, no helmet and a gold chain.  His bike is hitched to a bike trailer.  A few yards away, on the other side of an underpass, a couple of homeless guys sit on a low concrete wall along the path.  I'm up the exit ramp and across a pair of bridges, first across the river and the last over the interstate.  Then up the sidewalk along a one-way thoroughfare, and around a corner with an empty lot.  When I come back home, along the other side of this street, I will pass into a homeless couple coming up the sidewalk.  The guy is carrying what appears to be a take-out box.  And he looks familiar.  He greets me with something I've heard him say to me before.  "Hey, Bub."  The lot has the small trailer out of which a homeless guy came, last time I was here, who ask me "Who's dat?"  A tent has now joined the trailer, only partially erect.  Across the following thoroughfare, one way in the opposite direction, and then across the light rail tracks.  I used to turn toward downtown here, but I stay on this street all the way to another main bicycle artery north.  Another couple of turns take me to a park where many folks are enjoying the day with their dogs.  I watch four adults all is red and white Christmas caps.  Along the drive through the park, I pass a stone monument.  On its steps and benches are a handful of homeless.  I arrive at the center where the sister has been staying.  A group of four women, also in red and white hats, are exiting a minivan.  Some comes out of the building with a dolly.  One of the women decides that they are at the wrong place.  I have a delicious Christmas meal with the sister and she has some gifts for me.  Then it's home again.  I won't be doing any grocery shopping this evening, as the supermarket is closed.  The Vietnamese place behind where I live, which was open yesterday, is again open for business.  So it's there I will be having Christmas dinner.  It's a hipster holiday kind of thing.  Or if your culture doesn't drink eggnog.  The place is usually full of obvious university types.  Christmas evening, it's more families and local residents.

     Monday.  I'm back on my corner after work.  I'm on the sidewalk as a trio of middle school kids come out of an alley and across the street.  One is in a little hoodie, with his hood pulled over his head and tied.  These are chilly evenings this week.  The one with the covered head says to me, "You look all funny bro."  They come up onto the sidewalk as I move into the bike lane out on the street to go around them.  I look at the kid who spoke.  He says to me, "We'll take your bike real quick, real quick."  Instead, they mosey on their way and the bike goes inside the home.  I come out to check the mail and see the HOA President.  We talk about one of the residents, and I mention that I don't see so many cars parked in front of the townhome complex anymore.  He says that, this is because a resident who moved out was stealing cars, parking them there, and selling the parts.  What an evening.  On the following morning's ride to work, I come upon a spot on the trail directly across from the homeless guardrail camp.  The first thing I notice is one police cruiser with its lights on at one end of the camp.  The camp itself is surrounded by a new chain link fence.  There a couple more police cruisers, one blocking the trail across from the camp.  Beyond it are some of the homeless from the camp, and some of their stuff.  Five-0 is sweeping the camp.  A young woman in a red coat observes at the other end of the camp.  She's from social services?  And it isn't only this camp.  Every camper I used to see, between here and the next big avenue north, is gone.  Some nine hours later, I am coming back after work past this very spot.  The campsite behind the fence is thoroughly empty.  Some of the stuff which was there is now along the trail.  A group of five or so homeless stand around in discussion.  A small SUV is parked along the trail before it drives away.

     On Wednesday's Facebook news feed, I see a post from my neighborhood's association page.  To the west of my neighborhood, there is nothing unusual about hearing gunshots.  Some residents heard what they thought sounded as if it was a machine gun going off.  One resident posted in the same sentence, mentioning "2nd Amendment (to the US Constitution) rights" alongside "young kids" and those with "mental health" problems.  I'm on the way to work out on the trail.  Before I get to the now unoccupied guardrail, I'm looking across the river, where all remaining campers used to be.  I spot a tiny camper and a little trailer there along the side of the road.  They will be gone when I look for them the following evening.  Down along the trail, across from the guardrail, there are a couple of small piles of trash and a stroller with bicycle wheels inside.  A garbage truck is at one end of the former camp.  Next to the trail is a police cruiser.  Someone is speaking with an officer.  "...medical examiner came out.  Couldn't even do an exam," I hear the guy say.  At work, I stay three hours past close, I'm so busy. On the way home, I come back past this spot.  I notice that the fence around the former camp also covers the trailhead for a trail which goes west of here.  The entire fence will be gone the following morning.  Which is Thursday.  Just before I get to the trail to work, I turn down the block with the campers next to the open field.  There is now a second boat in one of the spaces on this block.  This one is spray painted psychedelic colors.  On the bow is spray painted "SMILE."  The first boat now has bicycles inside.  At work on this evening, I stay two hours past close.  On Friday, I am given the entire shift, which ends early.  But I'm opening.  The GM offers to give me a ride, but to call him and remind him this morning.  When I do, he now asks me to ride to the plant and meet him there.  Which I may just be able to do and still make it to work on time.  But I have to change back into my riding stuff, which I packed in preparation to get a ride.  I manage to do so in jig time.  And I'm out of the door.  Down streets and around corners.  I'm pedaling past the psychedelic SMILE boat and the bicycle boat.  On the trail in the dark and just around a bend before I exit, turn a corner, and climb a bridge over the interstate.  A few more streets and I'm there.  Bike and gear in a van, and we're off.  And I'm at work with 12 minutes to spare.  That's how this small team gets it done.  I leave work as flurries appear.  The second snow of the season, and the first real snow has been forecast, on the last day of the year.  Three inches predicted.  No one answered at the gym, and the website was no help letting me know if they are open this afternoon.  I swing past to discover that they closed two and a half hours ago.  I grab a train north and bike to a short order place to see if they are open.  No luck.  I put on a pair of small safety glasses because the snow is coming at my eyes.  I bike the rest of the way home among the flakes.  The Chinese place looks open shortly before 5 PM.  I put the bike inside and come back out to grab a quick dinner there.  They just shut down.  I decide against grocery shopping during a snow squall and instead run into the Vietnamese grocery to get a pound of salmon.  I take it home and step out again to eat at my last resort, the Vietnamese restaurant behind my place.  Open, they are.  The flakes are coming down now.  But some won ton soup and shrimp rolls satisfy.

     This year is ending well for me. I just can't help but wonder.  Has the weather finally decided that it shall produce no more fifty-degree days until the spring?  Can I finally put away my shorts?  The following morning will be eight degrees F.  And will the age of the homeless camper become the dawn...of the homeless boat?  More questoins than answers at this year's end.  The bow implores us all to smile...

November 2021, The Man In Black - Hoodie And Backpack, 'You Need Your Own TV Show." "Shut Up," A Homeless Camper Asks Who I Am, and "Leave The Area Or Give Us Your Code Number"

      the calm atmosphere and minimalist decor...  ...soothing, energizing, and nourishing services.  ...a cafe', fitness center, spa, family therapy offices, and retail shops...where families can meet a handful of wellbeing needs under one roof.  ...PRENATAL OR POSTPARTUM CARE  ...more than 40 healthcare providers...  ...a lactation specialist...or connect with a doula...  ENJOY A MEAL.  ...seasonal soup, salmon ginger salad, or berry beauty smoothie.  ...family coaching and education.  ...a low-stress, encouraging environment.  ...family communication, collaboration, and movement...  - Colorado Parent 2021

     ...a sanctuary for inclusivity.  ...different types of modalities...  ...a safe, brave space...  ...we're using...cannabis...to partner with the body.  Students have to bring their own cannabis...  We also have naked yoga...  ...aerial yoga...we have fifteen silks for that class.  [One dispensary would] bring their Love products [chocolates and tablets infused with cannabis and [an] aphrodisiac]...  - Westword, 10/28-11/3/2021

     The store can be called HEAVEN.  HEAVEN is where you get whatever you want.  Paint stars on the ceiling, suspend fluffy clouds from the walls.  Construct planets in the aisles.  There should always be a supply of sandals, robes, wings and harps for those who wish to play clerk.  Use Mylar on the walls.  ...look into your souls and smile.  Cover the front with phosphorescent paint  When people ask how the store is run, tell them "by the rays of the sun."  In a FREE STORE there are no problems, there are only things to do.  It is a free forum of theater in which the forces of art battle the forces of garbage.  - Hoffman

The Homeless, Hearing Then Have Sex and Scaring the Shit Out of Them

     Monday is the 1st.  I'm coming home from work in the dark, swinging past a small parking lot off the trail, on the way to a connecting trail.  I spot the seat to a two-wheeled vehicle on the cement.  Ahead on the trail is parked a motorcycle, which isn't supposed to be on the pedestrian and bike trail.  The rider is walking from the bike toward the seat.  Upon the following evening, I am again on the way home in the dark.  Tonight, I'm at the far end of a bridge, across from a playground by the river.  From the other end of the bridge I see a light slowly approach.  It's moving at the speed of a pedestrian, but is much brighter than a bicycle headlamp.  The light goes off, and another motorcycle emerges, again which is not supposed to be on the trail.  Both motorcycles are in close proximity to popular homeless spots I'm familiar with.  On Thursday, I am back on the connecting trail to work.  I'm coming past a bank of weeds next to some woods.  I hear what may be someone having sex.  When I turn the direction of the sound, I see two or three homeless tents.  Later on, after work, I'm coming down the long street a block from my own.  I stayed late again at work and it's well after dark.  Someone in a hoodie is perhaps applying tape to a seam, along the side of a Starcraft-style pop-up trailer tent.  My headlamp is off as there is no oncoming traffic.  I pass her in the dark when I hear her drop something.  She appears to notice me all of the sudden.  I hear a female voice say, "Oh, you scared the shit out of me."  Some thirteen hours and twenty minutes later, I'm coming right back through here, headed the opposite direction.  The woman is standing in the very same spot, now in daylight.  She appears to be adjusting a tarp across the roof of the tent..  I think the screens in the tent all have their covers unzipped, which I presume are on the inside, exposing the interior to the outside air.  Overnight was in the 30s F.  The woman speaks to someone who I presume is inside, explaining she is "trying to figure this out."  She quickly loses patience with a disembodied male voice on the other side of the screen, conveying that she will punch him in the face.  The voice returns the threat.

The Man in Black, Hoodie and a Backpack

     I put in another hour and a half after close at work.  It's twilight when I come out.  I'm half a block from there, at the exit of the following parking lot, waiting to enter a turn lane on the boulevard.  A guy dressed in black, hoodie and backpack, is quickly asking me questions.  Do I need any accessories [for my bike]?  Do I want to trade for them?  (?)  I don't remember the last person I saw where I work, with trouble in the membrane.  A good hour later, I'm approaching the bridge where I saw a motorcycle shut off it's headlight before it came across.  I'm on a patch of trail which is hidden in the dark from any streetlights.  As near as I can tell, someone homeless has some kind of stroller turned upside down with the wheels off, working on it in the opposite lane of the trail.  On Saturday, it's not long after I get to work.  I'm going back inside after throwing out some trash.  I hear a loquacious guy exiting the business next door, a barber shop.  I turn to glance at him.  It's the man in black, hoodie and a backpack.  He tells the female employee inside, "...it's cold out here."  He strolls down along the shops.  A short while later, I stick my head inside the barber shop and tell her I saw him the other day.  She says he asked to use her phone.  Our shopping center has it's very own homeless guy.

     During the last week of October, the last vestige of Racine's [a favorite eatery of my late mom and my sister in the 1990s] disappeared.  ...the preferred spot for a big celebration, a quick power meeting, an intimate dinner, a lonely drink.  The wrecking crew had already knocked down the half-block...had moved onto the former dry cleaners...then taken on the big parking garage that had recently served as unauthorized housing.  ...a long series of goodbyes over the past twenty months.  There's a lot of debris left to sweep up in this town, as we all come out of hibernation....  ...The Market...  For decades, the Market was...where everyone knew your name.  ...the Market immediately became the place...to meet in lower downtown...between just-awakening downtown and the embryonic Auraria campus.  ...a spot...created just for you, and your friends...gathering there just before work, writing their novels, debating the latest movies, taking a break between classes, talking shop.  "The Market was at the core of the essence of Larimer Square...of Decades of Downtown Denver.  It's not just about the space...  ...El  Chapultepec...  ...went on to become one of Denver's legendary jazz venues...  ...drunken Rockies fans disrupting shows and Denver's explosive growth...reasons for closing the venue.  - Westword, 11/4-10/2021

     I have just visited the future.  One cannot really talk of revolution without without visiting "Man and his World" (formerly Expo '67) in Montreal.  ...to walk the mahogany boardwalks, ride...flashing escalators.  All Day-glow, purples, pinks, and greens.  Twisting copper cobwebs, stretches of steel pillars, flowing concrete wings, and plastic tunnels.  Cubes, triangles, bubbles, spaghetti nets, circles of light, fountains of energy; these are the shapes of things to come.  One cannot tell the church from the fun house.  "Is this the roller coaster or the subway, sir?"  - Hoffman

"You Need Your Own TV Show."  "Shut Up."

     Sunday.  Visit the sister in a convalescence facility for lunch, and then see a movie.  It's a long day, and I'm tired at the end of it.  Even though I slept well the past couple of days.  The sister was originally told she needed a knee replacement.  Recently, the doctor told her, 'Whoops, you need both knees, and by the way both shoulders replaced.'  But she has an infection in at the shoulders, which requires a month-long stay in this place.  So, on another day when am out in bike shorts, I'm down my street.  Being the fine day it is, the Caucasians are al occupying the tennis courts in the park.  Courts which were empty for the fourteen years I've lived here, before the Caucasians began migrating out of downtown.  Reverse Reconquista.  Perverse Reconquista?  I end up on a crosstown trail out of downtown,  It's a popular biking and running trail.  One grey-haired guy is fucking stopped and standing on it at one point.  I'm riding past a bank of tall weeds across the river.  I hear a voice going on and on.  It ends with, '...and I told you once already, don't fuckin' talk to me anymore!'  It's a voice straight from a TV show.  I say, "Man, you should have your own TV show dude."  There's a pause before the voice replies, "Shut up!"  The following day, I'm out on the trail along the way to work.  I'm just about to break out of the bank of trees when I happen upon a grey-haired and bearded rider on his bike, motionless on the trail.  He's head to toe in black skin-tight Lycra, with silver zippers.  He's mesmerized by a racoon directly across from him on the trail.  As I pass him, he says, "Look at that distemper."  I assume he's talking about the raccoon.  This could be a guy who actually wants his own TV show.  Wednesday I get up and go online.  There's a news story about the many police vehicles I saw a handful of blocks down my street when I came home last night.  They were directly in front of a middle school.  A police officer was shot responding to an armed home invasion.

     Wednesday.  I'm om the trail to work, rolling past the homeless camp at the bent guardrail.  A pickup stops and honks before continuing up the thoroughfare.  When the truck is gone, I can see a small car has turned onto the bike trail headed to the west of here.  Coming home, I'm right back here, now in the dark.  A bicycle is parked at the camp, it's red taillamp blinking.  A small truck with a cab, no rear bumper, and one of it's white taillights out makes a U-turn and pulls out onto the road.  There is junk on the roof of the cab.  The following morning, I'm on the connecting trail to work.  I'm rolling past the homeless tents off in the weeds, where I heard homeless doin' the nasty.  This morning, I hear a child crying.  After work, I'm coming back past the homeless camp where pickup trucks stop and honk and homeless trucks frequent.  The truck I saw leaving from here last night is parked at the camp, which appears to be it's residence.  There's also a bicycle parked with it's taillamp still blinking red.  I stop across from there, on the bike trail, to write this down.  I hear a homeless guy across the busy street.  He's saying to me,  "Who is that?  Who is that?"  It's a curious interaction.  As someone stopped across from the camp, being addressed by someone from a subculture who by nature attempts to remain aloof if not hidden, what are the norms?  I'm attempting to discern his norms as I wonder if he remembers those of the society which he left.  Or which left him.  A different homeless guy crosses the street to the trail.  As a cyclist whizzes past under the streetlight, the other guy is breaking twigs off the trees along the trail.  I opt instead for the moonlight, and I'm on my way.  Only later do I wonder if the campers have something stashed in the trees directly across from their camp.

     Thursday.  On the way to work, along the block of campers next to the pen field.  There is now a couple of smaller campers, and a huge RV trailer here.  Just around the corner, and I'm out on the bike trail.  Down and just over the bridge after the playground by the river, immediately there's a young guy just getting going.  He's on the trail, on a bike, and with his right hand is pulling a rolling suitcase.  He's going at a pace which isn't bad, considering he's pulling a suitcase.  But I'm trailing behind him.  Until he stops and I sneak around him.  During the last four days of the week, I leave work at just about twilight these days.  And that's if I leave on time.  A good hour later, and I'm rolling past the homeless camp with its own car.  This evening, as I'm passing it, another pickup truck out on the road behind me honks as it passes the camp.  It could be honking at a couple of homeless cyclists in the opposite lane.  One is pushing his bike in the street, and the other appears as if he's riding close to the center line.  neither have any lights.  On Sunday, I decide to finally exchange back racks on my two older bicycles.  The oldest one has a shock absorber mid-frame, which actually connects both halves of the frame.  This bike has a standard back rack, with each end connected to a different half of the frame.  The rack is not designed to move with the frame, and I'm tired of losing screws connecting the rack to the frame.  The rack comes off easily enough.  I have one satchel into which it awkwardly but securely fits.  I expect to take it to the bike shop in the sporting goods supercenter, before lunch with the sister.  When I get to the shop, I'm shortly and sweetly informed that they "don't really" deal with "used" parts.  And, anyway, they are so backed up today with work that it won't be done today, much less anytime soon.  This in spite of the fact I'm there when they open.  After lunch with the sister, I track down a hardware store, to pick up a couple of screws.  Right across the street, I discover a bike shop.  Which is open.  And they have no trouble installing this bike rack on my bike.

     ...reverse-engineering what makes the urban experience exciting.  ...forty bucks for a bowl of faux-ethnic cuisine over the ruins of a mom-and-pop haunt?  Denver really oughta decide if it's gonna be a facade or a home.  Her people give her so much.  When are they gonna get a little something in return?  - Westword, 11/11-17/2021

     I tried to close down this bad news commune...run by Spade Charlie, a real amphetamine, V.D., clap headquarters.  I stormed in the door screaming "Clean the place up."  I gave some girl huddled in the corner two dollars and told her to go home.  Spade Charlie, 250 pounds of blubber, dropped his amphetamine snort and picked up a bread knife in a rage.  "Who said that?"  - Hoffman

     Wednesday.  I have an appointment with my dentist, the resident dentist at the clinic a few blocks from my home, where I've been going since the unexpected fortunes of my healthcare since the pandemic.  She's Vietnamese, as are so many of the medical personnel in this surrounding Vietnamese neighborhood.  She's young, in her twenties?  And I can't get over how good she is.  I had seen a root canal specialist perhaps last month, about an infected root canal.  He told me not to worry about it.  She, on the other hand, doesn't recommend I go through life with an infected tooth.  And she wants me to get one wisdom removed.  She shows me the bone loss on the x-ray.  In a few sentences, she snaps everything into focus for me, and I leave there having already decided I will get these teeth removed.  My wisdoms I've been back and forth on with a previous dentist and specialist.  I think it's funny how my decision about this being the right time has nothing to do with visits to previous dentists.  And previous costs paid.  And previous insurance during previous times.  In the waiting room, children's programming is always on the TV in the morning.  Today, a show with a theme of managing your emotions.  Whatever I'm supposed to feel about these healthcare decisions, I don't believe is up to me.  This morning's visit is actually for a filling, which I have far less these days than crowns and root canals.  And consultations with specialists and cleanings.  She and her assistant are laughing at me.  The dentist asks if my tongue feels numb from the medicine.  I reply that it did but doesn't now, because it was probably the topical gel preceding the needle, which lasts far less as long.  They think it's funny I know the difference due to my extensive history of dental work.  I laugh at them, that all they have to do is look in my mouth, and they can see the extent of my experience as a patient.

     I get out with plenty of time to get to work.  I stay at work more than an hour after close, cleaning up work.  It's twilight when we close and dark now.  I'm rolling through the old money neighborhood, just blocks from work.  Having turned onto a sleepy street, I shut off my headlamp with no traffic around.  No one but a single pedestrian with a tiny flashlight, an old guy walking his dog.  He shines his light on be and says out loud, "No, light."  I reply, "That's right."  He should see how many homeless cyclists I pass with no helmets, much less lights.  Minutes later, I'm out on the trail.  Construction is going on at one bend, and I'm suddenly staring floodlights in the face.  Here's all the light anyone would need.

     ...a cultural nationalist...would embrace a concept of hip capitalism...  Political revolution leads people into support for other revolutions rather than having them get involved in making their own.  Cultural revolution requires people to change the way they live...in the revolution...  The cultural view creates outlaws, politics breeds organizers.  Morality rests in God's imagination and if we see ourselves as gods [sic] I guess we alone make those choices.  Moral decisions never rest in our tools...  - Hoffman

     Society as a whole has moved away from [face-to-face] interactions...into...online orders and pick-up windows.  The haves and have-nots do not socialize in the same places anymore.  Iconic greasy spoons...are gone, soon to be redeveloped into something...glass-clad...  Stumble in [to one such remaining place] and you'll hear [one infamous] jovial jack-of-al-trades who's worked there since February of 1972 - whose "Plates are hot!  Have a nice time," catchphrase is an institution all its own. [The bartender] has been there since 2003...just as her mom...was before her.  ...all these Zoomer-led transformations along this famously stubborn stretch of Colfax?  - Westword, 11/18-24/2021

     Saturday.  I'm out of the door before sunrise.  I elect not to turn on my headlamp or taillamp.  The sun will be up soon enough.  The overnight dipped below the 30s F, and my knit gloves are not warm enough.  I will take my ski mittens tomorrow.  The dawn is on the horizon as I come downhill, toward the street both next to an open field and with a smattering of homeless campers.  behind me, I hear a racing vehicle.  A Cadillac SUV comes shooting past me with few feet to spare.  He homes to a halt behind another vehicle ahead, making a left.  The other vehicle hesitates before the SUV moves around and past it...on the left.  Then it's around the corner, past the campers, and around the next corner, accelerating uphill back from the direction it came.  The street with the campers has a newly arrived trailer, behind a falling apart pickup spray-painted black.  After work, there shall be no workout for me.  I'm headed to my appointment for a flu shot, at the pharmacy where I grocery shop.  I ask where to get my Covid booster.  They offer it there.  The only side effect from my flu shot is that, by bedtime, I'm dead tired.  Just as I pull the covers up, the neighbor next to my townhome cranks up his vehicle's sound system.  I get up and go outside to see what the occasion is.  He and a resident, or friend, or whoever lives in the tiny bungalow with its front yard full of trucks and vans are inside the passenger door of one vehicle.  One guy tell the other he's been "trying to get more power."  From the sound system?  The music knocks off a half hour later and I get some sleep.  The postponement of my workout makes the following day a long one.  I'm again out of the door before the sun rises, and I ride down to my rec center.  I'm not usually here on Sundays anymore.  I listen to one guy preparing to play handball, as he speaks to another player.  He and his wife originally were in the market for a finished condominium, but "the experience wasn't fun."  So they are having one built.  $500,000.  Was it just a month or two ago that I saw a homeless couple in here, with their dogs?

     I ride north from the gym, along a route I've never taken, but takes me past well-worn paths where I've been before.  It's a quiet and a lazy morning.  I get to the bike shop where I was a week ago.  They straighten my crooked back rack.  From there, it's another lunch with the sister at the convalescence center.  Someone sent her an acrylic painting kit.  She gives it to me.  I fit it into a bag I have with other cycling gear, for when the temperature warms up later today.  Then I am off to the camera place across town, to order my Christmas photo cards.  With pictures of myself, and my lady.  A wonderful employee assists me with the software, and I'm done in no time.  They will be ready tomorrow.  I'll get 'em next Sunday, after Thanksgiving, during which I hope to see my lady.  On the way back, I stop at the mall which I used to live up the street from.  I need a new bag with which to haul my stuff back and forth to work during winter.  I'm hungry and the place with no line is where I stop and get a $12.00 salad.  I sit next to a couple of well-dressed ladies conversing in Spanish.  This mall at one time was Denver's number one tourist attraction, and there appear to be races here from all over the world.  Then there are the weirdo Caucasians who dress up in some kind of fashion costume, to come to this mall.  One guy is in some kind of nineteenth century miner's hat with a brim, and jeans with leather patches on the knees.  Somehow, I end up walking the length of the ground floor and back again along the second one, visiting a handful of stores.  The last one was recommended by the others, and has a bag for $450.  All the while I am hauling this acrylic painting kit.  I end up purchasing the first one I looked at, for $24.  The clerk offers me a 20% discount if I sign up for a store credit card.  Okay.  I'm asked various personal info, including my annual net income.  I put down the figures from 1991.  The computer instructs the clerk to call a phone number.  Her store phone has no cord connecting it to anything.  We go to a phone at a customer service desk.  She reaches someone who asks me if I have a mobile phone.  I always deny this.  This is all the voice on the phone wants to know.  My card is not authorized at this time.  We return to the first desk, where we left the bag.  A woman shows up and attempts to ask the clerk a question before she finishes my sale.  The clerk gives me a 10% discount for my trouble.  Hey, I got more time than money.  She lets me know that I will either get my card or a letter explaining why the card won't be coming, both in my mailbox.  I don't need a department store credit card.  I won't be shopping for any $450 bags.  Although my trek through the mall reminded me that I need to get my lady something for Christmas.

     I get home some ten and a half hours after I left, again in the dark.  I decide to grab dinner from the Chinese place across the street.  Here on this single property are a handful of vortexes, of decidedly non-metaphysical activity.  In the parking lot is a fire truck from the firehouse directly across the street, lights flashing.  Cross-legged on the cement, next to an entrance, is a guy with his eyes closed as he vapes.  He's flying a sign which reads "blessed."  There's a relatively long line this evening. I'm behind a couple of twentysomething women with a child.  One lady is smoking.  The other is using profanity and showing Tik Tock videos to the other on her phone.  The kid is telling stories about himself jumping into the washing machine.  Next to the other entrance is the drunk of the week.  This evening, he's holding the door open for customers.  When I make it to the front of the line, he holds the door open and tells me to go inside.  There are already six people inside, and the door has a sign which reads "4 customers maximum."  He continues to hold the door open, and then tells a woman and her kids behind me to go inside.  I ask him if he works there.  He claims he sweeps up and takes out trash.  I point out the sign.  After three people leave, I go in and get my food.  I mention this guy and his claim to being an employee here.  His claim is refuted by one of the staff.  When I come out again, he's gone.  The following morning, I'm out on the trail to work.  Out at the old homeless camp at the damaged end of the guardrail, the homeless car is preparing to make a run somewhere.  A guy on an electric bike waits to cross the road and enter the bike trail.  He may not be homeless but just passing through from a connecting trail.  He comes over to the trail and whizzes past me with his electric motor.  Coming along the trail toward me is a little homeless guy.  He's holding the handlebars of a bicycle with his right hand.  The bike rolls along a narrow gravel strip next to the trees.  With his left hand, he pulls a small cart.  In the cart are what appear as if they could be brand new items from a TJ Maxx.  The base of a lamp, plates, bowls...   Perhaps a half hour later and I'm off the bike trail and up a steep hill.  Around a corner and down a street to a horse trail.  Toward the end, I come upon a group of perhaps seven grey-haired women.  They have three or four tiny dogs on a leash.  The horse trail runs behind some expensive ranch homes.  The ladies appear to be looking at a pair of vans in a driveway.  Both vans have "Home Security Center" on the side.  Mondays we are open an hour later than the other five days, and I'm at work until a half hour after we close.  I need to use up the rest of the transit system ride coupons I have, before they expire at the end of next month.  I have just enough time to catch a bus.  A couple of stops past mine, a homeless guy gets on.  He's immediately recognizable with his backpacking pack and the sleeping bag bungeed to it.  he also has a shopping bag.  He gets on saying, "Shit, shit," as he's digging out his fare.  He sits down and asks me if I have any phones for sale.  He claims he goes through a phone every week, whatever this means.  He has a shirt which is too large and asks me if I want it.  When I decline, he apologizes "for being nice."  I heard this before from those with trouble in the membrane.

     Tuesday at work.  A decidedly non-homeless spectacle scoots past the front windows.  Dad is on an electric scooter with one of his young sons.  Another son follows upon his own scooter.  The daughter appears to be the eldest.  She's on rollerblades.  The high today is about 67 degrees F.  Thanksgiving is Thursday.  On Wednesday, I get everything done in the morning, or rather have not as much to do, and am able to get out of the door and off to work early.  Last Sunday, I was gone for ten and a half hours, and I got plenty done.  But one thing I didn't do was swing by a Whole Foods and grab more of my favorite soap.  And, as with all my favorite grocery items, I have to go to different supermarkets to find all of them.  I decide to make the journey to the nearest Whole Foods this morning, before work.  It's not a long ride.  I'm approaching from the back of the store when I see a security guard.  He stands on the grass next to the sidewalk.  He appears to be guarding a tent behind a taped off corner of the parking lot.  In the tent are two clerks and a cash register, and a long line of customers.  Just inside the entrance is a police officer.  Lately, I haven't been at this Whole Foods, where I don't recall ever seeing security.  I've been at the one downtown, where I assumed the officer there was to police the homeless inside the store.  I ask the checker what's up with security 'round these parts.  She replies that it's nothing out of the ordinary.  I ask what the line is outside the tent.  It's for holiday orders.  I decide to use my last unstamped transit system ride coupon for the year and jump on a train to a bus to work.  I get there early and head over to the pharmacy in the shopping center for some dental floss.  This is the same pharmacy which has kept me stocked up with sunscreen this past summer.  AS an afterthought I ask them if they have my brand of Covid booster shot.  When I got my flu shot last Saturday, where I grocery shop, I asked the pharmacist if they had my Covid booster.  She said they did and I should go back online to make an appointment for that one.  When I did, I found no appointments were available.  This morning, I am told this pharmacy does indeed have my brand of Covid booster.  I have an appointment fifteen minutes after work.  After work, I head over there.  It's a half hour after work when I'm called back.  They want me to wait another ten minutes to observe potential side effects, but if I go now, I may just catch a bus home.  I do go, and I just miss it as I watch it go past.  Instead, I take a quiet ride home in some light and wet snow which is falling.  I don't know if this is a side effect, but I'm hungry.  I also haven' eaten dinner yet.  I know the Chinese place is closed until perhaps Sunday for the holiday.  I don't want to detour for any deathburger places on the way home.  It's uncertain if any are open.  I'm coming along a final stretch of trail.  The snow has let up.  In the distance across a golf course, I see a line of uneven lights.  I believe they run along a Christmas tree lot across the highway.  Right next to a homeless trailer which has been there for a year.  I exit the trail and head up a street straight to my boulevard.  I check out a chicken place.  Closed.  I roll past a pho place.  They have a ten dollar minimum on credit card purchases.  Is this why they say capitalism is on it's last legs.  I run in and out to grab the latest issue of a weekly metro newspaper. Then I happen upon a new Cajun place.  They hook me up with dinner.  Which I finally get to eat after listening to my neighbor complain about not being informed about our new HOA plan.

     My townhome neighbor on one side is the HOA president.  He is Vietnamese and his name is Tam, but everyone pronounces it as "Tom."  The guy directly across from me is the secretary, John.  A neighbor between myself and John, in the complex, is Cheryl.  I've seen her off and on coming and going since I moved in here and we would chat outside once in a while.  Her ex-boyfriend was living with her when I showed up 14 years ago, and he was the property "manager."  Rumor had it that he was pocketing the HOA fees.  This is why it's interesting that Cheryl rings my bell soon after I get home.  I ask her in from the cold.  She's been sending her HOA fee checks to the previous property management company, and has had the previous two returned.  She wanted to ask me if the HOA has a new management company.  I tell her that Tam rang my bell, perhaps last month, and gave me the new address for the checks which I then write down for her.  We're low tech around here.  Or maybe we're just old.  I explain to Cheryl what Tam and John both told me.  I ran into John not long ago as well.  It was decided we would use a kind of self-management program which includes a phone app.  She claims that this is the first she is hearing of this, and wants to know if there is also a phone number as well as an address.   It sounds as if she doesn't understand that we don't have a new separate company managing us, but a means by which we are managing ourselves.  Cheryl expresses her concern that she is unable to determine what is going on with her HOA fees and how the money is being used.  She tells me that she didn't even know Tam's name in all the time they lived here before me, and that John "doesn't care for" her.  Something to do with a dog which her visiting daughter brought with her.  I remember that dog.  It would bark when I was trying to go to sleep.  I remember Cheryl's daughter, who would silently sit out on the porch and smoke, and throw her cigarette butts into my garden plot, and disappear whenever I came outside.  The first time I ever heard her voice was when she spoke to Cheryl's granddaughter.  And I remember the cast of characters who would emerge from her garage, none of whom ever were the same people.  It becomes clear to me that she does not know what's going on because neither Tam nor John are communicating with her, perhaps because they came to the conclusion that she is trouble.  She mentions another resident she spoke to, someone else who's name she doesn't know, who also was living here before I arrived.  Mandy.  I tell her that Mandy used to be on the HOA board when a previous townhome resident, another female, was president.  I tell Mandy that I later found out the other residents signed a petition to have her removed as president.  Cheryl tells me she never knew this either.  She takes the address I give her and tells me she may attempt to hire an attorney, to find out where the HOA fee money is going.  Caveat Emptor.  Surely Rome wasn't managed in a day.  She leaves me her phone number and asks me if I can find out if our "new place" has a phone number from Tam, and let her know.  I say "sure."  Nice guy that I am.  Am I now mediating between residents and management?

     Thanksgiving lunch is a lovely dollop of stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans, gravy, and a few pieces of turkey.  And a slice of pumpkin pie with whipped cream.  I don't recall the last time I had that.  I have it with the sister at the convalescence place.  She may be out at the end of next month.  I ride home unable to find any hardware stores open, for my continued quest to find a way to adapt my last remaining back rack to the only bike I have without one.  I give up and ride home, stopping into a deathburger along the way.  A skinny young guy emerges in front of the register to tell me that they "close in 5 minutes."  I'm just in time for a snack.  which takes me through the parking lot of an old building which has been a church, school, and the last thing was a construction office.  It's an age-old lot with cracks in the asphalt.  Suddenly I hear a recorded Caucasian voice which I've never heard before.  It's coming through a powerful speaker somewhere.  "You are trespassing.  You are being recorded.  Leave the area or give us your code number."   I don't have a code number.  I get home just a half hour before the next-door Vietnamese grocery closes early.  I pick up some salmon for dinner as everything on my block is shut down.  The following evening, I'm coming home from work, past the homeless camp at the guardrail with the damaged end.  The homeless vehicle is there with it's hatchback open.  A second car slowly makes its way around the other end of the guardrail and onto the gravel.  It appears just the same as the original vehicle.  Coming out of the gym after work, I decide that I can make it home it the same time it will take me to wait for and then take the train.  I'm passing the same camp some 24 hours later.  Both vehicles are gone, but there is one guy there sitting on a scooter.  Just before I reach the camp, I pass four motorcycles riding up and down this road.  Two of them pulling wheelies.  Like they do.  I reach another bridge and go across.  There's a sizable park and a playground next to the river bank.  Next to the trail is a laundry basket on wheels, as I've seen for the past 30 years at places I've worked.  It's overturned on the grass.  Spilling from the basket is luggage.  The luggage is open, from which are spilling clothes.  Not far from here and I'm at my exit from the trail. It's after I pass under a bridge.  Pushing a stolen shopping cart across the bridge is a guy in an orange knit hat and a black leather motorcycle jacket.  He wants to know if I have a product called Fix A Flat.  I've never heard of it.  I'm over the railroad tracks, down the street with the campers next to an open field, and up a steep hill.  At the end of the street is a guy walking in the street in the dark.  He wants to know if I "want to smoke some weed?"  Around the corner and up the street, and I pass a regular female who regularly pushes her own stolen shopping cart down this street as I'm on the way home.

     Before I leave the trail along the way home in the evening after work.  This week I noticed the odd uneven long string of lights in the distance.  All the way across the golf course here.  Over at that end of the course is the highway, and across the highway is a lot between the road and the light rail line.  Every year around this time, the lot is full of Christmas trees for sale.  This is the first time I've seen these lights in the distance, and I presume they must run along the fence around the lot.  I first spotted this lot a year ago from the train, which runs past it.  And I first spotted the homeless trailers, one of which has remained next to the lot for a year now.  After seeing it from the train last year, I verified where it was from across the highway, and I would find an entrance off an avenue where there is access to the lot.

     On Sunday, I'm on my way for another lunch with the sister, then to pick up my holiday photo cards, and then across the street to Home Depot.  My oldest bicycle needs the back rack, removed from another bike, to be installed.  This one clamps around the seat post, and should work much better with this frame.  But the seat post has a smaller diameter that standard posts.  I need a small strip of rubber to make up the difference.  Or something as close as possible.  Along the way across downtown, I first go north before I go east.  I'm entering the trail across the street from the former church/current construction company parking lot.  Cyclists are both on the trail as well as the street.  The same message is playing randomly as, I assume, some kind of motion detector or sensor picks up movement.  After lunch, I hit my old mall for some yogurt, and then pick up the photo cards.  Across the street at the Depot, I find one lonely roll of rubber in a strip, with adhesive.  And I can tear it with my fingers.  Which is great...as I forgot to bring a scissors.  Outside, I put a couple of strips on my seat post, and just those two allow the rack to clamp.  It's not on tight, but appears to stay in one place, and I believe it will do the trick. Mission accomplished.

     On Monday, I'm coming home from work.  I'm way down from the homeless camp next to the guardrail.  I can see emergency lights just about where the camp is.  As I get close, I see a small car which appears to have gone off the other side of the road.  It's at one end of the camp.  Police have a short few yards of the road blocked off.  I pass one police cruiser, myself on th trail and it on the street.  An occupant briefly shines the spotlight on me.  On Tuesday, I notice on the way to work that the big laundry basket on wheels, 10 bushel or so sized, is gone from the grassy corner on one end of the bridge.  A blanket and a couple of garments are all which remain.  On the way home, I spot the basket.  It's way down the trail.

     See that girl, barefoot (dooeyoumoo)  Whistlin and a singin  She's a carryin on  Laughin in her eyes, dancin n her feet,  She a (neonwhirrmoo)  And she can live on the street  - GRATEFUL DEAD  - Hoffman